>> i am going to get started here. hello, and welcome to the tuesday, march 5th, 2019 commission meeting at the san francisco entertainment commission meeting. i'm the commission president. if you are a member of the public and you would like to speak, there are speaker forms. you can hand them to our staff or come to the microphone when i call you for public comment. we ask that everyone turns off their cell phones are puts them on silent, including commissioners and staff. i want to thank san francisco government t.v. media services for sharing this meeting with the public. we will start with a roll call. [roll call] >> i think we should note that commissioner thomas is running late and commissioner faust on has been excused.

>> before we get started with our first order of business, we were talking about this and we like to dedicate this meeting in memory of jeff adachi, the public defender of san francisco. he is a fearsome advocate for the underdog, and an incredible presence in city hall, and i think his influence was evidenced by how many people, the outpouring of love and emotion that came after his passing, this meeting will be in his honor. all right, the first order of business is public comment, and this is for any cactuses comments from the public on any item that isn't on the agenda. does anybody have any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. the next agenda item is item number 2, which is the approval of our minutes. we will give you a chance to look at them and then we will ask if we have a motion for the approval of the minutes of february 19th, 2019. >> i have a minor clarification

on page 12. it says commissioner lee stated that the fire department works in two hands, it should say works in two sections. is anyone writing it down? it should say they work in two sections, one for building construction, sign offs and one for public assembly sign offs, and the rumour has it that they are trying to combine the two departments, the two inspectors together to save time on expedited permits, so that was what it should say. >> all right. >> i'm not sure if it matters, but it doesn't make sense the way it is written. >> one typo that i noticed on page 2, it says 8 cents, rather than absent.

make sure to spell check in the future. >> we did three rounds of edits, apologies. >> no, it is minor. i wait -- i wish that was the word. >> totally. >> all right, do we have a motion to approve the minutes. >> so moved. >> second. >> all right, we will do public comment on this. does anyone want to public -- publicly comment on the minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. [roll call] >> the minutes are approved. the next order of business, agenda item is our report from the executive director. >> thank you, president, and that evening commissioners. i can't believe it is already march.

this year is flying by, i have a really brief update this evening, i just wanted to let all of you know about our recent trip to philadelphia, both myself, the president, and ben van helton who is here in the audience tonight. we attended the rhi annual sociable city summit in philadelphia from february 23rd through to the 26th. we not only had a blast hanging out and checking out these city -- the city of philadelphia, going out, hearing the nightlife, eating all the food, hearing live music, tricking gears, of course, but we also attended the conference. [laughter] the conference was great. i just wanted to report back on the fact that all three of us

felt that san francisco is really a head of the game in how we regulate and enforce entertainment activity in municipalities. we are hearing stories from folks who do this work across the united states, in small to large cities, and in a lot of ways, they are ten touch 15 years behind where we are at right now and how we are enforcing entertainment. so we often times had conversations just on best practices. this is how we do it, and a lot of people were learning from s., so i think that is a lot in credit to my predecessor, jocelyn kane, and two commissioners who came before all of you as well. we have been laying the groundwork for a long time and we should be really proud of the work that we are doing here because i think we will continue to set the bar here in san francisco.

ben, did you have anything to add? >> i think you're absolutely right. the opportunity to talk with other cities and tear of how it wretchedly poorly they regulate their nightlife, really made me feel really proud of how we do things here. this is fantastic. it was worth all the plane flights just to hear that, it was fantastic. >> definitely. i will just add, it was a great opportunity for us to get out of here and brainstorm around ideas for this year and beyond, and we were able to really hone in on what we want to discuss at our summit as well, so again, that is happening april 1st. you will get an official invite tomorrow. commissioner perez has been working diligently on creating the website for it and all the marketing materials that will go into that. we are excited to share what topics we have come up with. that's about it.

>> thank you, very much. is there any public comment on the executive director charge a report? seeing none, public comment is closed. the next agenda item is item number 4, a report from our senior inspector, sean burke. >> thank you, good evening, commissioners i am inspector sean burke. i change things up a little bit this week. he will notice that there's an orange line above anything that is new since the notes were sent out last friday. a couple of new complaints i wanted to mention, one at the rusted mule, we got a complaint, in general about weekend nights, and then we followed up and threw a little research, realized that there was a permit

that was -- an application process was started but never finished. we're in the process of bringing them into compliance. you will notice a complaint on the first page four gestalt. this is also a complaint that came in via 311, and also after-the-fact, the complaint was addressed in realtime, but we realized after research that the establishment was operating after the operation hours of an l.l.p. pick the field inspector assumes that they had the proper permit, but after some digging, we find out they didn't. we want to bring them into compliance as well. you will notice, since friday, a complaint about jolene his was added. in realtime, and inspector was

able to visit, forgive me, i did not put an action in the description of the entry for jolene his. the action taken there by the inspector was that he visited and found it to be in compliance, i noticed there was a residential party down the street. you will notice the field guys continued to drop off the new good neighbor policy, and when appropriate, we will be discussing with management security and ownership some of the changes. please excuse on the following page, i left out the type of permit for quite a few of these

establishments. if there were any questions on what kind of permits these places have, please let me know. i will try to avoid that. i think that happened last time as well, just trying to get used to this new formatting. i did want to mention the inspection at the fillmore harris -- heritage centre in response to a complaint that came in. this was a follow-up inspection or -- inspection. they spoke with her management about the good neighbor policy, as it seems the complaint is actually coming from people outside the venue and not necessarily the music, but the patrons gathering outside at closing. we will keep a close eye there and make sure they are on top of the crowd after the events. we have had a couple of complaints come in about the independent over the last few

months, this past weekend, the inspector visited the independent after the complaint in realtime and noticed that the emporium seems to be a little bit louder. they are next to each other, and it turns out that emporium was out of compliance with their internal sound limit. we issued the emporium a notice of violation. some good work by the inspectors in the field. no updates to ongoing complaints since friday. complaints about sunday brunch at jones continue to come in. we have a new complainant, and two complaints on existing complainant. we will be sending our inspector

out this sunday to take measurements during that event, and our longest time complainant has now been in touch with myself and the inspector. this is something that we are definitely on top of and we will continue to investigate. i believe that is it. if you have any questions, please let me know. >> okay. so charmaine, ever since we gave them their permit for the rooftop, it seems like they're on our report almost every week. so my question, my question is, they do have indoors on the rooftop, so are they playing their music with the doors open, because i know that they have outdoor speakers as well, so if

the level on the inside raises, are the speakers on the outside also being raised? >> they have a permit from us to do outdoor. >> yeah, but is there a certain sound restriction? they can't plate as loud as they want, can they? >> they have a sound limit for outdoor, but you guys were not restrictive in hours, for the outdoor. >> these are coming in at 8:26 p.m., it is still nighttime, it is afternoon, i could understand,. >> one of the difficulties here, i think for charmaine his, it has been fairly intermittent, it is not as frequent as some of the other persistent ongoing complaints that i have listed, in one of the issues that we are having with really trying to address the issue that with charmaine his is the fact that the complainant his anonymous,

so we don't have the ability to address do you seen realtime, we don't have -- the complaints are not coming in on the weekend, they're not coming in when staff is out on the street, so we can't even get an alert from 311 and go and visit. if it was anonymous and it was coming in on the weekend, then we could. we cannot follow up during the week to get more detail because we don't have access to the information. i have been out two times now to charmaine his and done sound tests. they know where to point the speakers, they know the levels to keep them at. they have a sound test that was conducted by charles salter, and i think -- i hope we get some information from the complainant so we can address this thing. i am planning on sending up and inspector this weekend to try to

take a lesson. >> i think the insight is pretty well incident -- insulated. if they keep the door shut, it should keep the sound in, i just don't know how much they crank the speakers on the outside. i'm just curious. on the fillmore heritage, these are private parties or rentals, it would seem. do they have enough security when the inspector goes out to let these people, on their way, get to their cars, or are they just open the door and say good night? >> they do know they had a presence on sight. the inspector mistakenly was printed. he was on sight to talk to management to outside upon arrival. i can take a look and see how many inspectors they had on site

in just a moment, but i do believe, based on the conversation i had with the inspector, addressing patrons as they leave, that process could be vastly improved. >> right, okay. thank you. >> thanks. >> a question about old town tattoo and the new complaints. >> yes. >> i see there are two issues, one at 8:00 p.m. on saturday, february 23rd, and another one at midnight pick on the notes here it says the inspector visited the music and it was turned off. that is at 8:00 p.m., but there is another complaint at 12. i was wondering if, can you talk about delaying and turning it off and turning it back on again after the inspector left? what are the circumstances?

>> the original complaint came in friday night, saturday morning, and the inspector spoke to them about the permanent -- permitting process, and asked them to go through that process before going to another event. that second complaint came in the next night, saturday night. both complaints came in via 311. the inspector visited the second time, and after a conversation with the proprietor, it was determined that the best course of action was to have them turned down -- >> thank you, i understand now. >> hello. >> hello. >> i like how robust this is, so thank you for the extra time that everyone is putting into

it. just a few questions. in terms of inspections, i think it is greatly you are also sharing the good neighbor policy. are you hearing any feedback from folks that you think any of us should know up here about that? i know we generally try to clean it up and make it more simple. >> i think what -- i haven't gotten a lot of feedback from the field inspectors about conversations they've had with operators. i think it's difficult during the busy nights, friday and saturday, to be out there and having in-depth conversations with operators about the policy. what i have encouraged them to do is leave their business cards and make sure that they are encouraging operators or heads of security or managers to follow-up with them or me or any member of staff to discuss it in more detail if they have questions or if they have comments. i haven't gotten any feedback

yet and we are planning on disseminating this wider and further on facebook and with e-mail, and on the blog coming up here real soon. i hope to work with our data-gathering expert senior analyst and try to get feedback from the public. >> great, this could be a case of no news is good news, or no feedback is good feedback. one other question, i just noticed in some of the use, not the inspections, of course, because they are there, but there are new complaints. there is a couple of times where there is no staff available to go check it out. which makes sense, i'm just curious, now that we have two inspectors in the field and yourself, how you feel about

coverage, are we good on that, do we need more? what is your take. >> i think our goal right now is to make sure that if we have repetitive complaints on an off night, say wednesday, thursday, sunday, that the inspectors have been responsive to heading out on a different night, and i think because we have the coverage that we do to pull one inspector off of a weekend night and put them on a weekday, it has minimum -- minimal coverage on the impact to the city. i think we are good, this looks like a lot, even putting it together, just taking a look at it myself, we are getting out there quite a bit, but i still think that it is tough to address the anonymous complaints on weekdays, that is the big gap that we have. there is no way for us to

follow-up. outside of having a few more inspectors for every night of the week, i think we are stuck waiting for someone to complain. >> i think this all might just be to better empower the police department, and it is something that we are working on, just so the random complaints that are coming in on weekdays, if the police department officers understand our process and our rules and all that, they maybe able to assist, i think we are doing pretty well. >> yes great, thinking. >> thanks. >> can i ask a clarifying question? i am seeing venues that have appeared before and i'm wondering what the distinction is and why they're not on ongoing complaints, but listed as new complaints, like charmaine his -- like

charmaine's. >> it is tough. i think that when we have a period of time where there aren't complaints about a particular venue, i think that there is maybe a? that resets somewhere up here. >> based on what criteria? >> based on the time in between complaints that are received. i don't have a formula, necessarily, i think it is more of a judgement call, i think a complaint being anonymous versus a complaint having a complainant attached to it probably has an effect on that too. if we have the ability to actually communicate with a complainant and get an idea that maybe they didn't complain every week, but maybe it is not a problem every week, the charmaine's complaint, in my

opinion, i think it has been intermittent, i don't -- i know they have appeared to, but i haven't felt like it was an ongoing complaint like some of the others. >> okay. , because like revolution café, it seems to be the same issue regarding their door being wide open. i am wondering if that is the same person making the complaint and maybe they close the door for a period, but then it seems to come back up, but it is almost like the same text from the past. and it sounds like something similar. >> so royale i think is a new one. it is very fresh. revolution revolution i agree with you that the door is a constant issue with them. this is an existing complainant and someone we have spoken to before, and i think it all comes down to, has there been a significant period of time between complaints where we can consider this a new case.

>> got it. >> a case that we are not continually addressing every weekend. >> got it. and then we have our main stage here. the original complaint came in and september of 2018, and i feel like they have almost a standing agenda item on your report, and i know that in the beginning of your report you mentioned that practically everyone on staff is in conversation with them around bringing them into compliance, but i would like to recommend that we actually consider bringing them to a hearing at this point. i think, is it nine months at this point, it is like they gave birth to a baby since we have been getting complaints. >> probably about six. >> yeah,. >> so is that an official

request from the commission that you would like to me to send them a notice to appear? >> that is my recommendation. do we have a conversation about it? >> i feel like unless staff feels like it is a substantive process -- progress is being made with them, then, yeah,. >> i will add that i think for friday and saturday evenings, we were getting complaints when we have been out there addressing when we do have staff, i think that those issues have subsided, and we have yet to go out and address their sunday party. i would love to see what happens after this weekend and be able to report back to you. i hope that once we address the

sunday and set sound limits that we can brett -- bring that under control as well. but it has been going on for a very long time. >> do they think, because it is a sunday afternoon party that they can play at whatever level? >> they have sound limits. >> no matter what time, whether it is 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon >> yeah, it might be a good opportunity to bring them in just because this has been going on for quite some time, and we have heard from the owner for about two minutes of public comment and we weren't able to engage, and it might be an opportunity to actually look at the conditions on their permit. they're very limited as it is in terms of when they can do outdoor sound at this point, and i think that they want to expand that, i don't know, it might be worth looking at the conditions. >> yeah, thank you.

>> i just want to say thank you for the expanded format, and i appreciate all the different formatting things that you are trying, and it's really giving me a much better sense of what all the inspectors are doing, i wanted to say thank you. i know it looks like it is taking up a fairmount of time and energy to put it together, so i wanted to say i am appreciating it. it makes our job easier. >> thank you. >> yeah, i just want to echo that, not just the format here, but the expanded enforcement. i think our tentacles are all over the city right now. it is really giving us a little bit of street credit. i can't tell you how many calls i'm getting from people i know who owned bars and i have to say, i'm very sorry, thank you very much for calling, refer your inquiry to the office right now. and you guys came by at my bar

and saturday night and it turned out to be a band nearby playing on the street, it wasn't us. i want to make sure everybody knows that. [laughter] >> i had a question about jones. it looks like we get a lot of calls on this one day,. do you know if this is the same person or multiple people? >> i do know, two, sorry, two of the three are the same person, a known complainant that we have been in touch with. we have been working with her to schedule a sunday visit, and the third is a new complainant who is not anonymous, so we don't have follow-up with that complainant. >> so multiple people. >> yeah,. >> and there have been two additional complainants over the course of the last six months or

so. >> got it. but you did say -- because it seemed we kind of put them red-handed operating past the hours of their l.l.p., that has subsided as far as you know? >> as far as i know, yes. >> okay. so you are thinking their internal decibel level might be higher than it should be? >> i think their external limit is very low on their permanent. i think that there's probably a middleground that they can operate outside, but i have yet to visit on a sunday, so i am not maybe the best person to ask i think the inspector can enlighten us. >> i think a lot of what we have been hearing from the inspector is just that when they do

operate indoor entertainment to keep their windows and doors open -- they keep their windows and doors open, and that is super loud, and it sounds like outdoors, it sounds like they are using their outdoor permits during hours when they are not allowed to. i think it is a compliance thing. i think they just need to hear from all of you. >> questions? thank you very much for that enlightening reports report. is there any public comment on the report? seeing none, public comment is closed. next agenda item is number 5, which is report from our senior analyst. >> good evening, commissioners. i'm the senior element just analyst for community cultural events. i have a legislative update and some education updates for you. i wanted to circle back about the proposed legislation to let the office of cannabis create a

cannabis event permit for both indoor and outdoor events. it was first heard by the finance and budget committee last wednesday, and it was basically, there was an amendment that was created which is actually in your binder, and the amendment speaks to the challenges associated with smoking in public, especially, so this new amended legislation creates a waiver process for the health department and for parks to temporarily waive the ban of public outdoor smoking, not just outdoor, public smoking, as well as in some cases, consumption of cannabis within the footprint and the duration of the event. does that make sense? so it is another layer of

approval that has to happen, but i think it's pretty remarkable that that was the only change that they came back with. there were some people from the outdoor event industry. they are voicing their support. they were people from folsom street fair, and how weird, especially there to support this, and just a reminder, this is a pilot program. so this was something that supervisor fewer really wanted to see a evaluation done on, so she asked for a valuation report the office of cannabis after the pilot program went into effect. there wasn't a specific time that she had said, but at some point, when it is in full effect, she wanted to hear, what is working, what is not, how can we look at security and

enforcement and improve it, what are the stakeholders saying? obviously the city workers, with the event producers, and the community. so that was something that was not codified, but that is something that supervisor fewer really wanted to see, so that was agreed upon, and then it was sent to planning to make sure that it didn't fall under a guidelines project, which it didn't, and then it went to small business commission and they voted in favour of it. they were pleased with the legislation. tomorrow, it will go back to the finance budget committee again for -- first on the agenda, and it will go for -- based on the responses from planning and the business commission. i will keep you guys apprised as this works its way through the process. it is moving forward, just

taking time. and then the other piece of this, i just wanted to update you on a couple of educational things. you will see in your binder the latest winter industry bulletin is out. i plugged the summit, i plugged the can't -- the cannabis legislation and grant opportunities, and then for the summit, there's going to be an outdoor event piece like there has been the past two years, and we have been talking a lot with the president and director weiland has been a part of this. we want to do another how to discussion on how you plan a successful and safe cannabis event, especially with the changing policies at the local level, and i think that this will be not what happens another

event, but it will talk to you more about consumer demands as well, which we didn't talk about on the panel, and it is going to get deeper into their operations and infrastructure for events. just big picture again for this panel, it is really about showing that cannabis is a viable new opportunity for the entertainment industry in terms of enhancing it and sustaining it or supporting it, and we want to show people what are the legal pathways to getting permit, how do you get a stake cannabis event permit, what does it look like? and of course, the best practices and possible models for revenue streams. we are focusing mainly on sales and consumption of cannabis

because we think those are the most relevant types of activities for cannabis, and then we already have terrence allen, the founding president of the commission and we have a confirmation from the acting director of the office of cannabis, and we are putting out asks to some other people in government, as well as the producers. i will have those confirmed by tomorrow with any luck. so that is exciting. it will be great because this will be a broader audience too, not just for the outdoor event community, but i am hoping we can get some venue operators to join the conversation too, in terms of being in the audience and asking questions. so that is it. any questions?

>> thank you for this report. a quick question about working with cannabis and outdoor events. can i get the permit to be flexing for the entire footprint of the festival and event, or do i have to designate specific area within the footprint? >> it is the latter. it will be a specific zone or area that will be submitted to both the office of cannabis and the state chapter bureau of cannabis control. the state has the final sign off and just a reminder, unlike getting a special event liquor license where the nonprofit can actually get the license to procure and serve the liquor, this license is different, you have to work with a state licensed cannabis event organizer, and it is an annual license that gets renewed, and

then the business model is if -- you are not allowed to share revenue streams with the cannabis sales. so the other ways that you can make money on from sponsorships, vendor fees, and in some cases, it is a gated event, they could take part of a gate admission price. it is a different way of thinking about it, and a different way of doing business with it. >> okay. be combined with your garden or do they have to be separate. >> capacity to completely separate zones where -- there has to be two completely separate zones where it happens, and they're careful that they say that you can't even have a member of the public, regardless if they are 21 or over, you can't have them accidentally go from one zone to the next. they have to be completely

separated, a neutral pathway between both where if someone doesn't want to go into either zone, they don't have to. >> all right. thank you. >> since we are on the topic of cannabis, i wanted to point out that a ready headline in the san francisco chronicle last week -- that i read a headline in the san francisco chronicle last week that they want to -- i think about where i was as a kid, smoking pot, thinking i was going to go to jail for doing that. and the sentences and all the people have had to take to get us here to where we are today. i just want to thank the dea for that work, and code for america, who has done a lot of coding and scouring of all the records to figure out who these cases were. and san francisco is at the

forefront of many things, entertainment, vis-à-vis responsible hospitality institute, but also this work. i want to thank the dea and thank all the community folks who have put so much time and effort into this. i'm really clear to see where this to go -- where this will go. there were lots of headlines exploring magic mushrooms a something to legalize. this is an exciting time that we are all in. >> thanks to the voters of california for passing a retroactive marijuana legalization initiative. it was the first time to clear up the records. i enormously appreciate the district attorney's leadership and i want to give a shout out to the public defender's office who went through all of their cases and hope people -- help

people expunge their canvas convictions. i know the defender's office is on our minds these days, but it takes all of them to really move it forward. if we move forward into the cannabis space, one of the things i wanted to keep an eye on is the racial justice implications and aspects of it and making sure that the people who have been harmed by the war on drugs from getting these permits and being able to profit from legalization and the family that they are harmed by legalization. i know it is on our minds. as the entertainment commission -- as we have a role in the cannabis conversation, to keep that friend of mind. >> and you didn't think the robot they used, they used

artificial intelligence programs to scan the programs. >> you're right, they didn't. >> i have one clarifying question. just so i get this straight, if this continues on and we will not have any net new cannabis events, it will just allow existing events -- >> there is a sunset date. >> for the pilot program. >> for the year, i meant. >> they have the right to extend it. >> okay. , thank you. thank you very much. is there any public comment on that report? seeing none, the public -- the comment is closed. moving along, number 6. they are not here. we will move along to number 7.

item number 7 is hearing and possible action regarding permits within the jurisdiction of the entertainment commission. there is no consent agenda today i will just turn things over to the deputy director to introduce the applicants. >> good evening, commissioners. we have one permit application on the agenda this evening and it is for a place of entertainment permit for hotel san francisco located at 653 commercial street. just to clarify, it is not a hotel, but a bar and restaurant that was given its name as homage to the song. the premises is all tight level, and the applicants have various types of entertainment options upstairs and downstairs. they would like to bring in live music, comedy, trivia, and open mic nights. in your file, you will see the file that they had distributed

250 copies of, as well as signature for support for neighboring businesses and residents. they approved it with no added can it -- conditions. here to tell you more is the owner. >> hello. so hotel san francisco is in the financial district. we have been going for 12 months now. it is a small bar and restaurant with a capacity of about 93 at the moment. we are building downstairs capacity of about 49. here we are looking to apply for an entertainment license. we are not looking at any live or huge d.j. shows or anything like that, just more intimate shows which will allow us to reactivate our stage. >> hello.

i've been here many times, it is one of an undiscovered places near chinatown. i have a question. i have not been into your basement yet, but when you do your entertainment upstairs, you have a lot of glass in the front. there is an s.r.o. across the street. are you planning to have a d.j. upstairs all the time? or entertainment downstairs? >> there may have been some confusion there. all of the entertainment will be downstairs. upstairs definitely isn't fitted for that kind of environment, restaurant, bar, food, et cetera. there will be no entertainment upstairs. >> we have a pretty good business already. i was wondering where you were going to put that. >> we wouldn't do anything upstairs. we wanted to activate anything

upstairs, we would love to activate the langley, further on the commercial stage. we actually had access to the commercial street. that got taken away. there would be no entertainment upstairs. to be honest, the purpose of building out downstairs it's more of an overflow for the bar upstairs, and it is a small space. most of the market is female, that is where we had our success back home in sydney as well. fashion shows, pretty much everything except loud d.j.s and duff death music pretty much. >> so the sound system, would be mostly acoustical, except for

the d.j., but you would have your own sound system there. >> we would have it very similar to upstairs which is putting four speakers downstairs and a p.a. system which would enable us to activate comedy and trivia pretty much. >> who is going to handle the security. >> we have not had to deal with security at the moment, but going downstairs, our capacity is increasing by about 15%. we are addressing that at the moment as to who goes on the door. we are reluctant to put a security guard on the door, but we obviously take all that very seriously with the liquor license and that sort of jazz. essentially, we would probably train up an individual to handle

the door. >> normally there is a security plan that goes with these permits, but you have to have a guard card, either you get it from an outside agency and hired them, org you, yourself, will have your own cards, but there are some things you have to do to become a so-called security holder personnel. >> i think that is very important. it gets kind of crowded. i thank you have heard people outside tend to make noise, but you will need an outside person. it is pretty quiet right now. as you become popular, you can see people having fun outside.

>> we will do whatever is required in that respect. whether it be a security guard on the door, in saying all that, we are very open in our community with the neighbors. we have only ever had one small complaint from a neighbdo to cal any time. we are active within the community, and i think, at the moment, we haven't needed that security guard, but we -- it definitely is own our radar. if it is a requirement, we would want to do that. >> okay. , thank you. i am curious why you are reluctant to have security prior to this. >> to be honest, the cost of labour. it would be my honest -- bottom

line, we are not making any money. that's why we are going downstairs to double our capacity or increase our capacity. the thing about the financially strict issue is we are busy between four and nine, but then everyone clears out. the cost of operating a business is excruciatingly high, but we enjoyed it, and we love it, to be honest, it is the cost of labour. >> we have heard you are not the first to see that. >> it is no different to back home. i have barras back home and it is pretty much exactly the same. it is hard -- high, with that is the price you pay for being in a cool city, i guess. >> folks are trying to make it more affordable, too. another question just in terms

of your programming, do you have outside promoters that you plan to bring in, or are you curating your own? >> to be honest, we are trying to muffle that up together at the moment. i don't think we will require an outside promoter, we will use our p.r. agency to do it. the target market is females. 26-45 professionals. we probably don't require a promoter for what we want to do. it's more bringing in some brains, thinking outside the square a bit about what the financial district wants and what it needs. as we said, we don't want to be a dance bar downstairs. we just want to essentially create something fun. >> if you had a customer come,

could we reasonably expect that something will be happening every night, or are you targeting the weekend? >> as it stands, we are six weeks away from finishing the belt. we are probably looking at -- would probably would not open it up downstairs on a monday, and then as it stands, maybe tuesday would be trivia, wednesday comedy, thursday, we spent a lot of time with a wind program, and it enables us to sell wine take away, maybe something along those lines, and then saturdays are very tough in the financial district. we are not quite sure what we will do there, and on fridays will be overflow for our bar upstairs, and so with thursday, we are in a little bit -- we are still going through the motions ourselves, to be honest.

we don't want to swing the doors open and see what happens, so we do want to have an agenda, but as i said, there's not too much of an agenda for saturday. [please stand by]

>> so yeah, we're trying to think outside the box a little bit, and we're probably -- essentially trying to find the right person to do that job for us. >> that sounds great. good luck to you. >> it's not me. >> you're part of it. >> hi. thanks for coming up. >> thank you. >> on your application, it says you have a strong community outreach program. can you tell us what that entails, and does that include actual residents in the neighborhood? >> yeah, well, commercial street, it's a fun street. and when we came in, it is a

bit of a community, and it's very easy for us to -- when we did our outreach, everyone was kind of like, you know, we're cool, whatever. and you know, everyone kind of goes to the dim sum across the road, everybody kind of uses the print shop across the road. it is a space of 100 to 300 feet, and yeah, all the business owne owners, it's kina fun community. >> your outreach entails you go door to door? >> yeah. there's not a lot of resident does. the only residents are actually across the street from us and up top. even before this outreach, we've been working with the -- they come in every night and collect our bottles and our cans, and yeah, we -- you know,

they don't drink alcohol, but they give them -- yeah, we feed them and drink them, as well, with soft drinks. we enjoy the time. we're more than happy to be a part of this. >> okay. you mentioned earlier that you had one neighbor actually made a complaint and you were able to resolve it. what was the complaint? >> it was on a friday night, when people were leaving, unfortunately, the financial district for us, everybody clears out around 10:00, so we don't really have too many issues? and yeah, he was just -- all he actually asked us to do was to tell our customers to leave quietly, and so we've just -- you know, we've got a sign up and done our due diligence.

we haven't heard from him since -- having seen him, actually. >> okay. and then going forward, what's your official policy to resolve future complaints? what's your official policy? >> well, back home, the best way we've handled it back home is we -- and we haven't done this now because we haven't had the need but if there was an ongoing issue, we buy the house a mobile hophone lives on-site. so it's not my mobile phone, it's not your mobile phone, it sits in the hands of the manager on duty, and if they have any issues, they just ring that line directly, and it gets resolves. >> excellent. you said you were doing construction in the basement? >> yeah. >> are you planning on doing any sound proofing in the construction? >> no, we aren't.

we haven't had a need. we did some in the office down stairs, but yeah, i can't see an issue down stairs. >> okay. thank you very much. >> president hirsch: thank you. i just had a couple questions. so are we just permitting the down stairs or is this for the entire space? >> i can speak to the discrepancy. there was a -- priscilla, the other owner, mentioned wanting to do entertainment on the other level, that's another want, that's why we mentioned that? >> president hirsch: something we're apt to do -- sometimes we're apt to do the whole space just so you know, we're sometimes apt to permit the entire space is because what will happen, you'll have a different sound test for the different spaces. that's standard, right? >> that's not standard, right. >> president hirsch: that would be something that we would add. >> so usually, the planning

commission may -- would be working on a project, like virgin hotel, for example, they had a motion and then, it separates out each floor, and then, in that case, we'll do it, but in this case, you would need to condition it specifically, and say entertainment is only allowed on blank floor, or it's allowed aeach floor, but you would -- on each floor, and you need to do a soundproof on each floor. >> yeah. i mean -- yeah, i'd like to have it open to both levels. >> president hirsch: okay. so that would be something for us -- okay. so that is something that i am interested -- >> you can also condition on time, too. you can designate on time. >> president hirsch: and then -- so i didn't have any specific questions. just personally, these are the

projects that i really love because i personally want to see new small businesses that are not built as venues to employ artists, musicians, as well as other people. one thing, we're having a summit on april 2nd. one of the topics that day is going to be a pretty informed discussion on a -- it's still on the agenda, right, on how to make live music work for your business in a small business, and it's kind of through the lens of our limited lives, but because of your hours, you're kind of in that frame. we're trying to have a real substantial conversation around that. that's really helpful in how to book bands, what to look for. that's exactly the conversation we're going to have, so yeah, i would recommend attending that. so i don't have any specific