proposed for indefinite continuance.

further commissioners. designated child care units planning code amendment is proposed to continuance to november 29th 2018. i have no other items proposed for continuance and i have no speaker cards. >> president hillis: okay, thank you, dennis. any public comment on the items proposed for continuance? seeing none, we will close public comment. commissioner koppel? >> commissioner koppel: motions to move items 2-12 to continue. so moved, that motion passes unanimously 4-0. placing us on your consent

calendar for item 6. and 7. i should read that into the record. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission, public or staff requests which it will be removed and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing. a item 6 and 7 [reading item] 1011 market street, i have no speaker cards. >> president hillis: would anyone like to pull either of these items off the consent calendar? seeing none, commissioner koppel? >> commissioner koppel: move to approve item 6 and 7. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion to approve 6 and 7 under your consent calendar,

[roll call] so moved, that passes unanimously 4-0. putting us at item 8. >> president hillis: any public comment on the draft minutes? seeing none, we will close public comment. commissioner koppel? >> commissioner koppel: move to approve draft minutes for october 11th. >> second. >> thank you, on that motion [roll call] item 9 commission comments and questions. >> i'll ration my comments over the next 6-8 weeks. i've been out for a week and i've been reading quite a bit. the first one it's interesting, there was a study on this name raj cheti. he talks about the impact of

jobs and economic mobility where those jobs are added in the report he did, which i think is a really interesting read. job growth is not sufficient by itself to create upward mobility. it's almost as if racial disparities have been amplified by the job growth. as we look at the plan and other areas we are developing, just adding jobs isn't the panacea that lists all boats. it actually sinks a few more boats than we realize, a at least according to this study. i found this an interesting article by joe angardio. i never met the man but blocks in the sunset and richmond where people can band together and decide to have their single family lots demolished and build three. really interesting article.

at the end of the article, i thought, how can we create 10,000 new homes? we can just build the homes we have already entitled as well. let's put that in our hat. lastly, we hear from discretionary review a lot and hear from people saying light and shade isn't a big deal. in the "new york times", there's a whole article about darkness and shade and how people are not buying apartments that are dark and shady. there's now an app that somebody invented that actually says if i live in this building, almost like a shadow study. it's a really interesting app. i took a look. i don't know how they did it, but it goes to the fact sunlight and air is a big deal and buyers are recognizing that as well. so it's an interesting read. there will be more next week. >> president hillis: thank you. looking forward to it. >> seeing nothing further commissioners. we can move onto department matters. item 10. >> no items.

>> there was no historic preservation meeting yesterday. >> the land use agenda with peskin's ordinance on fire damaged liquor stores. the modifications were technical in nature and clarified the entitlement process. supervisor peskin included those in the final ordinance. at the land use committee hearing they heard testimony from two members of the public both in favor of the ordinance. they recommended as a committee report to the full board. i think i have my wrong report. i apologize for that. how come no one stopped me?

first on the land use agenda supervisor ronen's ordinance that would amend the mission street district controls. you heard this item october 18th and voted unanimously to recommend approval with modifications. the modifications you recommended were to one, allow non retail professional services at the third floor and above within the n.c.t. as long as they have active non-profit status and provide exemption on mergers that result in a merger of 1500 square feet or larger. if submitted to the planning department on or before july 31st this year frmt the supervisor only included the second proposed amendment. the committee heard public testimony that was in support of the proposed ordinance. the multiple speakers all mentioned the ordinance was a result of the city community partnership to address the

gentrification concerns in the mission neighborhood. to accept the modification and move to the full board. next was supervisor kim's modification, you heard october 18th and voted unanimously to approve with mod dpications. -- modification. modify from 10,000 to 25,000 square feet. expand definition of protected streets on the bike network. eliminate minimum parking requirements citywide and some clerical modifications. public comment at the land use committee was overwhelmingly positive. in support of the commission's recommendation. one member of the public spoke out against the legislation. the bulk of the comments

focused on eliminating the parking requirements and how doing so would support the vision zero and transit first policies of the city and potentially reduce the cost of housing. supervisor kim split the file so amendments could be drafted. the duplicated ordinance will come back to the land use committee in the next few weeks. in the file that is moving forward to the board, she included the planning commission's proposed amendments except for increasing 10,000 to 25,000 square feet and that was forwarded to the full board. next on the agenda was supervisor brown's ordinance that would establish specific inclusionary housing ordinance for n.c.t. district.

they voted unanimously to accept the amendments and continue to the november 5th land use committee meeting to allow time for the fee change to be properly noticed. next the committee heard the mayor's ordinance that would modify the date projects are eligible for lower on site or off site inclusionary housing rates when they must obtain a site permit. commissioners you heard this october 11th and voted to recommend approval. at the land use hearing there were approximately 20 speakers, about two thirds in opposition and considered the proposed extension a give away to developers.

they felt the ordinance went against the will of the voters and many referenced the mission project specifically. the speakers in support of the ordinance commented on the impacts of uncertainty of the development process and rising construction costs. during the hearing supervisor peskin and kim proposed a few ideas on how to modify the ordinance those include reducing extension time to 12 months, requiring projects to prove their developments are no longer feasible, provide a process by which the zoning minister could authorize an extension. applying an existing fee on density bonus units to the affected projects which are not currently subject to the fee and exclude the non entitled projects from any extension provided. in the end, the committee did not amend the ordinance but voted to continue the item until next week. last on the land use agenda was a package of ordinances for the central soma plan. these were continued from

october 15th so more mendments could be made. this week there were five public comments calling for affordable housing and neighborhood stabilization policy and supplemental e.i.r. to further evaluate the impacts of t.n.c.'s. during the hearing supervisor kim said she intended to introduce additional amendments and continue the hearing to october 29th. supervisor safai and tang both stated they would like to restore the funding to the old mint to $20 million the figure recommended by the planning commission and additional $5 million from regional capacity enhancement. some proposed amendments language encouraging to include green walls and family friendly design considerations and encouraging projects subject to living roofs requirements to include green walls. a requirement that key site buildings office or hotels use

satisfy their child care fee obligation by building child care facilities on site unless they can demonstrate it's infeasible. three require conditional use for cannabis retail and medical cannabis dispensary uses and four finally lowering the threshold from $4,000 gross square feet to $25,000 which is small cap allocation under prop m. because this last amendment would extend the scope it requires referral back to the planning commission for review. however staff would recommend you waive your opportunity to hear this again given the limited number of projects affected by this change. you of course have full discretion to request a hearing, but if i don't hear we will let the clear know you have opted not to hear this item. and continue the item to october 29th. at the full board, all of the

landmark designations and article 11 designations pass their second read associated with the central soma process. supervisor peskin's ordinance on the north beach liquor stores passed its second read and suite of amendments passed their second and that's all i have for you today. >> president hillis: thank you. are there any reports from -- >> there is, the board of appeals met last night and considered one item that may be of interest to the planning commission. 891 carolina street. the commission heard this item last year as a discretionary review and voted unanimously to approve the permit with modifications. last night the board heard five appeals with concerns about the design of the project and the use of the adjacent property at 897 carolina street to determine the rear yard requirement for the project. the board voted unanimously to deny the appeals and uphold the permit as approved by the commission.

>> all right, thank you, john. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: i have no desire to hear the central soma changes. >> yes. >> seeing nothing further and no other questions commissioners, general public comment. at this time members of the public may address the commission within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items your opportunity will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. each member of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes. i have no speaker cards. >> president hillis: any general public comment? come on up. >> good morning, commission. my name is michael bussler and i'm here to talk about the issue of cannabis dispensaries

in san francisco. in particular, my role in this is i'm a citizen of san francisco and a business owner on haight street. this is regarding the haight ashbury allotment of one dispensary to open up. i've been on the street with my family doing business for the -- store cafe for about 38 years. my entire life pretty much over there and the opportunity came up to open a dispensary and i happen to have a business there with a property. so i signed up and because of a rule of first-come-first-serve with the application an hour away of submitting after the other applicants have submitted we are basically not allowed to bring our case to your commission to be heard. figuring this is the next best thing, or the next thing that happens since prohibition to go to this magnitude, i feel it's important for the commission to hear our case.

i have been on the street my entire life, i know what the city needs. if anyone from the outside is going to come out, at least the commission should not preclude what is best for the street and city. they push through the first applicant to the commission to be heard, so i'm suggesting and asking for us to be heard as well as other candidates in order for your commission to make the best decision who is best for the street. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. any additional general public comment? seeing none, we will close general public comment. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: i think this is the fourth or fifth time we have heard this issue. do we have any ability to say hey we will line up all the candidates for dispensaries in a certain n.c.d. and weigh the

pluses and minuses or only hear the ones that come our way? >> i believe only the ones that receive a license. >> that's a first come first serve. >> president hillis: we are going to have a hearing just on the procedure. >> informational hearing on the procedure. >> president hillis: so at that point it would be a good forum for those who have issues with the procedure to come forward. do we have that calendared yet? >> we do. i would have to look. >> president hillis: we should have a little time between that hearing and when we hear the first one in case there are any changes that come out of that. >>ly have to look it up. i'm sorry, i don't see it.

i'm certain we have already. we can move to the regular calendar. >> very good, item 12 has been continued to november 29th, placing us on items 13 a and b for case numbers 2018-00750map and gpa. zoning map amendment and general amendment and 13 c 2018-000750 for 1 650-1680

mission street general plan amendment. >> good afternoon, aaron star planning staff. the item would rezone 1650 to 1680 from nct or p public to c3g downtown general. two other ordinances included in this packet would amend the general plan to make changes so they are consistent. the purpose of the proposed zoning map amendment is to align the zoning map with the existing. title transferred from the city to a private owner except 1650 mission still owned and occupied by city departments. the department is recommending approval because it will rezone parcels. the nature of the site and the neighborhood and not result in a discontiguous c3 district.

further the proposed zoning aligns with the market street hub project. that concludes my presentation and i'm happy to answer questions. >> president hillis: thank you mr. star. any public comment on this item? ms. esther? >> sue hester, i've been paying attention to these sites since the planning department was on mcallister street. my letter is in the packet. i'm pleading with the department to flag these sites for automatic of applications to the planning department by d.b.i. they are something i'm extremely cynical about and the planning commission should as well. i know when 1660 mission was built.

i had an appeal on the demolition of a residential hotel on the site that was taken off the calendar because the building was demolished over the weekend. i know 1660 has never been occupied by office use city offices not an office use as the planning code defines an office use. if this is an issue about payment of fees, housing, transit, child care fees, the last item continued and area plan fees, i don't mean to be an irritant but i'm really knowledgeable about these sites because i've been paying attention to them for about 30-40 years. so the planning department has to step up and tell d.b.i.

cannot automatically approve tentative they have to go to the planning department and they have to pay attention to what fees might be the responsibility of the owner of the building that will go into them. the building where the planning department is, 1650, not an office use and the planning department has to do a little bit of research. they have the ability to dot research, i don't. hey, pay attention, i don't think people should go into office use where they can make a lot of money charging high rent and not impose fees that allow us to give better transit

in the city muni and housing and child care and any other fees. thank you very much. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. any additional public comment on this item? seeing none, we will close public comment. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: i guess question for the director. i just heard what ms. hester said. these will stay offices, i imagine. >> where we disagree with ms. hester is we believe and through zoning interpretation and long-held practice they are existing office use for the purposes of prop-m, not existing office use for the purposes of fees. so they will have to pay fees should they transfer to office from public. >> okay, thanks. >> president hillis: commissioner koppel?

>> commissioner koppel: motion to approve. >> second. >> president hillis: thank you, commissioners. on that motion to approve zoning map amendment and general plan amendments [roll call] that passes unanimously 5-0. item 14, case 2018-010552p.c.a. prohibiting employee cafeterias within office space planning code amendment. >> good afternoon, diego sanchez with department staff. today i will be presenting an ordinance that proposes to prohibit employee cafeterias as defined in the health code within office space, we will be hearing from the legislative sponsor shortly, they will be arriving any time. i would like to let you know the department does support the intentions of this ordinance creating and maintaining

vibrant neighborhoods with high levels, increasing patronage of restaurants and other retail establishments is also important. however the department believes a set of incentives and new requirements is a preferred method to an outright ban for employee cafeteria, this could still help invigorate and support the retail sector while avoiding an outright ban. as outlined in the staff report such incentives could include allowing office space where it's not currently allowed or allowing additional beyond planning code restrictions. new requirements could include a more robust allocation when proposing a new employee cafeteria or providing meal vouchers when proposing a cafeteria. recommending an amendment to clarify if cafeterias with full

kitchens require full ventilation exhaust system and staff is amenable to modifications, this distinction or amendments to the health code if necessary to help improve implementation. so that concludes my presentation, i would like to provide supervisor safai with time to present to you. >> okay, thank you. welcome, supervisor. >> good afternoon. >> how are you? >> good. thanks for making the time to talk about this today. i know you guys have been waiting with bated breath to talk about this. just kidding. when we introduced this legislation, myself and supervisor peskin, he apologizes for not being here, housing authority is taking place at the same moment, a lot of financial instability, otherwise he would be here along with me.

but we opened this conversation and i think you will appreciate this, i'm trained as a city planner. i think about things in the perspective and look at the way cities function and come together. this is something i have been thinking about for a long time. it was actually brought to my attention in the "new york times" article about 5-6 years ago and written about how the employee cafeterias that were internal and not open to the public, what kind of impact they were having in downtown manhattan on the lower east side and other places where they were located. and how they were impacting surrounding businesses and how they were beginning to change the culture of those businesses. i know you are familiar with james jacobs and eyes on the street and what that means. that's the perspective i approach this conversation with. i know we are talking about real businesses and real people but just take a step back for a

moment. when you think about the shape the mid market was in, the mid market tax break there was a conversation about attracting businesses through incentives. and i think that, again, putting my planner hat and reflecting back, i think from my perspective, it's had a mostly positive impact on the environment. created a phenomenal amount of jobs. some will argue it has had negative impacts on environment pressure on housing market and other impacts but when we are thinking about that particular area, and that particular incentive, if i were to look back i would say we are going to attract thousands of employees to be there. at the same time we want to think about the ground floor retail and how we will activate that retail and how we will get people out on the street, more eyes on the street, more people activating and interacting in

our community and so that's the perspective i approach this with along with my colleague. also thinking about what is the fabric that makes san francisco special. people come from all over the world to appreciate our culinary cuisine. they come from all over the world to appreciate the small businesses that dot the backbone of our economy in san francisco. so much of our industry is about tourism, right? when people think of san francisco, they think about the things, these small mom and pop, these locally-owned businesses, the culinary, the retail. things that make san francisco special. so when we are designing and building cities and thinking about policies that impact our cities, if we are thinking about keeping thousands of employees inside in an internal environment, that, by the way, is an appropriate model maybe

in an isolated business park. -- office park. when bringing from silicon valley to the city you have to adjust that model. i think, at least from my perspective, there wasn't a tremendous amount of thought that went into that so that's what we tried to infuse with this legislation. i know we are taking a hard line saying we want to ban them all together. i appreciate the report, and we have gotten a lot of feedback. this has gotten not just local attention but national attention and it started a national conversation. because these types of cafeterias are all over the united states and what kind of impact they are having on the local economy, positive and negative. yes they are creating stable jobs for those that work in the cafeteria. they are working with people and businesses that source to support those and i'm sure you will hear from some of those folks that source these

cafeterias. but when thinking about the impact, mid market, there's still a lot we need to do to infuse and change particularly the ground floor retail. if you look at some of the buildings these internal cafeterias are located in and you talk to the ground floor retailers whether it's a restaurant or otherwise, part of the reason why they were attracted to come locate there is because they knew there were thousands of employees and you talk to them directly and they will say, they're not being patronized by those businesses, by those employees because it's hard to compete with free. you have heard that a lot, in terms of what's being offered. so i think the positive is yes, there's stable jobs. they are paying above minimum wage and i know the restaurant industry is a very difficult industry, small business in general. but from my perspective as someone who represents a part

of town, a lot of what we know famous small businesses or institutional san francisco businesses, those folks live in my district. and you are creating wealth and stability in something that is special about san francisco. i will just name a few. la victoria bakery. owner lives in my district. casa sanchez. guacamole and salsa. the casa sanchez is in my district. la paloma. all those owners live in my district. so i'm also thinking about what that means and how it impacts stability wealth and also those that are, it's a different thing to work in a restaurant and have a stable job and also to own something. when we have had these conversations we have talked

with places like la cocina. they are interested being part of the conversation and what it would be like to be inside these businesses where they would be able to offer some of their, not employees but their entrepreneurs an opportunity. so one of the things that happened in the meantime, this is not a novel idea, mountainview did this in 2004 as a result of facebook moving into their downtown. they wanted to protect their downtown businesses and ensure their downtown businesses would thrive. so they did this back in 2004. and so the day before we announced our legislation being introduced, actually, it became something that was talked about more in mountainview because it was beginning to actually have an impact there. because businesses were located in the downtown area. it's not a novel idea. i think it's worthy of some

serious debate. i appreciate the report you did. i like some of the ideas. i like the idea and because there's been time since we have introduced it we have gotten a lot of feedback even from employees of these businesses where they have said yes, give us money for a voucher. don't take away something we have as part of our benefits package. give us an opportunity potentially to go patronize businesses in the area or have that as additional income. or just give us the money. some of the businesses where these cafeterias are located actually will say when some of these internal cafeterias shut down once or twice a month, they see a major surge in the amount of people that are patronizing their businesses. i think that's a worthy piece for conversation. i like the idea of opening these to the public if we move forward with these. what is the argument of keeping them isolated and internal. there's a cafeteria in the federal building. we can all go access that

cafeteria, if we want to. that's a strong recommendation if we are to move forward with these. also i want to be clear, there's conversations about unionizing. there's 44 of these that we know of in the city. only one or two have been unionized. so there's a whole room to grow in terms of the conversation about unionizing employees. we support that conversation, but out of 44 of them, only one or two have a unionized workforce. so i think this has also shone some light on that conversation, which i think is healthy for that debate. but yes, the idea of having an internal cafeteria, with a stable good paying job an also an ability free from interference, i think that's a benefit for these cafeterias.

i also think having the conversation where they are located. i talked about mid market where we want to see that retail activated. there's a lot of small business that have chosen to locate there. versus other parts of the city more isolated where they are planning to locate that might not necessarily have the same access to small businesses or retail and then the conversation of catering. i think that's a positive thing. i think businesses that want to access catering, i don't see that as necessarily a work-around, i see it as an opportunity to provide another avenue for people that might want to start and venture out and support their own small businesses. i just want you to understand the perspective that we are

coming from. we started a working group with some of the impacted or potentially impacted businesses. and also those that might benefit from potential changes to the ordinance and legislation that want to be part of the conversation. we think it's a worthy, worthy debate and conversation for san francisco because we are at the center of the types of businesses that house these employee cafeterias and how that impact might have for the rest of the city. one thing that is interesting, looking at what the warriors did, i know a sports arena and a place that has 4,000-5,000 employees is different, it's a smaller scale. but what the warriors did in a very thoughtful way and they have unionized employees they

have gone out and made agreements and opportunities for small businesses to be part of that arena and they did it in a very thoughtful way, so potentially there could be balance and compromise. an example of that would be, we went to one of the companies that doesn't have an employee cafeteria but does have cafes. not just a break, but an actual cafe where you can go order like a limited restaurant. thinking about that as an opportunity to promote small businesses to be part of that wealth created for serving 5,000-6,000 employees, i think that's a worthy part of the conversation. i just wanted to throw that out there. we would certainly enjoy the support and recommendations you put forward. we intend to continue the conversation and working group. we will work with unionized

labor and small businesses that might want to be part of this conversation and we look forward to your recommendations and hear what you have to say. so thank you for your time. if you have any questions, i'm happy to answer. >> president hillis: okay. are you going to stick around, or do you want us to ask questions now? >> if you can ask questions now that would be good. >> president hillis: anybody have questions for supervisor safai? >> my staff is here as well. we appreciate your foresight and thought and thank the planning department for the the recommendations. i thought they were well thought out. thank you. >> president hillis: we will move to public comment, mr. sanchez. >> okay. >> president hillis: i've got a number of speaker cards. if i call your name you are welcome to lineup on the screen side of the road and we can speak in any order. jackie castillo. [reading names]

go ahead, any order is fine. welcome. >> hello, everybody. good afternoon, commissioners, my name is markus mac. i grew up here in san francisco, i no longer live here, i live in hayward because of the housing crisis. i'm a line cook for bon appetit. i've got a bit of the jitters, this is my first time being up here. >> president hillis: you are doing great. >> thank you. i want to express my concerns about the legislation. i grew up here, i have seen the way the city has changed. i do understand that local businesses are affected but i

also remember back when you would be able to get a super burrito for $7 and now it's $13 anywhere. and i also cook for a living. having that type of experience, knowledge and care, and actual thrill that you get from cooking up and preparing good food for people and for me, it's kind of a competitive sport. i don't want to feel like supporting business, that we have to make these adjustments to support local business. i feel if you make good food people will buy it. it's very simple and straight forward. so the people here at airbnb or myself and a few of my other committee members here, we started a local union group. we actually unionized. and i actually took down a

couple notes from, i forget the guy's name. >> president hillis: supervisor safai. >> i took down a couple notes he wrote. probably going to touch on a few of them. but unions was one of them. i worked in the food industry, food service industry for a while. it is really tough. the industry is really tough. and it's hard on its workers. these workers deserve protection. we just got our local up in march, local 2051, with the u.a.w., we are new and proud of it. we got some of the highest paid food service workers in all of california. unionized, locked in. it's not going anywhere. if they want to change anything they have to come to us, the people who work here to make any type of adjustment, changes. [buzzer] as far as housing, i grew up out here. it's hard. it truly is hard.

excuse me, i do get the jitters. knowing that and keeping that in mind, i feel this would be very harmful and detrimental to local san franciscans, people who grew up out here like myself and businesses. we are planning to open [buzzer] a new location in the next couple of months. that's 100 plus jobs that we will be out of. >> president hillis: thank you, mr. mack, your time is up. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is dante ballard, i'm a senior supervisor, vice president and chair of u.a.w.2501. today i come to ask you

reconsider the proposal about the cafeteria ban in san francisco offices. this will discourage the creation of new good paying jobs. earlier this year we entered into an agreement with the u.a.w. as unionized cafeteria workforces, we are now some of the highest paid workers in california. our entry level employees earn an average of $19.50 an hour and managerial staff start at $50 k a year. it would make it hard for employees to gain experience through the company when airbnb opened its second office this year many of us were able to benefit from promotions. we should keep this so they have a chance to advance in their careers. we should encourage, not discourage with good benefits. we have stable hours, we don't work weekends and we get all of

the holidays off paid. none of this happens at a restaurant. personally, i feel this has changed my life. i'm able to provide a worry-free life for my kids based on the income i'm able to sustain from working in a unionized cafeteria. though i do understand restaurantuers side of the story, i don't think our side has come across as well. [ please stand by... ] .

and begin cafeteria office space is not the answer. please consider this proposal. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. next speaker, please. >> commissioners, good afternoon, and thank you for having me. my name is todd ruben. i'm president and owner of the republic of tea. we are a family-owned local bay area company, and i'm here to share my concerns with this legislation that would ban new private office cafeterias in san francisco. this bill threatens the livelihood of hundreds of small businesses and vendors like my company that provide premium teas and herbal teas and

supplies to offices and cafeterias throughout san francisco. at republic of tea, we enrich people's lives through our premium teas, herbs, and education. we were founded in marin county in 1992, and we're mindful in how we impact the greater community. we actively support local philanthropic organizations, like big brothers and big sisters of the bay area, and we were recently ranked as one of the top philanthropic companies in the bay area by "the san francisco business times." i take great pride in being a local, family-owned business that provides customers with our premium teas, but this ban would make it harder for businesses like mine to grow. businesses that buy local should be applauded and supported at a time when big-name competitors are threatening small business, it is imperative that we support local vendors, not make it harder for them to succeed. supporting restaurants in the hospitality industry in san francisco is important, but

there are smarter ways to do it, and it should not be done at the cost of small businesses like mine. please reconsider this proposed legislation, and thank you for your time. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> thank you, commissioners. my name is matt middlebrook. i'm with airbnb. it was my mistake to follow our employees, dante, paulo, who i think did a terrific job and summarized key issues, but just to give additional context, i appreciate supervisor safai's focus on the small businesses on the streets and restaurants. we are concerned about the unintended consequences of this legislation. in part, as you heard some of, we currently employ 135 unionized employees on our kitchen staff, in addition to 21 managers in our current cafeterias, which would not necessarily be impacted by this

current ordinance. however, just for our company alone, we are in the process and already have building permits to build and open a new office that would employ 110 additional unionized kitchen staff, and so those are the jobs that we would be prevented from adding to our company. as was mentioned, these jobs pay $19.50 an hour to start with, well above minimum wage. they have benefits, 401(k), paid holidays, and as they said, you know, these are dependable in terms of hours and unique among food service jobs, they have, you know, weekends off to spend with their families. we believe that, you know, the city should be encouraging the creation of more of these types of jobs, instead of, you know, blocking their creation through these means, because we're really proud of these jobs and these types of jobs and the quality of life they provide for the people who hold these jobs. and they are an invaluable part of our company.

not to mention, as you just heard from one of our small vendors, airbnb alone last year spent $7 million in food from bay area businesses, buying food from bay area businesses. mostly small providers. $2 million of that was spent with businesses located in san francisco proper. and so all of those would be impacted. our expansion allows our ability to help them expand through more purchases. this would prevent that growth and from us further buying from those local venn divorce, and buying from local vendors is a big priority for us. so while we understand the intent, we think this will have negative unintended consequences. just from airbnb's standpoint, in recognizing the importance of small businesses, the past two years we've partnered with the small business organizations. we take our host in san francisco on a merchant walk on almost a monthly basis out to different merchant districts. each and every month focusing on different ones to introduce them

to restaurants and small businesses, so they can in turn refer those to guests, which has resulted in hundreds of hosts getting to know hundreds of small businesses, which has resulted in thousands of recommendations to visitors to san francisco. so we understand and believe in the importance of small businesses. we think this is the wrong approach and will, in fact, hurt employees and small businesses that we support through our purchasing. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hello. thanks for the opportunity to talk. i'm the owner of five mountains organic tea. coincidentally, previous speaker also was a tea company owner, so i'll try to not be redundant and just read from a couple notes here. my wife and i own the company. we're san francisco based. we have three kids under the age of 3, so we understand hard work, dedication. i think the bill is very well

intended. i'm just concerned that it might be misguided for the following reasons. 75% of our annual revenue comes from tea sales to companies in san francisco, where companies with enjoy our tea on site. some examples are airbnb, uber, dropbox, square, thumbtack, u.s.f., i don't want to mention anymore, but those are some of the key ones that are probably the most applicable to this circumstance. i understand the frustrations of dedicated restaurant owners in the supervisor's district, and i get that it's competitive. i do think that it's an overreach and a slippery slope, though, if the city starts getting involved with telling people where they can eat. i'm a big believer in the competitive spirit. in fact, the supervisor said that people in his district own restaurants can't compete with free. while i was at cpnc hospital, my wife was giving birth to our

twin girls a couple months ago, they offered us free meals four days in a row. i had none. i walked two blocks away to get the kind of food, coffee, and tea that you wanted. you can actually compete, and i do think the competitive spirit is the way to ultimately offer the best product and service. the feedback we get from a lot of these employees is that the city still has a ways to go cleaning up the homeless issue, some sanitation issues, it's inconvenient for them to venture out. it's not that they don't like the food, it's just that it's not practical and convenient to actually leave the, you know, their own site, their own breakrooms, refreshment centers, and cafeterias. i'm not saying i have the solution for all of these things, but i don't want to start putting band-aids on a bigger problem. i think suggesting banning a cafeteria in a private company to me seems like kind of an overreach and a little bit too drastic of a measure. i take great pride in being a

local business owner. we provide quality products. i think this ban would make it harder for businesses like mine to grow. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hi, guys. i'm a little nervous. i'm also a san francisco native, so i grew up seeing the different changes that happened in san francisco, but also one of the reasons why i feel concerned about banning our cafeterias is because it also, like he said, gives us stability, but i do also have home issues that i can take charge of. like, for instance, my mom had a stroke a few years ago, so it gives me time to think about her and the kids that are also involved. also, it takes a lot of weight from having to think about what i'm going to buy and figure out what i could do to keep our family together, you know, some of those things also play a part in a lot of people's roles, and

thinking about going to school and finishing a degree, so that i could further my life. so i think that is one of the things that should also be included, that it's not just about keeping the community together, but also thinking about the broader problems that are in other people's lives. so having stability does help a lot. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is jen, i'm the executive director of s.f. city. for those of you that are not aware, we are san francisco's tech advocacy organization here in town. so, there's been a lot of really great points covered today by a number of our members and their workers, and i'd like to kind of cover a little bit more of a larger ecosystem. i, fortunately, as the industry representative, am able to take a look at many different companies and really get a feel

for the impact of this legislation. so we represent tech companies both big and small. many of the companies that are here in the room today. we have been able to gather some data that's, you know, quite significant. there is hundreds of jobs so far that we have identified that would be at risk with this legislation. these are really good jobs, as we've covered already today. some of our employers are paying on average 30% more than the market. we also have really good opportunities through these jobs for people to be upskilling and breaking into the tech industry. many of these different employers have great programs for employees that start in the kitchen to move on up to other departments. i actually just spoke with a company yesterday, where they lost one of their best chefs to become a customer service manager. so there's some really cool opportunities that are happening in these companies, and we really want to be cognizant of just how good these jobs are. and on the other end,