oriented retail or shops. it was also the way the vertical zoning -- was a way to protect housing. now you have controls to protect housing. you don't have to worry about a restaurant displacing housing on the second floor because it's very difficult to get rid of housing. but basically, the answer to your question, just where the city was at the time the regulations were developed. so you can go back to your neighbor commercial districts and look at the controls and see what makes sense to change, if anything. >> supervisor fewer: because when you travel throughout the world, you see there are restaurants on second floors. and third floors many times. and so that is probably something we should be looking at. what we heard from, also our -- from the golden gate restaurant

association is also about the rents that are constantly going up in san francisco. and so i know there has been this idea that i think is pretty promising, we can expedite the condo-izing of retail space. meaning that if a property owner has a piece of building that actually has maybe housing on top, that he or she is able to actually sell the retail space. what do you think about that? because it's true, there is no rent control on retail spaces. in my district, i'm seeing a 10-year lease with an option for another 10 years, they're now doing it annually, by just an annual lease. the restaurants in my neighborhood are seeing a lot of

increases. and three or four times the amount of rent. this is what happened to farmer brown. so condo-izing just the retail space and the empty store fronts, they can just sell the retail space. what are your thoughts about this? >> well, planning department doesn't really deal with the condo-ization of spaces, but if it's instability in the restaurant industry, that's a viable option. the only concern, restaurant have to come up with the rent to buy the space. it would get rid of the rent increase probably. >> supervisor fewer: another question. the cb3p, you just rolled this out? >> no, i believe it's been out for three years. >> supervisor fewer: so do we have any data back from the

restaurant association about how successful this is and how many -- and make you can tell us how many applicants you assisted? >> i don't have the numbers on, but i can get them from the special projects team. i will have to let the restaurant association answer the other part. >> supervisor fewer: is it working well? any suggestion? >> i'm not sure, but usually when they're done with the process, they don't like to talk to us anymore. [laughter]. >> supervisor fewer: really, okay? i always think it's good to get feedback. for those of us not in the industry, quite frankly, lay persons, and in this city bureaucracy, i think it helps to hear from people who do work on the ground on how we can improve. i would urge you to get data on it just to find out is it doing

what we intended. could we be doing more? how efficient is this? how helpful? et cetera. >> i'll pass that onto them. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. the next speaker is gregory slocum from d.p.w. >> the cafe and table chairs process, with san francisco public works, i'm representing the bureau street mapping this afternoon. can i get the screen? we're going to go through a brief overview first?

san francisco public works offers a cafe table and chair permit to utilize public sidewalks to permit and provide customers with out door seating. this program has been initially instituted in 1993. to give you scope and context forever the size -- for the size of the program in the last fiscal year, we received 458 renewals and 145 new applications for a total of 603 permit holders. these are also demonstrated through the public works order 183188. and there is a permit fee that applies to all new applications and then fees are assessed based on the square footage of the proposal. so it's $144 base fee and then

$8 per square foot. just a brief overview of the application process. applicant that wants to put tables and chairs in front of their establishment would complete a permit application. it's relatively simple, just includes your address, name of the applicant, name of the business and they submit the initial processing fee. they need to provide us with the certificate of insurance as well as current san francisco business registration. these are items they already may be in possession of before pursuing the permit. then we require a site plan that depicts the layout, so we can assess the impact on the public right of way tt. this is a sample of the brochure that is created for this program. if someone wanted to come into the office, this might be an example we provide them.

if staff determines that the application does not meet requirements, we will send a detailed letter to the applicant indicating what changes need to be made to the application, so we can continue our review. if staff determines that the application has been submitted to us, has been acceptable, we'll create a public notice that the applicant has to post in an observable location fronting the public sidewalk for 10 calendar days. this is part of the public notification process. so during this period, if staff receives no objections and they may continue to assess outstanding fees, approve and issue a permit. in the event of objections to

the table and chair tt permit, they will seek to reconcile them if there is a way to negotiate between the complainant and the business seeking the permit, we'll always try to do that. in the event we cannot mediate a solution, then it proceeds to a hearing. following the hearing, the director of public works will decide to approve or conditionally approve. conditionally approve may be reducing the amount of table and chairs just to give you an example of the condition. then we can move into the approval process, which is typically the fee that is assessed. square footage fee that we talked about on the front end. we take the base $144 and assess the square footage because sometimes the proposal can

change dependant on guidance provided i about the staff. the -- by the staff. the permit must be placed. we do renewals for these based on zip codes. we stagger them by zip codes. renewal process is much quicker and easier than the initial application and it's cheaper. we charge $71 base renewal fee and $7 per square foot. modifications to an existing permit requires a new permit application. if they wanted to expand, we would need to do another public posting so that the public has an expectation of what is going to be placed in the public right-of-way prior to our approval. some additional info, public

works inspection enforcement may respond to complaints or proactively inspect for permit compliance. you can see on the two graphics on the bottom is things that inspectors might have an eye out for. >> thank you for coming today. comments, questions? >> supervisor mandelman: do you happen to know how much the city

collects? >> i don't off the top of my head, but we would be more than happy to follow up. >> i would be curious to know and what the average total is for a business. i know it varies on square footage, but the range -- >> that is something we could probably follow up and provide you info on. >> have they changed over the recent years? i have one constituent who feels like their fees have gone up dramatically over a short period of time. >> i don't know that the base fees have changed dramatically. we do look at cost indexes if we have to adjust. but i don't know of dramatic increase. it may also be if someone had to expand the footprint, so without knowing the context of the constituent, i couldn't say. >> thank you. >> supervisor peskin: mr. slocum, unlike most fees that the city charges, which are based on cost recovery, i believe this fee is an exception

insofar as it's actually based on the value of the real estate, because it's in the public right-of-way, so it's actually -- if we issue a marriage license, the way the controller calculates the fee is how much staff time costs the city has to fee to produce a marriage license. so it's a cost recovery thing. but i believe that the tables and chairs are different because it's in essence, a lease payment. so it's not based on cost recovery. am i correct on that? >> it is prorated amongst the space that is occupied, however, that being said, when it comes to time and materials, i don't believe we recoup our efforts in the permits, and one of the reasons we do it that way, we're trying to promote activation of the public space and as such,

the fees are lower. >> supervisor peskin: in 1993, before my time, was the base fee established? >> i would have to do research and follow up on that. >> supervisor peskin: i think that is a conversation we should have. because at $8 a square foot, that's pretty hefty. i do understand that these are lands of the taxpayer, so i get why it's not -- i don't think it's a fee, but it's actually a lease charge by landlord to a tenant. supervisor mandelman is totally nodding his head, so i feel like he's getting me, but i would love to understand how the base charge is established. you and supervisor fewer and i can have that conversation. >> it's $8 per square foot. >> supervisor peskin: no, i said

8. 8 its per was the time period. $8 per year? >> $8 per square foot fort initial application. for renewals, $70 base fee and $7. it goes from 144 down to 71 for renewal. and then the assessment drops from $8 down to $7. >> supervisor peskin: annual basis? >> yes, sir. >> supervisor peskin: got it. that's helpful. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. on that topic, i wanted to say, so hearing from the restaurant industry and all these fees and, you know, getting sort of nickel dimed every step of the way, do you think that we could, mr. slocum, i'm sorry to direct it to you, you're the authority here, do you think there is a possibility that we could eliminate these fees for them? i mean, i think that it works

two ways. one, as you said, the city really wants to activate these outer spaces for the activity. i think we all can agree when you have table and chairs outside, that from the pictures that you actually showed, it actually does help to activate the commercial corridor. makes it look lively and adds a level of attractiveness and expands the service area for the restaurant. do you think there is a possibility that once you give us the amount of money we're actually recovering or getting from these fees, do you think that there is a possibility that we might waive these fees? and in light of that, it is not a recovery cost for the city and county of san francisco as others are, but more actually related to a real estate cost, what do you think about that? >> supervisor peskin: before you

answer that, mr. slocum, two members of this panel have to go -- have been summoned into the mayor's office. so we'll be back and supervisor fewer has been pinted by -- appointed by the president of the board to be a member of the panel, so there is a quorum and i shall return. >> supervisor fewer: please be back, because you have a lot of restaurants in your district. what do you feel about that? could it be a possibility that we could eliminate the fee to actually allow this first floor restaurant? restaurants on the first floor, we don't have a lot on the second and third floors, but also if there are restaurants on the second and third floor, the first floor would be paying a higher rate because it's more desirable on the street level. what do you think if we were to eliminate these fees? >> so it's not something that we discussed internally, so i don't have anything that i can

piggyback a prior discussion. one of the challenges -- we do a pretty good job reviewing the applications in a timely fashion. for scope of example, the last year, the new applications we turned around in average of 11 working days, which on the calendar means staff was processing this over the course of 11 days. we were able to do renewals and two working days. that being said, we have some outliers and we have reviews that can be quite labor intensive, if you have someone with no scope of expertise, coming up with a diagram and following up on the letter where we issue them. that being said, because we're not recovering cost on many of the applications, it would be tough without discussing it more in-depth internally.

>> supervisor fewer: i want to commend your counter service. i've heard wonderful things about the counter service, that you offer permitting. and your turnaround time, excellent. i don't think we have an issue with that. i'm just wondering, if you could come back and tell us how much we're actually getting from the fees and how much do we need for cost recovery. and whether or not, you know, i think it's a question of what city government or whether or not we should try to absorb some of the costs because this is one thing we might be able to do in the city. i mean, they're asking us -- and homelessness, it's very difficult, it's a bigger issue, but these type of things we could possibly do pretty quickly, after we have analysis of it, i think this is the things we're looking at. so thank you very much. greatly appreciate this. and i think your presentation was great. >> any other questions? all right. thank you.

>> supervisor fewer: and now we have people from the tax collection office. >> good afternoon. treasurer of the city and county of san francisco. i want to say thank you to the supervisors for holding the hearing. this is personally and professionally important to me. personally because a lot of you partake in the restaurants and professionally, because it's an opportunity to make changes as we go through the process together. whether desired or undesired is

the home for small businesses and their information. we partnered together with public health, fire, entertainment and the police department many, many years ago to create a consolidated license bill to annually renew all of the permits and licenses they have easily. what we're going to tack about today is the -- talk about today is the large change we've made in partnership with the public health department. the large change was being the first in the country to put an online permit for food permits. this is an application that is begun after they go through the dbi and planning review to make sure the location is sufficient for them. as you know, as the data both anecdotal has shown, the process is long and took a will the of time for the restaurants -- lot of time for the restaurants. they recognize this as a point of contention as do the other studies. in addition to just the time and elapsed time, we have errors that were causing kickbacks.

we have inconsistencies in data. somebody would like their name on the restaurant one way, another way on another piece of paper, the address in a different location. this actually hindered the coordination of the departments to become one city, one voice. so we worked together with the public health department. they were collaborative and opened us up and had us participate in the lien process. we sat with them. it took a significant amount of days to get one application permitted. and the whole process was to decrease the time and increase the quality of the user experience. and staff experience is equally as important. we found a solution. as you know, the office creates a lot of online applications. we have 100,000 businesses, 120,000 locations. the majority of the business have to file tax in one month,

online and pay. surprisingly enough, 95% of the businesses are on time so our office figured out how to put this online, get the payments in and that's how we started to work with the public health department. we wanted to a business to populate it with the information. to take away typo. and all of the little things that do cause challenges. so what it does, the center point is, one city, one set of data, how we move you forward and save the other departments some -- quickly and responsively? sophisticated work flow in the background that makes sure it's calculating based on the responses they have and all of the different permits that

environmental health department will speak about later, speak to in permits. the benefits have been sizeable. the public health department has achieved an award for the work itself. the application is done whether they come in person, they can do it at home, whomever they're working with. they also can get feedback from the inspector. only about 7-9 of the current applications under review have been sent back. so further questions to the businesses themselves. and we have the city as i said earlier planning and fire getting directly the information that they need to proceed with their applications and permit. the benefits as i said, were the applications are more accurate. we have reduced the amount of inquiry back and forth. and more importantly, i'll talk later about the number of applications that have come through and been approved within the less than one year.

i think most people have talked about the time and the last time, and how long does it take. we've had over 647 applications approved. 1200 have been put into the system. processing time decreased by 100%. most improved in 90 days and some even in 70 days. i think supervisors asked what is next and how we continue to do improvements? our office is updating the forms, public health office as well as the restaurants have told us to make changes on the form itself. we went live with version 2. we're working with department of public works to bring tables and

chairs on the license, consolidate the bills, so businesses have a predictable way of when they have to pay and what they have to pay and by location, which is then a huge saving. when we went with license consol day, the delinquency rate dropped as well. and i think the most important thing we're seeing as the association spoke about, the treasurer's office is part of the business tax reform discussions impacting many of our businesses, small and large, particularly in the restaurant industry. >> supervisor fewer: any questions? seeing none, thank you very much. good to see you again. next is the department of public heal health. this is stefani curbing. >> good afternoon.

i we're committed to the lean process. more than a year ago we heard that the process for us, after doing what we call a value street mapping, took 79 steps for a restaurant to apply for a permit from us. so 79 steps. it took 23 feet of paper. and took almost close to a year as ms. shaw pointed out. the study that we did, fire, planning, oewd, all participated so we could see the broader view of what was happening to the restaurant. plus the association sent representative.

we have change it to eight steps and we use their information to populate the application. it's online. and you can also pay online. from that, as she also stated, we won a state award being the only jurisdiction in california that has an online application in addition to payment online. so that any person, applicant can apply anywhere they are, wherever they have a computer. in addition, we have a specialist in our office. if somebody comes in, they're helped to fill out the application online in our office. in addition that, once the completed application is received, then it is assigned to an inspector and an immediate e-mail goes out to the applicant to call this inspector to start their process for inspections and what other needs they may

have so they can move through the system much quicker. so what used to take almost a year, takes anywhere from 2-4 months. so we've certainly decreased that amount of time. we continuously want to improve so we have something called planned to study act. where we look at what is going on now and try to improve that. the inspectors here from the public, from the restaurant applicants, with regards to what they feel could be better, what is slowing the process down, how we can do things better and that's why we actually held off moving to the second phase until we addressed all the issues that we've had in the background. so as ms. shaw said, we're moving to the second phase. we're trying to also move the other 35 programs in environmental health to an

online presence so that other applicants for any type of permits that we issue don't face the same things that the restaurant owners faced. and we started with the food program, because that is one of the largest programs that we have in environmental health. in addition to that, i wanted to say that we are trying to streamline our inspection process so it's more risk-based following the center for disease control's five major issues that cause foodborne illness. and supervisor peskin has sponsored that. it's been before you, so we will become more in line with the counties around us using red, yellow, green. so it's consistent as you move from county to county, and also restaurant owners are not seemingly punished because they have a broken tile in the back.

or a broken tile in their bathroom. or they just don't seem at that time to have paper towels or soap in the bathroom. so it's really punishing them in that way where they lose points, this is more risk-based. it's based on food temperatures, food storage. hand washing, if they don't wash their hands and finally where the source of their food comes from. so we're making changes to the way that environmental health has operated in the past. and we're moving forward with that. any questions? >> supervisor fewer: any questions? colleagues? seeing none. thank you very much. we appreciate that. so let's open up the public comment and hear from you. i'm going to call names out. everyone has two minutes.

[reading of names] >> trying to earn a living where the two are at odds. fortunately, some of the

lawmakers in the city and voters as well, have made decisions in the last five years, at least since i've been in business that have affected us and makes it hard to stay afloat. the first is minimum wage. since we opened it's gone up from $12.25 to $15.59, which is 24% increase. and there looming threat each year. so there is this constant dark cloud hanging over wages. one of the hardest things about the minimum wage increase is that all of our employees are still working 2-3 jobs in san francisco. so i wish i could pay my employees more actually. they work really hard, but all of them have multiple jobs, you know, we like to hire people that live in san francisco, because it means they're more likely to be on time and come to

their job. i'll send my statement to supervisor fewer. i appreciate your time. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. i'm one of the co-owners of a restaurant in di viz dar oe advis dario. we opened our restaurant 18 months ago after nearly three years of working to open it. we have a second-floor restaurant as well as a ground space. my partner and i have started to consider projects in other parts of the city, including north beach, dog patch, mid market and soma. as of late, we've started to consider san francisco a nonviable market. because the giga economy undermining full-time employment, no housing for current employees to live in sf, no transport for those employees to get back and forth to other

parts of the bay area, especially after midnight, a completely inefficient and painful planning process, including the d.r., discretionary review, which gives opportunity for future neighbors to extort you before actually opening your restaurant. ada compliance which often can take a business from being viable to unviable. pg&e schedules and monopoly pricing. prop 13, property tax, most people are unaware that they can negotiate a clause into their lease, prop 13 and the idea of triple net leases doubling or tripling in a single year if you're a landlord decides to sell the building. profit margins going to less than single digits.

the rising costs of labor. on a yearly basis, in addition to opening costs not including -- i mean, including a $250,000 cost -- [bell ringing] -- liquor license, so... >> supervisor fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, i'm andy chun. press club, 125-year-old beer hall in the financial district. former owner of a cafe on fillmore street which we had to sell because it didn't work. the city is amazing, it's wonderful. it's increasingly difficult to be financially viable unless you have deep pockets and a lot of resources that most of us don't have. i am currently going through a process to open up a new cocktail bar. the reason we're focusing on the cocktail bar segment, it only

has 10 employees. our restaurants have 30, 40, 50. and the cost of labor is the number one driver of the business. when looking at 5% profit margin and the cost of labor increases, 10%, 15% year over year, it's not hard to do the math. i'm very appreciative of the effort in the hearing and the willingness of the city to look at the issues. a lot of them are beyond the scope of what any of us can do, but having that single point of contact, going through the process and understanding your probability of opening before you commit capital to the project would be hugely useful. i am solution oriented and i applaud the effort. i think we should continue down that path. as we look through other places, i decided we're only going to be do bars. if we do a restaurant again, it

can't be done in san francisco at this time. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for taking the time to listen to us. we really appreciate it and i think it's a very necessary thing that needs to happen. my name is angel davis, i have two tiny wine bars in san francisco, both of them had to go through cu. one of the reasons we have the model is because it's easy to pay for the employees and maintain a somewhat profitable business at that level. but for both businesses for me, it took 13 months for the first business and the second one took 16. luckily, on the second one, we were in a space where we were selling wine in retail, but the profit margin is little, so it was me working all the time and then supporting the second business until we had an ability to open the bottle and serve it to customers. a lot of things i want to say,

have been said. just, please, do whatever it takes and we'll work with you. it's really sad to see what is happening with the city. third generation. i want to stay here. we need you to listen to us, our hardships and whatever you can do to help us get through this. >> supervisor fewer: next speaker, please. >> hi, i'm charlotte. i own a restaurant in the mission. i'm focused on fine dining, personally, but the speakers before me and after me are big people in the restaurant industry worldwide. we're not talking just small wine bars. angel's wine bar is voted one of the best in the u.s. so we're all proud to be part of this community, but we're suffering to consider san

francisco as a viable market for our future spaces. i've had a lot of time to think about what is my largest challenge of owning a restaurant here. i started my restaurant 26 years, self-funded, no help. so when something hits me economically, it hits me personally very hard. it's a shame that our employees can't get home with dignity. the bar is severely outdated. as we know, not safe. it is psychological trauma to my employees to worry about if they're going to, as an adult, make the train home to the east bay, because of the severe housing crisis we have. not to mention payroll taxes and everything else that feels like such a struggle to stay above water. i can't get my employees home. so i think for me, my number one

problem is, having reliable transportation that is safe and effective. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> michael dellar, one market restaurant. it's great that all the city departments are here and health and everything, because it shows there is a lot of stuff happening. i think that's great. i love the idea about the outdoor seating fee renewal every year. that would be a terrific thing to address. and there are more fees like that that everybody can take on. san francisco has an image of one of the great cities in the world. places that people want to travel to. and a big portion of that is because of our restaurants. if i could implore the supervisors, not only in this room, but in the rest of the board that isn't here, to really

look at the situation in san francisco with a sense of urgency, i think we can accomplish something and do it in a way that the reputation of san francisco will not be degraded, decreased, because it's happening. the numbers, you can ask any restauranteur in the room, the numbers are down. look at fishermen's wharf. i want to tell you one story. he lives in napa valley. he invited so friends from germany to visit. go to san francisco, the city, spend a couple of days there, and they said i don't think so. we hear it's not what it used to be. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. marian co-tello.

skullers had the privilege of being inducted as a legacy restaurant, nominated by supervisor peskin. in order for us to be a legacy, i think a great part of what made us legacy were the long-term employees. i've been there for 35 years. i was born in petrillo hill, i live there, but only by the grace that my great-grandfather built there in 1907. i wouldn't be able to afford to live there. i will be losing three senior managers in the next few months to texas, arizona, and way up north, mainly because there is opportunity, but there is opportunity for housing. and we had the benefit of very low retention for many, many years, but that is not happening anymore. people are leaving the industry. people are living so far out

that they can't take bart. we have to adjust schedules simply so they can take it in the morning. let alone if you do work the later shifts. my employees that do live in the city, are more fearful. they're not going to walk home to north beach anymore. they're going to take a cap, take über or lyft, because they no longer feel safe. and they are no longer willing to deal with what they feel they need to deal with, just what is going on in the streets. thank you for your time. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. matt, bistro and wine bar. we've been open for eight years, in the castro. bordering on dubose triangle. my partner and i have lived around the neighborhood since 2000. i'm with several groups, on the

board, castro merchants and retail strategy committee. i'm very invested in my community. a couple of ideas. we've talked about employee dormitories, so for folks who just need a room, shared kitchen, reduced rent. you can fit more people in there. housing is the number one thing we deal with on a daily basis. 75% of the folks come from east bay or further. my chef, many times she sleeps in her car. maybe if somebody has an extra room. we need more day time activation spaces. people who have shared spaces in neighborhoods and not downtown, they tend to stay to go for happy hour, go for dinner, dry cleaning, et cetera.

so let's loosen up the shared spaces in neighborhoods. in castro, retail strategy committee, we are doing -- trying to do landlord rent surveys. we would like to know that single landlords who don't live in san francisco have unrealistic visions of what rents are supposed to be. so we would like some transparency on folks for what everybody is paying a little more. let's continue the conversation. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. hi. my name is kim. i apologize, i missed the beginning of this because i wasn't made aware of the hearing until yesterday through an e-mail of a friend, and i was at a photo shoot i couldn't get out. i apologize, but just focused on permitting. i have a small restaurant a few blocks. we've been open three years.

it took me two years to open. i don't want to blame it on permit,ing, but it was eight months because of permitting. i am very lucky that i have a landlord who chose to turn my payment in investment. i applied to expand my space in september of 2018. my space is 700 square feet next door to me and i am still in permitting. a lot of this is because it stopped when the historical society decided to -- i'm trying to think of the correct words here -- flag my gates, which my landlord put up, to protect myself and my business due to the homeless situation. we weren't made aware of the pause on the permitting for a few months. we still have permitting through

january. it is a change of use. but if i didn't have a landlord who found out a pop-up tenant who would rent month-to-month, there is no way i would be considered. i love san francisco, but i don't really even want to expand anymore. even though it will help my business, it will double my revenue, i don't know if i want to. i just got approved for a loan to buy property, a bar, and i'm looking outside of the city, it's disheartening, the efforts we have to make. i don't want to crap on the system. i want to help. if there is anything that i can do that any of us can do, because we're san francisco, we want to help. if it's making people aware -- [bell ringing] -- >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. good >> good afternoon. i've spoken to you previously, but happy to reintroduce myself.

we opened five restaurants in five years and employ 200 women and men, building a brand that is quickly become part of the cultural fabric of san francisco. as the person who does all the developmental work, i can say while it's easier for us to open them internally, it's exponentially more difficult to open them externally. due to the city's conflicting directives. this should not be the case. we do the same thing each time. the brand is the same, the menu, the equipment. we're not reinventing the wheel. we know the process, i know the key people and yet we get tripped up. we manage to find a new land mine not previously encountered. one story, our location that was

broken into, cash stolen and ipads and we've had other locations broke into, including our main office. on the design plans was the inclusion of the security gate to protect the windows. these plans underwent review and were permitted. we were in the process of having it installed when members of the preservation department drove up and said it be removed. they withheld our permit to operate until it was taken down. we're fortunate to have your office of workforce development, she is a god send, even for seasoned operators myself. this city -- well, every week i get requests about opening in their neighborhood and i -- [bell ringing].

[applause] >> supervisor fewer: next speaker, please. >> hello. while we've given a lot of voice to the challenges we face in the cost of running a business, we need to take a look at the cleanliness of the streets and the homelessness issue. i know it's a focus, we haven't talked about homelessness and i know that you here probably aren't in a capacity to talk about length, but i ask that each of you go back to your fellow members and to give us an

opportunity to further talk about how we can work together to clean up our streets. i've had my restaurant in the downtown market broken into by a homeless person who tried to break into our liquor room. hire security for two weeks to be in the restaurant because i didn't feel it was safe. >> i filed my payroll taxes.

and the restaurant wage theft was one of two areas of focus. the other being construction. i felt like i was doing what i could to represent an industry that was trying to respond well to an issue which is really ironic. and bums me out. at the very same time, businesses that sell food to our customers through online platforms were setting up business in san francisco those very same years. and they were setting up their businesses on a framework that was beyond wage theft that was fundamentally exploitive of the labor pool by classifying workers.

so the commission that the businesses take in our free market society are well beyond the range of margin that a restaurant has, which is anywhere from 0 to 6%, so a 20% commission is well beyond that. i'm post -- to ask you what your priorities are and who your customers are? in the way that we regulate [bell ringing]. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. [applause] >> good afternoon. my name is brian, owner of kitchen out of the mission, i'm also a board member of the

golden gate restaurant association. i want to reiterate. first of all, the service industry is the life blood of the city. we're the reason why san francisco has held up as a gem historically as a city to visit across the world and we provide unique cultural experiences. we also provide employment opportunities or blue collar, immigrants, students. and so i encourage you -- and i'm thankful that your inviting us to speak here today, to be courageous about the type of change and not just think about having change around the margin. think about the business models that we need to operate within in order to succeed and try to prioritize the actions that can

be taken by everyone in this room that can have the biggest impact possible. not just new restaurants, but existing restaurants, businesses, many of which have been in business for decades and are now closing at rapid rate because it's difficult to operate within the confines of the current environment, given the real constraints of our business models. let's also realize we're all on the same team. we want vibrant -- >> i want to remind the audience, you're not allowed to eat or drink in the chamber. so please refrain or you'll be removed from the chamber. >> -- come visit our restaurants. [laughter] we're all on the same team. we want to get back and work together. let's take the south line as mentioned. we're all willing have the conversations. >> next speaker, please.

>> one of the current operators at cafe floor. a 46-year-old restaurant in the castro. thank you, supervisor fewer, for holding the hearing. i would like to speak directly about the question on the sidewalk permit. in 2013, cafe floor paid $2365 for its sidewalk permit. in 2018, it paid $4338 for its sidewalk permit. during those years, there have been no visits. there has been one person, i think stopped by, and i don't know what services or time and material were generated in my going online and paying those bills, but that's a lot of money to increase almost over $2,000 in those handful of years. that's one example. cafe floor needed to split its

operation and receive a permit for the kitchen across the from its restaurants because the restaurant is too small. when scott wiener passed the legislation and enabled the restaurant to continue to be open and now we're paying for not one restaurant -- not one restaurant fee, not one registration, not one health, we pay for two. so our 40-seat sidewalk cafe pays for not one, but two restaurants. it pays almost -- [bell ringing] -- twice the amount in sidewalk fees in half a dozen years. these are concrete real things happening in the community that as the last speaker said, we need to do something about and do something about them right now. or we will be gone like everyone else. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. next n. -- next n. --

next speaker, please. >> hello. i'm luke. i really have fallen in love with the industry and i may request an additional minute, what hasn't been touched on is the issue of the tech platform, which is very much in the news. we call them grub hub or tablets. they're gaining $5 billion a year in market share. they're up to 25%. they charge user rates 25-30% fees. it's been in all sorts of news in the districts because i'm sure all of us read the articles about restaurants all the time. about how many places are closing because of that. or they don't realize they're losing money for several months, several landmark restaurants in san francisco have closed and they lose money while they do that. they're subsidizing, running

ads. don't ruin your night by going out. that's $100 million advertising against the heart of the city. and these are small mom-and-pop businesses, with local artists that meet and try to make ends meet. they're virtually integrating. they're opening kitchens. 16 kitchens that are owned. it's like crop-sharing, but for a kitchen, and you have to use their platform. it's really what it is. it's user-risk to people. and the virtual restaurants don't exist. they're taking the tips away from people. and then there is new technology, starbucks in the castro permit was to sell 2000 sandwiches. now they're selling 2000 sandwiches from a turbo chef, so why get bacon and eggs. so the permitting system hasn't kept up with the technology.

the big digitals, they're buying restaurants as part of it. [bell ringing] >> supervisor fewer: thank you, sir. any other public speakers. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> supervisor haney: thank you, chair fewer, for calling this hearing and thank you to everybody who came out. you know, i think we all agree that our restaurant industry is the life blood of the city, one of the public commenters said that. and that it is having a very difficult time right now. i think that was reflected in all of the comments i heard today. there is a couple of things i wanted to say. one, it sounded like everybody wants to be a part of the solution and has a lot to share. and that we need to figure out what the right ongoing venues are for that.