know is the role that we play in the arts nationally. as far as arts infrastructure goes, our organization receives no funding from the city of san francisco for our basic services for artists. our home is in district 2, and so we're happy to be at fort mason center and to be part of a whole web of activities there, but we also serve as a resource for the whole state. we get funding from the city and county of los angeles. that is the city of los angeles, the county of los angeles, city of san diego, the county and city of sacramento, and we get no support for artists here in san francisco. so i hope that this -- this measure will address this, and i urge you to support it. thank you very much. >> hello, supervisors.

my name is vinnie patel. i'm very excited to be here. i'm also a comanager of the vindelson studios. i'm on the board of asian american women artists association. i've been in the arts administration -- i've been in arts administration for over 20 years. i grew up in san francisco in the mission district, and i have to tell you, this is one of the most amazing times that i've ever been in. i don't wake up in the morning, figuring out who do i have to answer, who do i have to fight. this is an initiative where the whole community is behind it, not only community, but also city hall, and to be working with supervisor tang, supervisor peskin, who i never felt would have backed something, allocation from a tax, you know, to the arts, but we're in this moment right now, and it's a celebratory moment.

i brought my son along because he keeps asking me, where are you? and i'm like, this is where i am all the time. i've been fighting for cultural equity in this city for over 20 years, and sometimes trying to explain it to supervisors, sometimes it's -- it maybe feels we're against something else, but what happens in this community, about three years ago, we've been working three years ago together, is we laid cultural equity as the basis of our fight together, and that's what i want to let you know that this is three years in the making, and the first time all of the arts are all together. and if you would have asked me six years ago, would you sit in a room with the opera symphony, i would say no, why would we? but today, i've been in a room with them over three years, and we're talking about the same thing. it's how do we make our city together. that's why i'm really excited with the 2.5 million we're setting aside to be reactionary to the current needs of our

city. thank you very much. >> -- as often, the role of art and community art, and that's why this is very important to have this type of funding, so that our communities can have a space and have resources to tell our stories, to share ideas, to have conversations about the issues that impact

our community. so really about democratizing our resources. second as a cultural district representative, this funding can help the community efforts, the real grassroots efforts that many of our cultural districts have been, you know, coming up with to address in a holistic measures, our employment issues, our health issues, our housing issues, and other issues. so we really support this and hope that you'll do your part in making democracy continue. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is teresita parm, and i work with the only public school in soma. so the -- due to the high --

sorry. due to the high cost of living and the housing, bessie has one of the highest rates of family homelessness, which is about one and four students -- one in four students, and many families are forced to live in multifamily households that are overcrowded. funding the arts and cultural district will help keep our community in place, and we need this so we can implement our community to lead affordable housing strategies. and funding for the arts and cultural districts will help our -- will help us to continue to educate our youth about the cultural and history which is very important for the development and well-being. thank you. >> good day, supervisors. my name's paul herrera.

i'm with the soma filipino cultural district. as mentioned many times in this chamber, the filipino community has faced excessive waves of displacement that continue to impact our people today. still, we're continuing to thrive behind the tireless work of our long-standing community service and arts organizations that sustain our peoples' representation and speak with our peoples' voice. approving funding that would assist our culture district and cultural districts across the city means that the cultural diversity that defines san francisco can continue to blue cross op rather than falling by the wayside as collateral damage resulting from gentrification. promoting the arts and arts community promotes the identity of filipino in san francisco. thank you.

>> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is rachel lasfimos -- lastimosa. it's good to be in here in the people's palace. so i came here to san francisco in 2000 to sharpen my chops and be educated in music. that path in arts has led me to be the arts and cultural administrator with soma filipinas. san francisco is known for its wide range of culture and arts offerings. with the current housing crisis and affordability challenges that san francisco residents are facing, our city is losing the life blood of cultural bears and artists that ensure the diverse vibrancy of our

city. this hotel allocation will put some teeth behind legislation by providing baseline funding for our cultural districts. help us to continue our work by bolstering neighborhood arts, could help protect historical and cultural assets, to fight for affordable housing for our seniors, families, and children so that there is a thriving community for us to be able to develop cultural districts for, and to celebrate our unique vision of self-determination. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is nina parks, and i grew up here in san francisco and went to rooftop elementary school, which is an arts-based high school -- i mean, elementary school and it instilled in me the fundamentals of my education which is very important and

incidentegrable -- integrable to this city. taxes collected by tourism should be reinvested into our arts and our cultural preservers. the current perception of san francisco is that it's becoming a playground for tech and big business, whereas the jobs in san francisco used to be its people, its art, and its food. that perception is diminishing, and many people go to oakland for arts and community as well. as a future cannabis business owner, as well, i believe it's crucial for a community to maintain its heart and spirit through its arts. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisor fewer, supervisor tang, supervisor mandelman, congratulations and welcome to the board of supervisors. my name is steve nakajo.

i'm the executive director of the japantown task force whose job is to maintain and preserve the history in san francisco, our san francisco japantown, one of three in the united states, the other two being in los angeles and san jose. our goal is to have japantown thrive as a cultural economic and vibrant neighborhood which will serve as a heart of the japanese american and japanese speaking communities for generations to come. we support the goal of this proposed ballot initiative to have a dedicated mechanism of funding for culture and arts in the city. since japantown is a designated cultural district and has developed a cultural heritage and sustained economic strategy, there needs to be a funding source to support the strategy. we urge you to support this proposed ballot initiative. i'm a san francisco fire commissioner, 24 years. before that, i was a san francisco art commissioner,

vice president. at the time, in the years, what occurred was we had these concepts called cultural center does, and at the time there were -- centers, and at the time, there were very few. all of them became an initiative within that. the concept was trying to have sustainable funding in our diverse cultural city in terms of the arts and culture. san francisco being the asian american capital of the united states, it's very important that our historical basis started on that. this statement is please do not forget japantown and our 110-year history in this beautiful city. thank you very much. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much, commissioner. are there any members of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is now closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor fewer: commission -- i mean, supervisor tang, i believe you have some amendments. >> supervisor tang: yes. so first of all, thank you to everyone who came out to public comment but also for your

ongoing participation and really fighting for arts funding and cultural district funding, as well, throughout the years. not just recently an association with this initiative ordinance. and yes, when someone else said if supervisor peskin and i are teaming up together to put an initiative ordinance on and dedicate hotel tax funds, i think there's probably something to it. we generally do not support set asides or baselines, but we see this as reinstituting something that existed before and renewing that. so with that said, the amendments i have today really just clarify the spending levels, and so i think all the committee members should have a copy by now. but for example, in the allocation number 2, starting on page 3 for cultural equiti n dowment, it should -- equity endowment, that should

be 37.8 million. for allocation 4, cultural districts, that should be started out at 3 million. allocation number 5, the arts impact endowment should say 2.5 million, and the other ones are more minor, but that was the majority of what we needed to do for this legislation. so at this point, i'd like to ask a colleague on the board to move those amendments for me. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: yes. thank you, supervisor tang, and you know, i was really proud to vote for the legislation established seeing the cultural districts. i'm very pleased that we have found a way to fund them. so at this point, i would like to move the amendments forward and ask the committee that we accept them. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so there's a motion to accept the amendments. can i take that with -- without objection? okay. great. thank you very much. so it is my understanding that

this needs to be continued to the meeting of july 19, seeing the amendments being accepted. so can we make a motion? i'd like to make a motion to continue this item to the meeting of july 19. >> as amended. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. we can do that without objection. thank you very much. madam clerk -- thank you for everyone coming out today. madam clerk, can you please call item number 21. >> clerk: yes. item number 21, item submitted to the voters in an election to be held on november 5, 2018 to add a gross receipt tax category for transportation network company services, private tran set vehicle services and autonomous vehicle passenger services. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. i believe we have sonny angulo from supervisor peskin's

office. >> yes. i am sonny angulo for supervisor peskin, who can't be here today. he's at the california coastal commission. last month, you did adopt some amendments to include the industry of autonomous vehicles which are currently under a pilot phase under the department of motor vehicles. they're doing some research and design, permitting, but eventually, we anticipate that they will be granted permit, where in they will be charging fees for passenger services. so when that happens, this -- this tax category would also capture that. so supervisor peskin, for those of you, particularly supervisor mandelman, welcome, who were not here when we first introduced this back in april. this is the equity for impacts tax. it is a gross receipts tax that supervisor peskin initiated as

a way to really try and fulfill his obligation as the chair of the transportation authority board to identify and secure funding for about $100 million annually, and our local funds for transportation infrastructure and operations. and we have been slowly chipping away at that overwhelming number, and thank you to those members who helped to unanimously pass the transportation sustainability fee. [please stand by]

we have struggled to fund basic services and build out infrastructure to keep pace with growth. i wanted to reiterate once again that this is not a tax on drivers or riders, this is a corporate business tax and not a regulatory business scheme because that is more appropriately the response of our state regulatory system. our offices work closely with the tax office and the tax controller and i have amendments that i would like to offer up fo for consideration today.

first, a removal of the central market payroll tax exclusion. initially this piece was intended to clean up the awkward kind of language within the originalal central market that create this filing mid year and aligned it with the expiration date for the normal filing period, and we thought this was the cleanest way to do it. since then we have heard from a couple of small businesses within the central market tenderloin area they anticipated being able to take advantage of some of these benefits before the expiration, and so i think the cleanest way to do that is to remove it all the way. the second amendment is the

addition of one additional tax tier. right now we model the existing tax tiers and rates for the 12a1 category, and that was also to really ensure it was a modest tax, it's fair, it's equitable, and it's below 1%, so that would create a 1% tax rate for companies that are generating over $50 million in gross receipts in one fiscal year. that was hel help us allow the smaller companies that as they grow they would scale into that top tier but not be burdened with it at this point in time. the third amendment is something that i am really excited about.

it is an amendment that would significantly expand the tax base by providing the city the ability to administer business tax for companies doing more than $500,000 in total gross receipts in a fiscal year without running afoul of our tax freedom act. i have been monitoring an interesting case with the supreme court that recently made a ruling in south dakota versus wayfair and when the june 21 ruling came down, our office was interested in what the implications could be for san francisco and collecting revenue for our city, and given the fact that a lot of these e-commerce internet businesses had such a profound impact on our local small businesses, our brick and mortar, mom and pop businesses

in san francisco, and we got confirmation from the city attorney's office and controller's office that this would allow us to collect tax revenue from the companies that do not have a physical presence inside of san francisco, that are not headquartered here and do not have employees here but are doing this business that has had an impact and creating an unlevel playing field. i will let the tax collector's office and city attorney speak more to that. the final amendment is a technical amendment to adjust our g. a. n. limit that would be able to conform to take into account some of the additional tax revenue that we would be collecting, so with that, i am here for questions and i thought the tax collector's office was also going to be here, but maybe

not. >> colleagues any questions? seeing none let's open this up for public comment. are there any members of the public that would like to speak on this initiative. we will wait for you to come up. you don't have to run, it's okay. >> hello supervisors. i am so excited -- my name is januaryis janice lee. i want to give a little background as we have a couple of newer supervisors here. this question around funding has been going on for a long time i would say starting with mayor lee's transportation task force

a few years back done with now mayor breed and through the transportation task force 2045. there is two parts. there is one around the revenue mechanisms and how we will find the right to fund transportation needs and how do we fund the things that keep transportation moving and accessible in our city. this was one of the recommendations that came out of the report released in january this gross receipted tax measure and we are excited to see this move forward and thank the leadership that made this possible. we are in strong support as a bicycle coalition for seeing this introduced and excited to see this on the ballot and we are grateful for these amendments because it will raise the higher set of revenues.

[bell ringing] after the amendments are introduced at the next budget committee meeting we hope to see this. >> jim lazarus, san francisco chamber of commerce. i urge you to not put this on the bat lol, as many of you know in 2012 we spent six months in a civic coalition of city, labor and business coalitions to develop a ballot measure that converts the city from payroll to gross receipts tax and that process is not completed. the economy and job and salaries are grown far beyond the estimates in the conversion. in 2011 businesses made $410 million of payroll based tax and this year 800 million in

payroll gross tax. this will result in a continuation of approximately a half a percent payroll tax in perpetuity until we go back to the voters, hopefully in november of 2020 and readjusting gross receipts -- we need to do that before we target individual business whether it's cannabis, t. n. c., and we need to work with the mayor's office and tax controller, and get this right so urge you not to move this forward. >> good afternoon supervisors. i am rachel hayden.

i am here today to speak on behalf of my membership as well as my board of directors on gross receipts tax in transportation services. we have consistently supported a mission to create money for transportation and part of the advocacy on props j and k and consistent with those efforts to raise money for transportation task we are supportive of this goal to raise 100 million annually for transportation task. quickly, we do believe that regulation of t. n. c.'s is trucial. i am supportive of the initial proposal as well as the amendments put forth today by supervisor peskin's office and we do believe this is excellent way to raise funding for transportation.

if this measure goes before the voters, we will be back to ensure that the fund are consistent with the proposition -- thank you for your time. >> public comment is now closed. so i would like to make it a motion to accept the amendments and can i take that without objection? thank you. [gavel] i would like to make a motion to continue this item to the meeting of july 19 seeing that we just accepted the amendments. can i take that without object? objection? thank you very much. madame clerk, i think that we are waiting. five minutes? so i would like to recess the meeting for ten minutes, and then we will come back

>> we are back. we would like to have you call item 20. [reading item 20] >> that is a mouthful and i am excited. this is an item i sponsored and i want to continue our conversation around the ever-perplexing cannabis industry. colleagues i want to thank you for hearing this item. this is the last item for

today. before i go further on item 20 i would like to deal with item 11, an open motion. i would like to make a motion to continue this item, item 11 for one week's time, so cassie widener can type this up and put it into the records and woke make it official. >> madame chair, can you please rescind your previous motion. >> i make a motion to rescind whatever motion. >> it was for the committee report. >> okay, so i rescind the motion to rescind to the full board and we will take that without objection and make a new motion,

item 11 to continue it for one week. >> that would be july 11, budget and finance subcommittee agenda. >> now i would like to pick up item 20 again, thank you for hearing this item. gross receipts tax on cannabis related businesses. san francisco is among one of the last major jurisdictions to pass a local tax and our delayed action has given us type to observe and to listen and to learn from the industry around us how other counties and cities are responding, how it has responded to the regulation and how other city and county's taxes have affected the

cannabis-related bismark. business market. california is seeing far less revenue from cannabis than it forecasted, quite frankly because the underground businesses are not coming into compliance. in berkeley they started at 10% and lowered it to 5%. in oakland they proposed a 10% tax and are going to voters to lower that rate as well.

the city the committed to doing the heavy lifting and we need revenue for compassion programs and revenue for educating a population that still fears the effects of cannabis based on years of brainwashing quite frankly and misinformation. these needs from varied and frankly, unpredictable, but they are real. a couple points. first, we as a city must be

committed to patient care, tha. we want to make sure that all product is tested and its safe. that is why testing is also exempt from this tax. i have had several conversations with patients and others and everyone's concern is continued competition from unlicensed providers which are supported by bad actors in the platform space and that is why i delayed implementation until 2020 and set a lower initiation rate the first year. this will give businesses a break while they continue to invest in improvements in our city and meet city requirements and this would also help

businesses to compete with the out of city operators and also our goal to temper the black market. the fourth point is based on the controller study. the controller study has shown that of cannabis retailers in san francisco, almost 50% of them are micro businesses making less than $1 million in revenue. these businesses combined earn only 3% of the total sales, so that is why i am exempting the first $500,000 in sales for all businesses, and i have made a tiered marginal tax rate as well. all businesses will pay no taxes on revenue from 0-$500,000, and will pay a lower rate on revenue between $500,000 and $1 million, and the fifth point, after the

passage of the board's labor harmony agreement for the cannabis industry, i recognized that result sra cultivators and manufacturers offer union job, and that is why i have set a lower gross receipt rate for upstream business. this measure has a few other points. first, it sets initial implementation rate for tax, but give it is board of supervisors the power to revise this measure up or down. it will require a super majority vote and those that come on a regular basis and you know that requires a vote of eight, finally, i have circulated some amendments for your consideration today, and these

amendments reflect conversations, a series of conversations with industry leaders as well as their concerns about competition with the unregulated businesses. the amendments are as follows. first, it sets the top rate above which the board cannot revise at 7% rather than 10%. second, it sets the introductory rate for 2020 at 1% rather than 2%. it revises down the rate for cultivators and manufactures from the top rate of 3% to a top rate of 1.5%. we will now exempt transportation for distribution. now we are doing this, so that there is no additional tax on the simple service provided to small businesses to move cannabis products around the city, and it also allows the

board to reduce the tax rate with a simple majority vote. it prohibits the board from increasing the tax rate by more than 1% per year and the final two points are when you consider before the previous version of the legislation, in this version, there is no increase that can be made without a report by the controller, and i think that's important to note because the controller will anchor the conversation to ensure that this is a conversation that we are using data to help inform our policy group decisions, and so we are able to understand the impact on the industry and the retail gross receipts tax remain at 5% for business over $1 million and at 2.5% for the middle tier. one amendment that i have not included by interested in exploring is an interesting

one. it has the potential to impose this particular tax on those wholesales businesses that are distributing in san francisco but without a physical presence in the city, which a legislative aid in supervisor peskin's office mentioned this earlier when she was referencing the t. n. c. tax. i believe this option may go a long way towards leveling the field for our made in san francisco businesses, but i want to understand that any other implications on the black market or legal viability first, so this amendment is not included but i will be asking questions of the city attorney to inform this discussion as to what it would look like if we were to

borrow the t. n. c. tax structure. i am also circulating a memo from the controller's office about the potential impacts of the tax on the industry. i see ted eigen here and thank you for being here. he can answer any questions. before we hear formal presentations i have one question for the deputy city attorney. i would love for you to talk about the way fair decision issue. please inform us onetime pacts of the way fair decision. thank you. >>. >> sure. the supreme court decided this case about a month ago that involved a south dakota law that

imposed tax on companies that did not have a physical presence in the state but that did a certain amount of sales in the state. i think it was a certain number of contacts or sales and a certain amount of revenue. generally large out of state companies that were selling in south dakota. under existing supreme court case law, they concluded that states could not under the u.s. congresses tax companies that had no physical presence in the state. the wayfair decision overruled those past cases and concluded a state could impose a tax on a company without a physical presence in the state as long as the company meant other requirements including a

substantial nexus in the state and that opens up the possibility under the constitution to tax out of state or out of city companies. >> supervisor cohen: i appreciate that summary. supervisor fewer i see you name. >> supervisor fewer: thank you chair cohen for bringing these forward. one of my concerns with the cannabis taxes is there is a significant importance of this industry that exists on the black math and i think we should bring them into compliance and off the black market -- will help with this goal. i appreciate that this will grant the board of supervisors the flexibility to reassess these rates in 2021 as these industries grow. i understand concerns about

taxation from the industry and i think this has been crafted thoughtfully with these in find i would like to thank supervisor cohen for bringing these forward. >> supervisor cohen: thank you supervisor cohen. thank you so much. i do want to thank -- she is behind me for all the work. with that, i want to open up to public comment and i have a list of cards here. michael dillingham, spean sor parkway, erin flynn, and david goldwin. why don't you come up. >> my name ask michael dillingham and i work with a

number of businesses including green spirit business inc. which is a public company. although i don't know much about them yet, i assume that i would support the amendments that were listed off by chair wh chair cohen. all of the businesses that will stay in business over the next 16 to 18 months will require investment. the 10% figure, the top-end tax potential is the number that was the scariest to me and probably is to anybody. it appears from the text that it can at a moment's notice be imposed, and 10% represents 30%

of our margin at the most optimistic projectionst and as much as 60% at the more conservative projections. the ability to attract and keep investors is something that will be critical for these businesses to stay afloat the next few years. in addition to the amendments already going in the right direction that reducing the top-end potential tax down to somewhere in the five or four percent range is something that for many of my colleagues would be very welcome. thank you to speak. >> spencer pickman, i am a consultant throughout the bay area. i work in manufacturing, cultivation and all the way to retail.

we live in san francisco and already the most expensive and harder to operate. what is happening with the 2% gross receipts taxes, i at an operator at 2 million gross can expect to see half of my profits sent to the city and that means it's not viable to manufacture my business in san francisco, and essentially you are going to drive away small businesses and not collect on the tertiary parts of the industry. it might work for retail, but you are going to push away all the small businesses and that will destroy the diversity and the health of the marketplace and you will have less business owners, so that is my warning.

>> after we hear from the speakers we will hear from paul connoly, and then jim lazarus. jim, we want to work on your penmanship and bruce king. >> we would like to amend your tax proposals with the three following proposals. one, we would like to lower the gross receipts tax rate to be in parity with what other businesses pay. the second we would like to exempt all mad calcannabis licensees, and third we would like to earmark revenues that

are taken in from the gross receipts taxes for equity applicants and a compassion program for fra san francisco. this is will be a tax on med can cannabis patients. >> we are not taxing the medical side. >> the retail will not be taxed by how about the distribution. >> supervisor cohen: forgive me for interrupting, please just read the statement. >> this tax the 50 to 60 time it is rate charge on other business types for an anticipated revenue of only 6 million to $12 million. why should cannabis businesses

have to pay higher rates than other business types. only medical cannabis licensees for exempt from these taxes. this tax will undoubtedly be passed down to retailers and ultimately to medical cannabis patients. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon soup soup aaron flynn with the california growers association. i want to thank you supervisor cohen an for all you have done with the industry over this period of time. we appreciate this ability to have this open dialogue. the amendments that are propos ed are a movement in the right

direction and we appreciate that as well acknowledging the burden that operators are under right now in giving us time to move into this is something that we all want to consider, and we feel like we are getting closer and closer to something that is really palatable for the industry. all of that said, i am excited to hear about the potential that's being talked about. we bounced around the idea of a tariff on product for other places coming into this city and it sounds like what just recently happened -- i am blanking on the name what happened a at the federal level? >> the wayfair,. >> san francisco is a retail hub and a lot of cannabis businesses want to be part of a retail hub

and if there is a way to bring needed revenue in through a tax that is coming in from outside of the city it would give relieve to san francisco operators that we feel we need in order to operate in this expensive economy that is here and give a competitive-based advantage and solving the issue of where revenue is coming from, so i encourage a more in depth look and i can tell you, we will go and look at that as well. my name is up. thank you. >> supervisor cohen: any speakers left that want to speak come on down. >> bruce livingston, executive director of alcohol justice and we support this being put on the ballot, excited by it. there is harms and cost to

government from the cannabis industry in san francisco includes cost of planning and zoning and public safety and rare instances of health care costs. we call it a charge for harm. we supported that in the alcohol mitigation fee proposal that was supported by the board of supervisors and ultimately vetoed by the mayor and then prop 24 that said to do a mitigation fee is a two-thirds vote. this time, big alcohol, big tobacco and the sugary beverage industry -- it was kind of sad that it had to happen, but your own sugary beverage tax was

exempted in the freeze on grocery taxes, and it's now or never in passing a charge for harm tax on marijuana in san francisco. it's time to do it and thank you for putting it on the ballot we hope. >> jim lazarus san francisco chamber of congress. thank you for your wor working on this. we have the broader issue of the payroll tax reform that is not completed targeting any becomes problematic when we go back to the ballot in 2020 -- remember these businesses are startup businesses and businesses less than $1 million gross should not b paying tax.

this industry like all that have $250,000 in payroll will be paying payroll tax. the police departmentses on the bat lot need to reflect the desire to have equity participation and small business growth and to get rid of an underground economy. if we overtax this, and we already are at the state level, so i urge you to take a look at the rate schedule and adjust it and give yourself ability to change it in the future. >> my name is dominic. i would like to congratulation

coi would like to respectfully request that you do not recommend your proposal. i believe that the tax rate is too high, and i believe it's going to encourage consolidation, which is not going to be good for equity. i believe it's going to discourage the middle class job growth that the non-retail side provides to this community. i also believe that every historical movement in terms of commercial cannabis in every state, and as mentioned at local jurisdictions have back peddled on their tax policy groups they initially put forward and that is because the current tax policy group encourage the black market and there is no reason to

move forward with this kind of policy group. i think a fair alternative and compromise would be a flat 1% tax throughout the chain of supply. i think that would help with consolidation issues and promoting the equity program. a mandate like the equity program that's unfunded i could ask myself how are these equity participants going to pay for their license fees and employees without funds for this program, and i would expect this tax increases that burden on the equity program and future participants. i would strongly ask you to not recommend this item. >> johnny delaplane. we all know cannabis is an

industry that craves normalization and we want to be treated like every other industry, and we are facing a tax policy group that will tax us at 6x to 50x. raising final retail prices 20 to 30 percent. higher prices for patients and forcing people back into the unregulated market for their medication. this skills innovation and invites consolidation and will ensure only the largest, most-funded players have a seat at this label. there is sentiment in city hall that we gave away this town to tech and now we have a way to get it right. much in the way the lower taxes

allowed the tech industry to come in and overthrive -- this industry is comprised of san francisco and we are raising kids just like everybody else -- when was san francisco ever a follower? we are leaders. help us set an example by normalizing cannabis. unfair tax burden will lead to the flight of businesses from san francisco taking with it blue collar jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities we are helping to create. >> howdy. jim freeburn. i am a cultivator in the 10th district and we have a temporary

micro business right now and a member of the california growers association, san francisco chapter and i want to thank you supervisor cohen and fewer for coming to our meeting. we appreciate the amendments and working with uses to get our feet on the ground. i have one specific request, and that is to simply take a nurturing approach for us in the industry. i hope to build a thriving business in the next few years, but i hope to just simply survive this year and next year and probably the year after that. we have a lot of expenses in front of us. our business is getting into a c. u. process right now. we have a long catalog of new fees we will be paying and right now the whole market is uncertain and the supply chain

is shaking itself out and it will take years for the retail to get built where our products will land, but in the meantime we need to survive and then there is downward pressure on prices. i have lived here all that time and my daughter is going to san francisco state and we have lived a comfortable life, but we and my partner have not gotten rich here and we don't own a home. we are example of typical business. >> typical cannabis business. >> i would say a typical business. if you help us get on our feet we can build industry