>> this is the meeting of the small business commission, august 10, 2020. the meeting is called to order is 5:32 p.m. we thank media services and

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sf gov tv, please show the small business slide. this is the public forum to voice opinions and concerns about policies that affect the public vitality of small businesses in san francisco. the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, particularly at this time, find us online or via telephone. as always, our services are free of charge. before item one is called, i would like to start by thanking media services for coordinating the virtual hearing and the livestream and a special thanks to arch frius. please call item number one. >> call to order in role call. (role call).

>> commissioner adams is having trouble getting into the meeting. (role call). >> mr. president, you have a quorum. >> please call item number 2. >> discussion on small business reopening during the covid-19 pandemic. the small business commission seeks to understand the current dynamic of the virus, testing and what small businesses can expect over the six to 12 months. discuss item presenter is dr. tomas aragon, health officer of the city and county of san francisco and doctor, when you're ready for me to pull up your presentation, just let me

know. >> welcome, doctor, and thank you for making yourself available. you have a challenging job, to say the least. and we have very grateful that you are the one doing it. so thank you for coming and making time for us today. with that, we would like to give you the floor. >> thank you very much. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> fantastic. i've five put together ten slides. let's put up the slides. >> if you're sharing your slides, you have to have the ball and if not, i can pass it to whoever is sharing it with you. >> last time i shared slides, my computer crashed.

>> we've all been there. are you pulling that up, dominca? >> yes. >> perfect. so let's go to the next slide. i want to start off by letting you know how san francisco did to other comparable areas across the united states and so, if you look especially at the number of deaths, the death rate, you see san francisco is 6.1 and you compare it to new york city, which is almost about 275 per 100,000. and the reason why this contrast is important is that it really gives you an idea of how devastating this virus can really be to community.

we are the second densest city in the country and we were at risk of having a new york style event. from the researchers that looked at san francisco, they estimated that we prevented over -- from the shutdown, we prevented over 38,000 hospitalizations and over 4,000 deaths and you can see other cities, as well, that have had higher death rates and higher case rates. and so that's really -- just to give you an idea of the challenge we have faced. and so in general, the bay area has continued to do better than other parts of the country, other parts of california and i'm going to go over where we are now and some of the challenges that we face.

and the other thing i want to mention is that sometimes people pose this as a choice between the economy and containing the virus. the areas that have tried to open up the economy first have not succeeded. you have to contain the virus. the parts of the world that are opening up their economy are the parts of the world that have successfully contained the virus first. this virus is so infectious, it's unforgiving and it's relentless. and it's pretty much impossible to do any type of higher risk activity -- higher-risk activity would be, for example, indoor dining and that's impossible unless you control this virus. it's that infectious. we cannot do any high-risk activity until we have the level

of active infection so small, the risk is so shawl, we're able to put up the fires that show up. the mistake that california made, georgia, alabama, florida, all of them is that they tried to open up the economy before having the virus under control and what you see is that it actually makes things worse and takes longer to open up the economy. next slide. and so the things that we look at -- and i'll mention these briefly. i do want to point out is that in june, in june, across california, people seem to think it started with memorial day weekend, that we really had a spike in cases. we were actually getting ready to open up personal services. we noticed that our cases were going up, hospitalizations were going up and then we ended up on what the state calls the watch list and that is when several

indicators are moving in the wrong direction. when you end up on the watch list, we had to shut down -- the state required us to shut down nonessential offices, malls, to not open indoor personal services and to put a pause on everything. and we're still on the watch list and we're moving in the right direction and we'll come off the watchlist -- they've been having issues with their data, it should be happening this week and it will put us in a better position to come off the watch list. i think what's happening, the state is reevaluating their framework of how they'll open up california and all of california

is in the same position. right now 38 counties out of 58 counties ro are on the watch lit and they represent 75% of the population in california. so this has been a real challenge. the state was focusing on southern california. it's now focusing on central california and trying to calm things down. as i said, the bay area in general has been doing better than other places. the things that we look at, the hospital trends, case-rate trends, test positivity and i'll show you the effective reproductive numbers. when you look at all of this, it gives you an idea of what's happening. we look to make sure the healthcare is ready. we look at testing, our surveillance system and our ability to do case investigation, contact tracing and outbreak management and then

all of the prevention activities that we need to do. and one of the challenges with a pandemic is that because we have a surge across the whole country, it has slowed down testing dramatically across the whole country. and that's been a real challenge because if you can't get tested or don't get test results back in a quick way, it makes it different to do -- actually, impossible do case investigation and contact tracing and outbreak management. and then the next level is level of business readiness and i'll go over some of the core concepts. we know a lot more about the virus today than we did each jusevenjust a few weeks ago. we're able to really nail down key concepts that if we all focus on these concepts, collectively, we'll be able to reduce the level of infection and when we do that, we're going to be able to move forward. next slide. so in san francisco, we have

over 7,600 reported cases, and over 67 deaths and we have done close to 300,000 tests. next slide. if you look on the left-hand side, is the epidemic curve of cases. so we shut down in march. when we shut down in march, we had this first wave here, and back there you see that in april. had we not shut down, we would have gotten a big new york city-style spike and so we were able to -- people classically describe this as flattening the curve. so we were able to flatten the curve and we were doing fine until june. and so, it started in june where we started to see a rise in cases and then this was followed by rises in hospitalizations.

so here on the right-hand side is that you'll sigh the hospitalization rise and so we had up to 114 people in san francisco. you can see here in august and this is where we were until just recently and we did a lot of education of asking people to please, please, please, wear your face mask, physical distancing, avoid social gatherings. we did this peak over the past severaunfortunately, the caseins high and we're hoping that will continue to go down. next slide. and so, what happens is that we

have mathematical modelers at uc berkley that take the hospitalization data. what we know about the population biology of the virus and then do projections. we're much better than two weeks ago. two weeks ago, we were projected to go up to 1,000 cases if we did not get things under control. this is an example where i say we're much better off today than we were back then. back during the first wave, we did not know about the utility of face coverings. now we know about face coverings. we're able to give people concrete advice and that's why we were able to make a difference here. we can see that it's getting much better. next slide. and so, this is what's called

the effective reproductive number and that is the average number of secondary cases produced by an infectious case and so an infectious case produces more than one. the epidemic grows and if it produces more than one, the epidemic decreases. this is a positive feedback group and it grows exponentially and when it's below one, it's a negative feedback and so, the epidemic is doing smaller and smaller and smaller, and that's exactly what we want. we want the negativetive feedback group, get the infection level as low as possible and do riskier activities. to give you an example, parts of the world -- in taiwan, they go to the opera.

in the opera, everybody wears face coverings and the level is so low that even as something as risky as the opera being open, they're able to do. that's where we want to get to, but we're not going to get there unless we all work together. you can see in june, you can see this dramatic spike and you can see it went up to about 1.31. that level right there, even though it doesn't sound like a lot, that would have lead to over 1,000 hospitalizations and would have lead to many deaths over time. with the changes in behaviour, we can see it's just below one and so we're moving in the right direction and that's great news and hopefully, we'll continue to go there. next slide. just to give you an idea, here is most of our infection or half of the infections are in latin x populations and primarily in the younger groups.

so here you see the ages between 18 and 40. you see the biggest infection that group and i would say that's probably the biggest change we've seen. we've always seen a concentration in the latin x. in june, we saw it moving beyond latin x, moving to younger age groups and to other ethnic groups, as well, and also more infections across the city. so a lot more community transmission is what we saw. we expect it was primarily because of people doing social gatherings. next slide. and then here is where the geographic intensity is in terms of cases and the intensity of transmission, although it's city-wide, we have much more infection going on in areas where there's low income, crowded and primarily, again, in the latin x and primarily you

see here on the east side of the city is where we see the most intense infections. one question that people ask me is, why are we having this surge, why is the state closing down malls and why is the state not allowing personal services to go down and if we don't know if that may or may not be associated with the current surge. and i think that's been one of the challenges that's happened, is that we think the state can do a better job. they can do a better job of really trying to understand the underlying drivers of the surge. there are certain things that do seem to be holding up, is activities have happened indoors, where people talk off face coverings is high risk.

when you have an indoor gathering is a large amount of trainingtrainingstransmission. the next slide. and so one of the big ideas that's coming out, it's much safer to do things outdoors than it is to indoors. so the extent we can move activities outdoors, it reduces the risk dramatically. but it doesn't mean it's risk-free. so we know, for example, that just talking -- actually, just breathing, just breathing -- if you're infected and even if you have no symptoms, just breathing

puts out virus into the air. if you're talking, more virus. if you elevate your voice, more virus. if you sing, it's even worse. you get tiny, tiny ai aerosols t stay in the year for extended periods of time. while wearing a face mask reduces that by 80%, even if everybody is wearing a face covering indoors, it doesn't prevent 100% because that means that each person -- if someone is infected, the level of virus has been put into the air is reduced by 80% and if you have an indoor space, a single person can infect a lot of people. and that's one of the big take-home messages. indoor activities is very, very dangerous. it will be better when we get the level of infection really low so that even the indoor

activity will be less risky. so while we have so much community transmission, there's some parts the city that have over 10% of tests that are positive, which is really, really high. and so, when you sort of do the mathematics, it's the cumulative risk of having someone walk -- if community transmission is high and you're in an indoor restaurant, the risk of having an infected person in your restaurant everyday, if you're serving over 60 people a day, you'll have over 50% probability that an infected person without a mask is inside your restaurant. that's why it's so incredibly dangerous. it's important not to think about just the individual per capita risk or individual risk. what it really is, the cumulative risk that matters and that's why day after day after

day, it just spreads so dramatically. next slide. so there is my last slide. so what i want to leave with you before we open it up for questions is to say that the state has been going through a surge. different parts of the state are in different part of the surge. southern california seems to be cooling down. their hospitalizations are going down and they have had a lot of deaths. central valley is very impact. what we saw by looking at maps, we saw all of california was involved, including the bay area. san francisco made it on to the watch list and all of the bay areas on the watch list, we're all in the same boat, so to speak. we're all in the same boat. and we suspect what the state will do as it reevaluating the framework going forward, it will

probably break up sections in california into regions because we're so connected economically that it will treat us as a region that when they decide to reopen things up. i can't tell you how they're going to do that. they haven't communicated to us and i'll give you some advice later on that i think it's important to communicate moving forward. in terms of community mitigations, there's really four areas to really focus on. and that is mobility and mixing. every time you leave outside the home and you mix with people outside your household, that starts increasing risk. wherever you arrive to that location where you may be meeting somebody outside of your household, it could be outdoor restaurant. it could be indoor retail, whatever it is, ventilation matters. and so outdoor is much better than indoors and if somebody has

to happen indoors, ventilation, ventilation, ventilation. open up those windows. and then you have closeness of contact. how many contact? how much contact are you having with people? how close are you and what is the duration of contact? so any time there's crowds or if you have, for example -- let's say you're a grocery clerk, that grocery clerk is seeing customer after customer after customer and that cumulative risk to that grocery worker over a day will be larger than an individual person that works into the store. you can see individuals that have that frequency of contact will have the highest risk and this is why workers, bus drivers and anybody that's seen a lot of customers, their cumulative risk will be higher. waiters, for example, and so as you're designing things, it's important to take that into

account. the last thing i'm pointing out, we have control over individuals and workplaces which is face coverings, handwashing and an environmental disinfection. these four are the pillars not only to design things to be safe, but now know enough about the biology of this virus that if we all practise this, it can make a big difference. our big goal -- just to let you know what the big goal is, we have to get the prevalence so low that not only can we open up businesses but can get kids back in school. this is really, really critical. we have to get kids back in school because the impact -- the life-long impacts having kids out of school is very, very, very big. and so, i'm trying to get all of the adults motivated, that we want the risk to be low, not just so we can open businesses but that we can get our kids

back if school because our kids are really the future. so they're the things we're focusing on. you'll hear about health ordered, directives and guidance, public health campaign, our surveillance system and then the contact tracing. those are the things that we're focusing on but it is a partnership between us, you and the communities to really move this forward. and so i'm going to stop there and leave it open for questions because i'm sure there are a lot of question. but i'll try to answer as many as i can. >> doctor, thank you very much and you most certainly are correct. there's no question there will be a lot of questions and first, i will open it up to my fellow commissioners and please feel free to put your name in the chat and let's see if we have any questions. why don't we cycle and wait for them to figure out where chat is. i imagine some are looking for it.

i'm ask a couple of quick questions. you see people concerned about surface contamination and we know aerosol contamination is where majority of it lies. but is there a risk with surface contamination? >> it's important to keep surfaces clean because what happens, if somebody is not wearing a face covering, and they're sick, coughing, sneezing, they'll contaminate surfaces, your eyes and you touch your nose, face, mouth and so we've known for a long time that infections get spread that way.

we absolutely know that. and handwashing does make a good impact. what we did not -- what the researchers did not appreciate, and this is where our conventional wisdom failed us and that is we assumed that this coronavirus was going to act like the other coronaviruses because the other coronaviruses -- you look at the homology between the sars1 and sars 2 and they're like 90% alike and, yet, their population biology is night and day. and so, there it was, primarily big droplets, people did not transmit the infection until they were very, very sick and it happened only in hospitals. this virus, sars, cov2, a lot of people that have no symptoms are transmitting and the viral low

and when they're infectious. so while we're still concerned about phomyte transmission, the risk over here with droplets in aerosol is so much larger and means we have to focus on that, but not that that doesn't happen. >> we other commissioner economies. commissioner adams. >> thank you, dr. aragon and excellent presentation and thank you, and thank you for just everything you've been doing for the city and county of san francisco. my question is on haircutters and hairstylists and everything you said, i get it, with the bars and everything. but there are in other states where they've opened up in other

cities, where they have kept bars closed but they let haircutters and stylists back in with proper protocols and a lot of those people, you know, in their business, they have to go through a health regimen to get licensed. is there anything on that to help, at least those small businesses get back open? >> we feel personal services can be done safely indoors and we were ready to do it july 29th. and then, we ended up on the watch list and the state said to us, do not allow any indoor personal services and that's indefinitely. so right now what's keeping from

opening indoor personal services is the surge that we've been going through but it's because we're on the watch list. so the state is not permitting us. this is actually one of the advocacy points i mentioned to the people who do personal services is that we really have to advocate to the state that they move to a risk-based approach for businesses rather than picking winners and losers among businesses, really focusing on what is the risk. can it be mitigated? and if it can't be mitigated, you allow it to happen and that way, we're not in the business of picking winners and losers. people can focus on mitigating the risk and that would be much more fair way to approach opening things up. >> great, thank you very much.

commissioner yukutio. thank you so much for presenting in front of the commission. i'll start with the reassurance. i know maggie wyland will be on in a little bit and i'm proud o say that the valencia shutdown is an example how you can safely shut down a corridor. people are taking the mask wearing extremely seriously. we are breaking up gathering going on. my first question is about when. everything that you've said, doctor, makes so much sense and i want to say thank you so much for saving lives. i don't think you get enough of that and i want to express

gratitude to you on behalf of the small business community. but those lives are people, as well, and they're our community and you're a hero. on the timeline of reopening for the businesses not allowed to reopen or not fully reopened, what is the r number, the number of hoppings and the percent positive rate to commence that opening timeline again? >> so there isn't a specific number. i would say that -- right now we've absolutely moving in the right direction. and so, my opinion is that because certain things -- a lot of the personal services can be done safely indoors, hospitalizations are going down, effective reproductive numbers are going down and the case rate is still high.

i don't think that the personal services are going to be contributing to a lot of community transmission because the risks can't be mitigated. and so i'm hoping that the statt off the watch list, that's number one. [ laughter ] >> and when we're off the watch list and everything is going down, that, you know, the state is going to say, ok, folks that are off the watch list, if you meet a, b or c criteria, go forward. the challenge is that we don't know what framework the state will use because i think the state is pivoting in its strategy. and what happens is that the state got in trouble. things happened very fast and -- not just the businesses, things happened very fast and the public eats behaviour changepubo

such an extent we got in trouble and the state is reevaluating how we will move forward. they have not communicated to us how that will happen. and so all of us including myself are waiting to see, ok, state, please tell us how you think we'll move forward.

we want to get it below one and stay below one. we were there for awhile. we want to get our active infection rate -- right now, the number that we're looking at is over one hundred per one hundred thousand. we actually want to get it down to the -- we were down there. if you look at our metric, we were down to ten per 100,000. we want it as low as possible. and we want hospitalizations to be going down. if wthat just gives you a generl idea of what's happening in the community. then it's what people do. and so when you look at activities, we look at -- we want to avoid indoor activities where people by definition have

to take off their masks. so i think that' those are the t things we want to do. the last things we want to do are things that are high risk, sporting events, things that we eventually, hopefully, can do if the risk is really, really, really low. and i don't think -- we're learning from other parts of the world where they've gotten it so low they're able to do those risks and outbreaks still happen, but they're able to contain them because they jump on. we're not close to that yet. the reason is because people are anxious to open things up quickly and people's behaviour -- we don't have the discipline that other countries have yet. >> so i think what i'm getting at, doctor, we have all been good soldiers in this and listened to the policymakers explain how we'll overcome this virus. from the very beginning, folks

like yourself will look at the data, the facts and the science and decisions will be made on that and that seems like the right thing to do. we're not scientists. so we hear that and love it. based on that, we had a reopening typeline that was adjusted because the numbers and the data and the facts changed. where we are now, it seems, doctor, is it seems like we're in this indefinite slug, which has a cascading emotional effect on those trying to figure out how to plan our livelihoods. the reason i am trying to get you to come up with a sense of when we can expect this is because we've all been trained over the last four months to hear from you what numbers we need to see in order for us to continue some versions of what we were doing before and where we are right now and i think i'm communicating this clearly, is this feeling of indefiniteness because we don't know, it seems,

when we're going to get to a lacplace where a data will allos to resume mask-wearing normalcy. that's causing a lot of frustration and panic in the small business community, is what i'm hearing. >> i agree with you.

i feel like yourself, that in san francisco, we have people who understand what science we do know and are applying it in a very thoughtful way so that you can open up valencia street and you can mitigate some of that. so i'm hoping that is the path we navigate while things get better. >> ok, i have more questions, but i want to let other people speak so i'll pass on the baton. thank you, doctor. >> commissioner huey.

ie. >> what are some of the new things you've learned about the virus? >> there's new things about the aerosolization. we have more engineering studies able to evaluate how much virus is produced by people talking. i just learned there was a research study just published a few days ago that gators that you wear, the gators that people wear to cover, it turns out that actually may be making things worse because it takes the

droplets that are usually big and should be contained, it actually creates small aerosols that come out of the gators and that may be worse. some will wear them as a face covering, but if what's it's doing, the droplets are filtered and aerosolized coming out, that it may be a worse situation. that's what i mean by the science. it'as we learn more, we used toe things that were good, may not be a good thing. if we adjust, that's better for us. >> with this particular example, how able is san francisco able to then adjust to something like that? would we be able as a city say,

we figured out what type of face covering is more effective or better for everybody? are we able to make some of the decisions ourselves? >> well, i think part of this will be -- i think part will be education. the other example, i did not think of it -- it took me awhile and we came to the realization. so initially, we had decided when we were going to start opening up -- when we were going through our reopening plan, the economic recovery task force, we had decided let do outdoor dining first and let put off indoor dining and intuitivety made sense that outdoor would be safer than indoor activitieses anindoorindoors.and so, then wh,

we ended up doing -- we were going to say this followed by this. other places just went to indoor. what happens in retrospect, we realized, of course, indoor dining, when you do the math and you have community transmission, the cumulative risk of indoor dining just really, really large and we started -- and, basically, people discovered, when you think about it, it makes sense that it's just so risky, especially when there's ongoing community transmission and so, that allowed us to evaluate and say, we made the right strategic decision that we were going to do it one and not the other. the state ended up coming and just closing all indoor dining across the whole state and we never had a chance to experiment with indoor dining and that's an example where we -- when you go

back and you really think about it, we say, wow! very, very risky. and then you think indoor bars, very, very risky. a lot of places, they rushed into this and what ends up happening, you end up slowing down the reopening. and you have to control it first and then reopen. to try to reopen while there's a lot of community transmission mean has we have to mitigate that risk very intensely and that means we may never be able to open high-risk things until we're able to get it really low. >> the idea of cumulative is really interesting because that speaks to the equity piece. people are at higher risk because of the constant exposure.

>> we are concerned, for example, about teachers and so when teachers have -- we're concerned when teachers have a classroom full of kids, that's their cumulative risk. they're exposed to many kids, every single day, all day for months at a time, so that risk to a teacher will be really high and so, yeah, we do think about that, but i think that's why it's really important from an occupational health perspective is that we take that into account and try to mitigate the risk, especially for workers. this is going to be an issue, for example, of waiters. that's why we adjusted face mask orders around restaurants because the waiters were telling us that people are done eating and they're just talking and

yet, they're not wearing face masks and they want people to have face masks on once they're done eating and drinking. if they're just having conversations. they're putting them at risk because they are surrounded by people who don't have face coverings on and that's why we adjusted the face covering to ask people, when you're not eating or drinking, to go ahead is wear the face covering, because you want to protect not just other patrons from your household, but the workers who have to get exposed to people all day long. >> one last question -- actually, one other thing, just current testing, is there going to be an increase in testing? i know it changes, how quickly you get results and things like that. i know you have to get tested weekly and it changes each week, like how quickly he gets them. >> so, san francisco is taking -- we're taking a very

aggressive approach compared to other counties. and so we're actually -- we're shooting right now to go over above 5,000 tests per day and we'll be focusing on what we call high-impact adaptive testing response and we'll be primarily focusing on testing resources wherever we think the virus is, go where the virus is. so really focusing on community transmission, pop-up sites and wherever we believe there's a lot of transmission, that's where we want to have most of the testing and that's where you get your biggest efficiency and effectiveness, is when we call it pretest probability, test being positive is high. and so that's how we'll be focusing our efforts and that's the way we'll reduce it is going where the virus is. >> thank you very much.

>> commissioner cartagena. >> you said the rise in increase in the latin x is due to social gatherings. i beg to differ, i think this has long existed in our city. my first question is, regarding the information in spanish that people understand, what's the strategy that is taken on doing that? >> first let me clarify the first one. i completely agree with you. so let me clarify. so in the latin x community, we believe it's primarily for socioeconomic reason. people who have to leave the home to work. and so regardless of where the work is, so people who have to

work are going to have that risk of interacting with customers or wherever the workplace is. and because of multigenerational families, crowding, so to live in san francisco, lower-income people, more households live together to survive. and so we think that's the primary driver. in the latin x community, they have been high risk all along. way meant it went beyond the latin x and we started seeing it go into other age groups, other ethic groups and the other hypothesis we have is that we believe, because of this big spike, that there was a lot more social gatherings in general that helped to spread it. we can see if you look at our maps, we can see it spread across san francisco. ages between 10 and 19 increased

dramatically. so it went beyond lin latin x. we have a community branch to improve outreach to the community and there is a whole team of people who are working -- we're calling this the neighborhood response. and so that's a part of the high impact adaptive testing, to able to do testing, provide wrap-around services, you know, the right-to-recover program, having more materials in spanish and i understand the latino task force has been able to put together materials at myan. and so i actually think that we're moving in the right direction. but i think there's a lot more we have to do and i don't think we've done enough for the latino community. what we're seeing is that it's impacting all areas of the city.

if you look at the whole east side of the city, when you go there, it's primarily latinos who are becoming infected. it's a bigger focus for the health department and a high priority. >> and again, to my first question, so the first set of instructions in spanish -- >> i can follow up and i'll make sure to have them follow up with you because i think that's actually really important. there is a whole team of people that are working on this. >> i want to make sure that everybody here on the commission, we're brothers and sisters in this to plight. (indiscernible). >> i agree with you and i think for me, the equity impacts -- i

spent a loch time thinking about this. the impact it will have on the latino low income and african-americans. that's the impact of the people who have suffered the most both economically and in terms infection and death. the longer-term impact, every opportunity i'm telling you, it will be the kids. if we don't get this under control, these kids will be affected for the rest of their life. they're going to be left behind in terms of education and neurodevelopment. it's really, really critical that we control this. because they'll be affected for the rest of their life if we don't get this under control. >> my second question is, what is in place and/or how can we

help you to collect the data of the shared studies program and see the correlation to either mitigate or adapt or revamp the program? how can we help? >> so i think this is -- we suspect -- and this is hard because we don't have enough staff to just measure this and so when essential workers leave the home to work, i know -- for example, when i'm driving to work and i see construction workers, i see a lot of people not wearing face coverings, people close to each other not wearing face coverings and i suspect we need all of the work sites to really, really be -- to really protect their workers,

really critical. because what happens is that what we're discovering is that a lot of workers infect each other and this is true, even among teachers. they infect each other and bring it home and transmit it to their families. it's importanworker safety is rl and i would say that scenario that we have a common interest and that brings it back to the community and so that's how it spreads and we can't -- unless we get it under control, we're not going to be able to do more. >> thank you, and reach out to us. we're advocates. i'll go out there and march for you. let us know. we ain't shy. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioner

dooley. >> my questions are about mask wearing. i'm out in the community and i would say that many, many, many people are still not wearing masks and it puts a huge burden on our businesses to have to be policing the mask situation often with people who are very hostile and angry. i myself was told the other day i should die because i was wearing a mask. is the city planning to ramp something up on this and to help persuade, and i'll put that in quotes, people to wear their masks? because i sure see a lot of people who are still not complying. >> yes, so right now we do have an enforcement team that's working on just this very topic and going to be -- we'll be

focusing primarily on people who do not adhere, especially in indoor sites. that's the biggest bang for the buck. we agree with you. we have to do that. any type of indoor retail, we need people wearing their face coverings. i completely agree. we won't start with the outdoor just because the risk is lower. we'll go where the risk is higher and i know it's tough on the businesses and we really appreciate it when the businesses do a good job of doing this. so when walmart came out and said nationally -- they sent the message that this is not about politics and it's really about safety and i think that's one of the challenges that we have. >> i just am also wondering on

the outdoor, i live near the embarcadro and i'm walking on that a lot. if we could have a slightly different message, which is no, when you're running and riding a bike or skateboarding and all of that, you should be wearing your mask. i mean, they're coming so close to other people and i know myself and many others, we have to stan ou stand out in the strt because they're sweating and running and it's just crazy. >> so we have -- our face masking order or face covering order, i would say it's a model for the country because we actually require everybody, even when they're exercising or outdoors to be wearing a face covering, with the exception of there's nobody close to you. if no one is close to you and if you're out hiking by yourself and completely alone, we want you to have it readily available

and we're actually very specific. this is what people call the 30-foot rule. the idea because we have narrow streets and people are hiking on pathways is that you approach people, you're supposed to put your face covering on so that when you get within six feet of them, you already have it on. so that's the law. and we have to continue to educate people. so we have stricter face covering orders than probably any place in the country and we have to get people to be educated and to know about it. and i think some people who are exercising know about it and many do not. >> if we could put forward with some public service announcements ob thes on these i think it would be helpful for our businesses to not constantly be the cops with these folks. >> yes. thank you.

>> commissioner zouzounis. >> someone who deals in the service sector what do you recommend in terms of rotating staff who are most susceptible to that cumulative -- what did you call it, exposure? in terms of, should an employee who is at a register be tested once a week and then you rotate? i mean, i'm just trying to make it adjustable and a rubric to give businesses in terms of best

practises and rotating staff that are on the front lines, especially for businesses who that might mean closing down a day. if they need regular testing, manning their registers? that's my first question for managing and staffing. my second question, i know you mentioned that we're stuck at phase one being on a watch list. but my understanding is we're trying not to overwhelm the healthcare system and our hospitals and while we're doing that and stuff at this linear phase, is hospital capacity increasing and is this having an effect on us being able to move

the rest of the sectors along that linear path and not just be stuck with any some sectors being able to start while we wait for the healthcare sector to able to have capacity? if that makes sense. >> so let me start off, the best practises and so my son works in retail and so, he's exposed to customers all day. and i think -- this is going to be -- this is really important. a lot of it, obviously, you don't want crowding in a store. you want physical distancing and you want to have everyone to have a face covering and i would say it's important to have something plastic between the customer and the person who behind the cash register, to

make sure it's -- to keep some of that barrier protection. and i think if you keep doors open, ventilate, ventilate, ventilate. you want air exchange, and that will reduce the risk a lot. in terms of testing, essential workers can get tested. they can go to citytestssf. they don't need symptoms to be tests. if you have the mildest of symptoms, get tested. one of the challenges is you can get tested negative today and infected the next day and not have symptoms. the best strategy is to assume you and the people you're around is infected. assume everybody is infected and take precautions and if everybody did that, it will reduce risk. in terms of moving forward, so, like, i think we're going to

have to see -- we were getting in trouble. we seem to be coming out of the current surge. i think that hopefully, soon, we'll be off the watch list and then we'll have to see how the state then takes the watch list for the bay area to see how the state -- what framework they're going to use for moving forward. i don't think it's going to be the way -- it might continue to be the way it currently was. they may say, ok, san francisco, just continue down the way you were doing or they may come up with a more risk-based strategy where they'll say as long businesses can do these activities, let businesses open up. i don't know what approach they'll take. we're advocating for them to take a more risk-based approach and not to be selecting one type of business over another. because i think a lot of business people can show you

they can mitigate the risk and as long you can mitigate the risk, we think it should move forward. >> great. thank you, commissioner zouzounis. thank you so much for taking your time today. i was also able to attend the meeting that you had with the personal services and learned a lot from that meeting and was actually surprised by some of the information i got and changed how i thought about stuff. so just a few questions as it relates to how this interacts with the small business community. first, i know a lot of us are wondering about this. we do have some degree of contact tracing going on in the city. correct? >> yes, we do.

>> so do we have a sense of residential versus workplace. i remember reading studies from china that said about 86% of the transmission was happening in the context in the home, residential and pretty small percentage in the workplace or public. do you have a sense of where most of the community transmission is happening? >> if you became a case, i would ask were you around something diagnosed with koa valentine's . one-third are able to identify how they got affected. that's the challenge. we call that community traps

transmission. i would say over half of the cases right now are community transmission and that makes it difficult. >> yes, i can see the challenge there. in that contact tracing, have you identified any that either reported or confirmed or even highly suspected, went back to outdoor dining? unless you know you work in a high-risk place, it's almost impossible to know at an individual level to draw the inference of how you got infected. you need special types of

studies to sort that out statistically. because, basically, there's three buckets. there's your behaviour and what you do, your tendency to wear face coverings. there's where you go to mix people with folks. so there's the activity and the setting. so behaviour, activity and setting. and all of those, to some extent, are causing. so if you don't wear a face covering, that's causal. if you go to a restaurant and you have to take a face covering off to eat, the activity becomes causal and the setting indoor versus outdoor, that is causal. and that's the challenge we have with trying to sort out what the drivers are and without doing special studies to sort that out, it's hard to know. >> i was just curious if statistically, when we started to open up the outdoor dining --

for instance, if somebody is secluding themselves all day and working from home and their only possible source of contamination, i went out to eat five days ago, then that would certainly be suspicious. and i totally respect and understand what you're saying about the difficulty in inferring, but i was hoping to get some tea leaves there with respect to that. >> you're asking a really good question. and i would say -- to me, i would say outdoor dining is going to be a lot less riskier than indoor dining and i know just from the biology that if you're infected, you're putting out aerosols and my assumption is that being quickly diluted by air and so that the risk is lower and it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. >> right. >> it probably happens and just something i did mention with the personal services and that is --

i'll mention this again. we always have to distinguish between individual risk and then population risk. and public health, i'm trying to get the population risk to go down, recognising that there will be variability in individual risk and i think individuals tend to focus on the individual risk, which is good, because if every individual lowed their individual risk, that would lower the population risk. but there's always more people can do. people ask want what else can i do and there's always more you can do to reduce your risk. >> during that meeting, you mentioned four factors and you mentioned them in this meeting, as well. but hospitalizations, the case rate, the effective reproductive rate and the one that caught my eye was the percentage positive on testing and the reason that it caught my eye is, you know, even among friends, there's gun

opiniothere's beena debate if y, should we be getting tested just on a regular basis? and i've heard and active debate between putting additional on testing capability versus, you know, of course, if that's contributing to the denominator and that question on testing positive rate, naturally, you would want the symptom-pre-people to get tested so that you would have an accurate assessment of what the true positive rate is. and so do you have a sense of whether we should be getting tested even if we don't have cause for alarm? >> you're asking a very good question and i think the challenge is that it depends. so, for example, if you worked in a skilled nursing facility, we're testing the workers on a regular basis because that's a closed community and the only

way they get infected is because people bring it in and it will be the staff and so we're testing staff on a regular basis and the risk is so high. and so, again, it depends on the area. and, again, the challenge, of course, as i mentioned earlier, is that even -- we tell people, even if you test negative, you might get infected the very next day and not know that you're infected and so we tell people to always assume that you and the people around you are infected. now, the way that we're thinking about it is that, we want to -- we're thinking about it, we want to test in the communities where we believe there's a lot of transmission, where there's a lot of transmission, we know that that will drive up the percent positivity and so that's where we're going to be focusing our efforts. and i think you're asking a good

question. if you're somebody who rarely leaves the house and you feel fine, you're not potentially exposing other people. >> no, just to clarify the point. of course, right, like the risk is not high, but i'm just a little concerned about the denominator. if the percentage positive is a factor in determining when we open and what we open, if that denominator is only high-risk people, then the percentage positive will be higher. >> let me clarify. i don't look at that percentage positivity as a criteria for opening or not opening but a situational awareness. percentage positivity, though, is tricky because it's driven, as you just mentioned, driven by a lot of low-risk people get tested, it will drive that

number down and what we're doing, we're going where the virus is, that will drive the number up. >> so we're good. you mentioned that as a factor and i just -- >> that's for situational awareness. it gives you an idea across the city where there's a lot of activity happening. >> so another thing -- so we talked about how, i think, many things that many businesses here believe is a city-based decision is actually a state-based decision. in terms of what we open and the watch list precludes you from making any judgment about whether we open certain businesses and whether or not san francisco is on the watch list and there's a decision to the california department of public health. i guess the question i have is, we get a sense here that the state is controlling most of the conversation about what is

opening and what isn't opening. and you've mentioned it would be your reference we would be on a risk-based assessment rather than an industry-based criteria. but there's intv thattabl inevip between state-decision make makg and it becomes the purview of the city health officer and where does that subjective border lie? when does it become more ffpdh's decision? you know, at what point does the power of that decision-making shift over to the local public health officer? >> so in a couple of areas. one is i would say that san francisco and the bay area in general has been more caution and health protective in how we implement what the state allows

us. and so, for example, the way the state was rolling out its roll-out, it would say, ok, tomorrow, we're going to post guidelines, is how the state did it. we'll post guidelines for dining and go ahead and implement those guidelines and some counties just said, ok, everyone, go ahead and do that. san francisco did not do that. we said, whoa! we're going to review those guidelines carefully. we're going to want to make sure that -- we want to implement those guidelines in a way that it has some force of law behind it and so, we took those guidelines. we would work with our subject matter experts and stakeholders, through the economic task force and oewd to talk to people in

the field to say, ok, we're taking these and we're translating them into directives which now have legal authority. in other words, you have to go by this and if you don't go by this, there are consequences. and so what you end up having is that you end up having the orders and that which doesn't change much, the directives which are taking state guidance and putting it and making it a legal document and then guidance, those things where we have additional information, where people are maybe best practises but we're not requiring but we want people. the three pillars is really sort of how we take what the state gives us that we do. and we're probably one of the few counties in the state that really goes through the rigger of that process and i think that's one of the reasons why on average we're doing better than most places in the state, is because we don't say go for it,

we say let's do it carefully. we were never trying to hold businesses back. we were trying to make sure that we do it in a way that's responsible and that we have some law behind it so that if we get into trouble, we can say, you're not following the law. we're going to close you down. that type of approach. so i hope that makes sense. >> it does, and it's helpful. the small business community has been incredibly supportive of something that's been extraordinarily damaging. and personally, i've been blown away by my colleagues and friends and their willingness to basic, you know, watch their life's work go up in smoke but out ken fo concern for the comms keeping everybody safe.

i would say people are supportive but there are a lot of questions on the periphery and the etches of where this decision-making happens. and this will be my last question. you've been very generous with your time. and we have other presenters tonight that are -- it's a long evening for everybody. but this is kind of a multilayered question. so as we've spoken about in the personal service's meeting, many of the business categories are quite broad. and we'll use personal fitness studios and gyms as an example. we have the 24-hour fitness gyms, where there's hundreds of people going in and out and all kinds of equipment used and all indoors and on the other end of

the spectrum, we may have an one-on-one trainer and there may be training in a 15-square foot space. and so we can imagine, a sector even though described in homogenous terms, it's a gym, but the actual is heterogenous. there's a sense of feeling like you're grouped in a bucket and punished for a large part of the bucket might act. and then a trainer looking at the, they get to do what they do and i'm doing the exact same

sort of thing and a hairstylist may be allowed to open but i'm still not. and so, i guess the question is, not so much to complain on their behalf, but really, is that part of the industry specific? is that a state approach? or is this something that a conversation that they need to have with dph?

>> i think the concept of essential businesses made sense when you did a shutdown. you shut everything down and there's essential businesses that have to stay open and that made sense. when they started opening up, they continued to have that concept and i think that made it very hard because now, again, you're picking winners and losers and just exactly what you're describing, there's no way that i -- i'm in the an expert on all of the various ways that people run businesses. i just want to know ventilation, physical distancing, core principles that people can apply across businesses and then at the health officer level, we're thinking about what are some levelers that we calevers we can

say, ob, we're getting into trouble, everybody dial down. we're out of trouble, ok, go back up. we don't want to be getting spot business of all of these individual variabilities. it puts us in a difficult situation because i can't give you a rational reason why a physical therapist can do this and somebody who does perm servicepersonalservices who cank can't. unfortunately, this got carried over and i think it was not the way to do it and i had mentioned to the personal services on our order, on page 9, we actually put a risk-based criteria because we're promoting the idea of moving towards a risk-based approach. so that we're focusing on risk, behaviour, setting and activity that increases risk so that we're not picking one industry versus another.

>> i think the business community is committed to safety because it relies on getting the virus under control, as you eloquently said at the beginning the meeting. on the flip side, there are second order and third-order house effects on the food security that come when people can't work and, of course, we have 180,000 people unemployed. and so, you know, i think it's perfectly understandable at the start of the pandemic to take a very broad approach, but as we progress through time, i think there's a lot of pressure to get

more and more granular about what we can open and trying to get as much open as we can without compromising on safety. and so that's where a lot of the pressure is here. i think there's quite a few folks who are weeks away, days away and that's it, game over. and really, they're looking for that opportunity wherever they can find it and some of them, just outdoor is not an option. the massage therapist, and some of these other personal services and in san francisco where many hairstylists feel comfortable. and, you know, it sounds to me -- and you can correct me if i'm wrong -- that the lion's share of opportunity here is advocating at the state level for an evidence-based criteria.

is that right, in terms of, like, getting to open safely, and quicker? >> i would say that it will be quicker. the idea is that it will be safer. it will be safer and you're not picking winners and losers. and people focus on what do i need to do to mitigate risk so that we can open up safely. if we all collectively mitigate risk, the virus is going to slowly go down and we're going to be able to open more and more if we can get it down. absolutely. i think all of us, i can just tell you that all of us that are sort of like at my level, at the health officer level, we're pulling our hair out because because the legal authority is really at the state level. and they do delegate it to us, but at the end of the day, they're the final arbitrator and

we have to follow what they say. and so i know the health officers in the bay area are behind the risk-based approach and you'll see it in our orders and santa clara's orders. that's a direction we want to move in because we think it's easier to communicate. it's easier to get people on board to understand what they have to do. if we all understand the core principles, it's easier to train everybody on what's necessary than it is to figure out what can be open and can't be open and it becomes difficult. we agree with you. >> well, thank you very much. you know, i kind of said one last question, but i have one commissioner -- all our commissioners have great questions but commissioner yekutiel, you have the floor. >> i was going to ask a question. this is a bit of a question and i asked you this, doctor, when i

interviewed you, but i think part of the concern here is that there is a decision-making table where the perspective of small businesses is being filtered upwards, which is great, and there's lots of owners on the ertf's and you're here in front of the small business commission. but you are and the board of supervisors and the mirror's mas office make the decisions fillerring down and affecting thousands small business owners and employees in the city. but none of those people are small business owners themselves. and so, you know, thank you for coming to us and for hearing us. and also, you know, evacue we'vd that many times, it's important that small business owners are at the table. (please stand by). pup

>> yes, we have nine in the queue. i'll take the first caller. >> okay. >> i'm going to log off, is that okay? >> yes. >> i just -- thank you. thank you very much for giving me your time, and i do hope that we interact more into the f future, even after the pandemic is over.

>> dr. aragon, if i could ask you to stay for the first few comments. i know that many of them are calling -- >> okay. that's fine. >> okay. public commenters, please. >> before you call for public comment, can you affirm the length of time for each comment? >> yeah. we have a number of items on the agenda. we've kept dr. aragon a while. usually, we allow three minutes, but today, we're limiting it to two minutes. i appreciate your understanding. >> okay. i'll put through the first caller, then. >> hi. i'm dave, and i'm a member of the san francisco independent fitness to fitness studio coalition.

today, our number is two because we've had to close our yoga studio due to financial burdens. since march, we've laid off ten people and have amassed a debt more than $20,000. the point i'd like to make is dr. aragon had the ability to reopen gyms and small personal to studios on june 12. he could have used the scientific evaluation to do it then. he did not choose to do it then, and if you look at slide two of his presentation, we were doing better than every other major metro area on the grid at that time, yet we still weren't allowed to reopen. dr. aragon, we're soon going to be off the watch list, and at that time, are you prepared to

open the industry to keep this entire industry from collapsing in san francisco, or are you going to be so focused on opening hair salons where one-to-one contact is more than 30 minutes where personal trainers can do so from 20 feet away. 24-hour fitnesses with their large, open gym formats are getting the same swipe as the 70 small fitness studios which have one-on-one services or small group services. so knowing that you had the opportunity to open these businesses in the past, what makes us think you'll open it now when you have the opportunity. it is the time for the state

to -- >> commenter, your time is up. next commenter, please. >> hi. my name is misty wester, and i'm the owner of studio mix at 1000 vanness in the heart of san francisco. i'm a woman owned small business employing 40 people, paying all taxes during this time. i have a two-year guarantee on my rent, the last two years on a ten-year lease. my landlord is a large national

corporation that has no interest in working with me. fitness has always been committed to the health and safety of our city. we can require masks at all times. we can be more than 6 feet apart. we can reduce capacity, we can do temperature checks, we can track who comes in and out. we have large windows for proper ventilation. we can reduce shared equipment and sanitize after every use. if you can increase risk of infection by going to a grocery or big box store, why can't you open up to public health? fitness is essential, and

despite us offering the virtual and outdoor classes, our members and clients are not getting the necessary daily exercise to remain healthy. we know that exercise strengthens our immune system. the physical and mental health of our community is at greater risk by not allowing us to operating, a service that is deemed essential -- >> thank you, caller. your time is up. >> thank you, your time is up. next caller, please. >> i just want to point out the fact that dr. aragon's approach sounds purely academic. he says 7600 cases. all i hear is .0086% people have anything. 40% are asymptomatic, so

that's .0048%. only .0007% have died. the economy is crashing and burning, particularly the small business sector and the small fitness industry. these are real-life people. for some reason, you said 80% of people, you're safer at 80% if you wear your mask, but at restaurants, you don't wear your mask. that makes no sense at all. 330 people died last year from overdoses in san francisco, yet you gave them free drugs. you're looking too close at the problem. you need to step back and look at reality. you're getting paid by taxpayers, and our needs and our desires is to work.

you need to speak up on behalf of the taxpayers and say hey, we're killing small businesses in san francisco. they need to work. i can make sure my clients wear masks, i can make sure my doors are open, and my job is to make sure that people are healthy and safe in the first place. start thinking of this as a real world situation where lives are at stake. thank you, and have a nice day. >> next commenter, please. >> hi. my name is lisa, and i'm a female veteran and a single owner of core movement, i opened in january of this year and have no option to close

permanently without spending the rest of my life trying to payoff the debt i acquired in opening my business. you're saying that our knowledge and understanding of this virus is evolving weekly, even daily, but your approach hasn't evolved at all. now your approach doesn't make any sense, if you're going to close the airport down. it doesn't make any sensory qualifying us under different guidelines in the same industry. i have a 1600 square foot space that i'm not even allowed to have one single client that i can stay 30 feet away from. i work specifically with injury rehabilitation-injury prevention, and we have liquor stores open and giving people

the chance to drink alcohol during this pandemic but not allowing people to take care of themselves at this time? it's a disgrace. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> after listening to the slide show, it's clear we will not not opening out any time soon because people are out driving, partying, and feeling a general sense of despair. we successfully flattened the curve, but at what cost? what you've done so far hasn't worked. when the pandemic started, my business was set and profitable. today, we have $200,000 in

business department. i know businesses who are operating illegally. small businesses pay their workers comp and we continue to pay the costs of operating our small business without being able to run our storefront. san francisco is intentionally rewarding illegal business behavior and damaging small business owners. since day one, the city of san francisco promoted drugs and alcohol over mental health, and going into debt over saving money. your guidance has destroyed more lives than it has saved. all businesses need a clear path to reopening inside, and we need small business rent relief. will you please give us a realistic time frame of when service will open indoors so we

can plan financially. it may not make sense for many of us to keep our businesses any longer. thank you. >> thank you. next commenter, please. next commenter, you're on. >> they seem to be away from their phone. >> no, i'm here. >> okay. go ahead. >> thank you, dr. aragon for providing your statistics. you said that there are many ways that the virus can spread, how being indoors can make it worse, especially without ventilation, etc., etc. these are important factors, but i didn't hear you talk

about the most important factor, i think, and one that varies from person to person, but one that's been shown to be a true saving grace in fighting this deadly virus, and that's immunity. nationwide, over 80% of the deaths that occur are happening in people 65-plus, and most of them have comorbidities. only 20% of the population that exercises and takes health seriously. is it any wonder that 20% of the population is getting sick? those who do this very rarely get sick, and this is what we teach. this is what we teach to people, is how to not get covid-19 and not get sick. but what are we seeing? an increase in alcohol and

drugs and partying into the night, and stress levels are through the roof. so when i walk past an outdoor restaurant, i don't see health, i see excessive consumption. i hear people's voices, and the they're scared. just one gram of sugar can suppress their immune system for six hours. they don't know that. they're drinking, they're having a good time, but they don't know they're causing the problem. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. hello, everyone. i'm a san francisco artist as well as someone who is a

pastor. i'm hearing a mixed bag and from people who really care about people. i want to thank you, dr. aragon, for just laying out numbers and facts. i have a degree in electroengineering, so i appreciate that. as an artist, some of the ways that i'm thinking about is ways to enable live entertainment for people, and i just want to make a bid for that also being something that will help nourish people. again, with any open space, since we've had protests and things like that, that it's not necessarily memorial day weekend that the surge came from, i just want to put in a bid that life performance art, especially artists who really, i would say, you know, just i'm encouraging having opportunities where we can have open spaces to offer people

another way of access. hopefully, artists are envisioning a good future. creativity is a gift from god, so i'm looking for opportunities to bring forward life performances. i want to just put that out there, live space, and also that to be included in terms of mental wellness for people. i just want to give people opportunities to get outside when they can for entertainment. i just want to make a bid for art. san francisco's been a great supporter of the arts and i just -- [inaudible] >> thank you. >> thank you for that. next caller, please.

>> hello. my name is andrew woods, and i am the director of the san francisco international arts festival, and we're a nonprofit organization. but a lot of the artists we work for are for-profit small businesses. they're sole proprietors, limited liability companies. if you think about any band leader or any director of an artistic company or a dance theater, they are small businesses, and everybody is suffering under this current pandemic, and we gathered the artists, and a lot of them were saying, why don't we go outside? why don't we create environments that are safe, that follow all of the risk behavior guidelines that the health department wants us to? our problem is the performing

arts is stuck squarely in phase four, and we need to get to the outdoor components of it that can be safely managed out into face two or face three. i think people speaking from the health industry, we are a very health conscious group of businesses, in that everybody is talking about how do you do this entirely safely? our business is not to kill our audience. it's actually that we're encouraging them to come to spaces and feel that they're safe. our artists were saying how audiences don't want to go

inside. they want to come out and feel as if they're not compromising the health of their own or anybody around them. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> go ahead, caller. >> hi. my name is jennifer, and i'm a coowner of a fitness studio here in the marina. we just wanted to express our concern for our community and our small business owners. we're seeing people shutdown left and right, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent. we have little mouths to feed. we have two kids, and we just don't know what else we can do. we have researched and done everything we can to be able to do this safely, and we just --

i'm having a hard time adequately expressing myself. i just want to let you know that we're out here, and we owe lots of money, and we just need to reopen. >> caller, are you done? >> next -- >> i'm so embarrassed. >> you're fine. >> don't be embarrassed. >> no, you're fine, please. speak your mind. >> yes, i'm done. thank you. >> next caller, please. >> hello. my name is nancy myers. i'm a movement therapy at a legacy business in san francisco, and a member of the independent fitness coalition,

and our business sector's on the verge of collapse due to the increase of unemployment figures, vacant storefronts, and reducing options for health and wellness, and many in our industry have had to close permanently. being a movement therapist, it's been proven that exercise in general, regardless -- i mean in the rehabilitation field, which i think is an essential service, but overall, it's been proven that there is evidence that fitness improves the immune system and decreases many of the symptoms associated with covid. i'm asking please allow these small fitness studios to reopen

with appropriate distancing. the studio that i work out of has installed all new ventilation systems, touchless systems to be safe. we're still put behind tattoo parlors, hair salons, and nail salons, which have direct contact, so i'm not understanding how we're not able to open despite the fact that we're fitness focused. as i was walking down the street, seeing all the restaurants open, people not wearing masks, not social distancing, we're losing studios every day because they're forced to close their

doo doors. >> thank you, caller. >> thank you. >> sorry, guys. we have a lot of callers and not that much time. next caller, please. >> hi. my name is billy polson, and i'm a coowner of a fitness studio with my husband. i'm also one of the founders of the san francisco independent fitness studio coalition. we've been in our location for 16 years. prior to quarantine, we were the home to 86 personal trainers and eight employees full-time with over 700 clients. we currently owe over $200,000 in rent that is continuing to build and will increase by $53,000 come september 1. for 14 years, we have been one of the proud leaders of fitness in s.f., and now it is likely

that we will not last until the end of this year unless you will give us a chance. give us a chance to open. give us a chance to follow the safest, strictest covid protocols that you could give us. the same protocols that physical therapists are following for three months successfully. all of the community mitigation that you mention in your slide, we can all follow, and it's built in all of our business models to follow them to the tee. the ventilation, the physical distancing, the face coverings, the cleaning phases, every one of them, we can follow. the physical distancing is one of our biggest questions and concerns. why massage, why tattoo, hair salons, nail salons, that all require 80 to 100% physical contact during a session would ever be put before a one-on-one personal training that requires

absolutely no physical contact the entire session. i'm excited to hear about the new formula for heading forward with activities and rating those based on safety guidelines. my question is if this is going to move to the state level, how can you, on a local level -- >> so sorry. thank you, commenter. next commenter, please. >> hello. my name is david angle, and i own a martial arts studio in the tenderloin. fitness industry is suffering severely, and we have received little to no support from government. without proper timelines and protocol, many will not be able to wait on another five months of closure without some

intervention. my studio operates three classes a week, and a license would be $420 a month, which would be financially impossible. we are still paying rent on our brick and mortar locations. if we must now pay a permit fee for a public park space, we will not be able to maintain our business, and we will be forced to close our doors and not serve the community. we want to operate safely, but we need clear guidance from the

city on how to do so. by not providing a clear guideline as to how and when we can reopen, the city is neglecting an important part of the city's mental health and small business success. thank you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> my name is evan. my wife and i own a personal training studio on vanness street. our revenue's down about 90%. we owe a lot of money to our landlord. our business provides one-on-one, appointment only services. we're not a big box gym. our facility is about 2,000 square feet. we have 18-foot-high ceilings and industrial fans, so it's confusing to me why someone can't be 20 feet away from me, when both of us are wearing

masks, to train someone. also, the fact i can get in an uber car with a random person, go to s.f.o., sit on a middle seat of a plane, fly in san diego, go shopping for expensive jeans and fly back, but i can't open my business of 2,000 square foot and train one person is ridiculous. it seems that personal services such as tattoo parlors, nail studios, and massage studios are scheduled to open before us. all of these businesses require close proximity for extended periods of time, which has been directly proven to spread more cases of covid. businesses like ours are able to maintain twice the physical distance with zero public contact and increased public

health. if the goal is to increase public health, like your job dictates, how are you not advocating for us to reopen. you need to amend your order to allow small, independent gyms open immediately. classify us whatever category you want to make this happen. lastly, i do have to wonder how your decision making would be if your salaries, your livelihood, and your family was on the line. that's all i have to say. >> thank you, caller. next caller, please. >> hi. my name is michelle molloy. i am a massage therapist, so i am one of the people who allegedly can open earlier, but yet, i'm still not open, so i feel like i'm still in the same category as the small

businesses that we're hearing from. there's so many protocols that we have to follow, and yes, we're hands on. the difference is we are one-on-one, as are these trainers, these pilates instructors, where they can control if someone is wearing a mask properly, and they have all these safety guidelines. but what i'm watching, what i'm watching when i go into grocery stores, and i go into small stores, grocery stores, restaurants, that people are not wearing masks properly. the managers, the workers, and the patrons. so no one's -- like, they're not even checking themselves, and that's one of the things that's bothering me and possible increasing the

numbers. so i work a lot with referring out my clients. these other small businesses that are on the line, small gyms, one-on-one pilates to do the physical therapy work, my clients are in pain and not able to use these businesses, and that's putting the same -- it's also affecting me. i'm not able to use these businesses, as well, and so i myself am having much anxiety, mental, emotional, and physical breakdowns daily because i'm not able to access these. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hello? >> yes, you have the floor. >> okay. hi. i'm also a fitness professional, and i'm calling to support -- i just want to say that i do think that

fitness industry, small boutique gyms should be allowed to open, because we can stand as far away as we want to. we can stand farther away and wear face masks and make sure that our clients wear face masks as we train them. i think boutique studios should be allowed to open if they can prove they have guidelines, which i know that a lot of them have created guidelines to keep everybody safe. we want officials to provide clear guidelines on why physical therapists are able to work right now, and we're not. so we would like you to do whatever you need to do to allow small fitness studios to reopen as soon as possible if they have protocols in place. also, we would like you to add

a fitness representative to the san francisco economic recovery task force because currently there is none, and please provide financial relief to any business that hasn't been allowed to reopen in a significant manner since march. please help them. i'm watching all of these people who have put their livelihoods on the line to help people, and we need to do something to help them. please help the fitness industry to open as soon as possible. thank you. >> thank you. next caller. >> hello? >> please go ahead. >> hi. my name is thomas conway, and i'm the owner of project 13 gym, lower nob hill.

before march, our business was booming, and we had the fortunate opportunity to be serving people on a daily basis and improving their lives physically, mentally, and emotionally. then, the pandemic began, and we were able to keep our community engaged virtually, through zoom, however, that has since dropped off. since that point, we've lost 72% of our clients, and while it's sad for me as a business owner, a group of people that's not been talked a lot during these public comments is the people that we serve. so i hear from my members on a daily basis that they're depressed. i hear that they're physically deteriorating, and it's sad to think about them, and the

reality is they makeup most of san francisco, and they no longer have a service or outlet that they can take care of themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. the reality is i can control every single thing that happens in my facility. it's roughly a 39-square-foot facility. i know we can get them in and out without touching any single thing unless what they're supposed to, cleaning everything before and after thoroughly. we have open windows that provides good circulation to the space and no recycled air. san francisco is known to be an innovative place, and what i'm seeing is lack of creativity -- >> thank you. next caller, please.

>> hi. my name's tracey sylvester. i'm the owner of e.h.s. pilates in san francisco. i'm a legacy business and work with 23 licensed employees in san francisco. most of our community is in desperate need of rehabilitation. we have a huge movement therapy in the work we do. we work with foot and gait, osteoporosis, and other types of muscular disorders. we hear daily from people that are declining rapidly because they don't have access to the services we provide. we have a huge asian community that has cultivated a community within the e.h.s. community. the services that we provide

should be considered essential, and i'm not exactly sure what we would need to do to partner with you. i appreciate everything that you've done so far, and as far as mitigating the spread of the virus, but i think we can do so safely, as well. we do have touchless systems installed in our studio now. we have created a new ventilation system, installed windows, and we can certify everyone that comes through the door as well as being able to provide contact tracing information if need be. i really just am asking for your support and understanding that there's a lot of dynamics that go into creating a boutique wellness environment. it's care, it's movement, it's therapy, it's physical therapy, and i appreciate any support you can lend. >> thank you. next caller, please.

>> hi. my name is stephanie forester, and i am the owner of a boutique pilates in san francisco. i serve pre and post natal business. 100% of my business in san francisco is pre-natal and post partum. i have lost about 75% of my business since sheltering in place. i have switched my business to on-line, but a lot of my business is partnering with businesses in san francisco, but now, they can't partner with me because they're out of business.

it's upsetting to see so many of my colleagues going out of business, and i get an e-mail at least once a week from colleagues who have decided to close their business. fitness has been proven to be an essential part of preventing depression, and we can serve clients in a really safe manner. i'm able to stand more than 6 feet away from somebody in a well-ventilated, both masked. it doesn't make sense to me, and yet if i'm walking down one of these closed streets, yet all of these people are out drinking alcohol and eating food, and they're not socially distant, and it doesn't seem to be any -- anyone kind of going, looking at the rules, and i just kind of question how we're

boxed in, also, with big box gyms. and why are we -- >> thank you, commenter. i'm so sorry. next commenter, please. >> hello? >> yes, you have the floor. >> hi. i'm a coowner of a local neighborhood gym, locations in bernal heights and glen park. we are a 50% women owned business and have been for 11 years. we are $120,000 in debt since the shelter in place in march. my business is on the verge of collapse. to the small business commission, what you should be asking dr. aragon is this: how can we allow small neighborhood gyms that are not big box facilities that are owned by

one or two people to reopen? why are physical therapists, who have reopened and provide the same services that we offer, can be any different than personal trainers in our facilities? personal training and small group access, which don't require any physical contact, are less liable to come into closed contact for extended periods of time. please don't let my life's work end without giving us a chance. let's give people a reason to stay in san francisco during this pandemic. let's give them a chance to maintain their health, wellness, and sanity. thank you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. my name is karlcarlo, and i'm

instructor at a small martial arts school in the richmond for over 30 years. we're also in a strong position to educate our students and clienti clients due to the binding force that we're in. when we educate our students, that kind of education feeds into the community in terms of promoting best health practices. [inaudible] >> -- guidelines as well as the use of masks and face coverings, so we're ready with temperature checks. we've got ventilation systems ready, sanitation systems

ready, and we've got limits on building capacity and attendance. all of this is ready to go. our only option has been to do outdoor training in the meantime. we ask that any of the permit fees and reservation fees that are usually required be waived during this time just so that our students will have a school to come back to once we do reopen. it's our position that if a target or walgreens is allowed to reopen under such guidelines, surely, a studio that can follow the same guidelines should be allowed to reopen, as well. thank you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hello? >> yes, you have the floor. >> oh, okay. sorry. i was -- okay. so i'll be really quick. i am a black woman who owns a fitness studio here in san

francisco, and i wasn't originally going to speak, but after listening to all the other business owners pour out their hearts and breakdown, i felt like it would be unfair for me not to speak you want. so i wanted to address something that officials might care about, which is the loss of tax revenue and businesses and turning into detroit. this country was built by small business and small business owners, and so if we don't want san francisco to die, which is what's happening, we need to allow small businesses to open and allow them to open in a safe manner so that everyone in the community is safe. since i opened last year -- i've only been open for a year, and i had to close in march like everyone else. and so now, in the last couple of months, half of my trainers have left. so if something doesn't happen

soon, more small businesses are going to close, more people are going to leave the city, the city is going to die. you guys are going to lose tax revenue, and commercial spaces will be empty, and there will be blight, homeless people sleeping in doorways, shooting up and doing things that none of us want to see in san francisco. so to save all of us, save the citizens, we need to allow small businesses to open safely. thank you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> i'm a small business owner in the city of san francisco. i rented equipment to many venues. i'm personally very frustrated by the city's response. overall, i think it's obvious that city has enough resources

to disrupt protests. city has enough resources to tell us all to shutdown, but the city doesn't have enough resources to figure out how to make it all open. our parks, unavailable to us. you look at europe or in asia, they use outdoor parks as a public gathering space. here, all response to people wanting to gather outside is to brutalize them. it's not a logical response. the government money is flowing to abuse, rather than flowing to benefit. and as a small businessperson in the city, i'm frustrated to see that in this pandemic moment, the only business that really appears legal is drug sales. it's obscene that all of these businesses are closed, none of

these businesses are able to maintain their locations when all of our parks are unused. all of these businesses could be in these parks if it wasn't for the abusive and oppressive police department. [inaudible] >> -- and this should be our city. and all of these public commenters, they say that it's in the interest of the people, that the people can be saved, if the people are alive, that means freedom. [inaudible] >> this is the way it should be -- >> thank you, caller. i'm so sorry. next caller, please. >> that concludes the list of callers in the queue. >> first, dr. aragon, i asked you to stick around for a

couple callers. you stuck around for every single one of them. i'm very grateful that you decided to do that, and we're very grateful to you for taking your time to hear that important message about the level of pain that our community is feeling. to the callers, i would say that as a commission, we are all business owners ourselves. i service -- i rent vans to the entertainment industry. i'm in the same boat as every single one of you, and we're in a real tough place here, and your testimony is really important, so thank you for providing your comment. this commission stands with you. we will fight for you, we will advocate for you, and we will do it and try to keep everyone safe and do it safely.

so with that, we'll have some commissioner discussion. commission commissioner ortiz-cartagena, i see you requesting comment. >> i'm going to check out. thank you so much. >> all right. thank you, dr. aragon. >> thank you. >> gracias. >> thanks. >> i want to echo president laguana. everybody in the business community, we stand with you. we are small businesses. we're not politicians. we cry and sweat just like you. we know what it is to make the payroll, so i want our commission to see what we can do to advocate and make some changes. we're not going to stand by and let our fitness community just shutdown. we will do something. now, we're going to do something for you. we're going to do that for you.

>> thank you. commissioner zouzounis, did i get that right? >> thank you. >> yeah. >> thanks, again, to dr. aragon for staying on and to our next presenter for being so patient with us. and thank you to all of the commission who weighed in. this commission has doubled down on our commitment to economic policy. more importantly, small business cross-sector solidarity. the fitness community, although you are making very clear points, and ones that we will and have incorporated into our recommendations, we keep this as much in light of solidarity across the spectrum with other

community and businesses that have felt similar types of sanctions and believes that, you know, the reopen process has not been equitable to everyone. so we just want to echo that we're with you and keep our focus on economical policy -- equitable policy making instead of pitting us against each other. that's all i want to say. >> i just want to say one thing that became clear to me from dr. aragon's presentation is the state needs to move to a risk-based criteria as quickly as possible. the small business commission, by charter, cannot make recommendations to the state. we can only make

recommendations to our state and federal delegations through the mayor's office and then they can choose to make those recommendations, but there is absolutely nothing that prevents us from advocating as private individuals and private citizens. i've been privileged with the opportunity to work with the fitness community, the tattoo shops, i've spoken to hairstylists and personal services, the aestheticians that are often left out of this conversation, and i get just how intense this moment is. and regardless of what the commission is able to do, i know all of us are aligned on -- in our private lives advocating for you and helping draw those connections between government leaders and city leaders so that we can see the

kind of movement that we need to see and can open wherever we can safely as soon as possible so that people can get back to work, and ultimately, that's what i worry about. i worry about it on an equity level. i think that that's a huge problem. we know that this is disproportionately affecting communities that are facing challenges and minorities, and we've got to do everything we can to help these people. and one thing that just, you know, i think is not discussed enough, the jobs. there are so many people -- every small business, on average, employs about ten people. those people are even more vulnerable. they're less likely to have savings, mofood security.

for many of us, this is a full-time job since the pandemic started. and i'll just say, finally, in closing, you've done -- and i say this to the fitness community tonight, and i say this to the other groups that have organized, you have done a phenomenal job of organizing, and this will carry you through. stay on it, stay together. keep working at it, keep communicating with each other. this is what has been missing from the small business community for the past 20 years. we've lacked that level of organization, we've lacked that level of commitment to each other and willingness to standup for each other, and that's what we need to do now. the skills that we're developing now will carry us through the virus.

trust me, we will get through this. so with that, i think that's it for this item. can we have the next item, please. >> clerk: item 3, presentation and discussion on community emergency response teams. the small business commission seeks to understand the work of the city's community emergency response team's business community engagement and enforcement work. discussion item. the presenter is maggie weiland, executive director of the entertainment commission. >> miss weiland, thank you so much for sticking around. it's been a long item number 2, and appreciate you still sticking with us at 8:00 and accommodating us in your schedule. >> no problem, president laguana, and good evening, commissioners. nice to see, and with some of you, nice to meet some of you.

for those of you that don't know me, my name is maggie weiland, and i'm the director of the entertainment commission. as you most likely know, the entertainment commission has a very similar core mission to the small business commission. we work to support night life and entertainment in our small business community. tonight, i will be doing a presentation and going over q&a, and my deputy director, kaitlyn azevedo is here to answer questions at this time. and doe mmenica, i will alert when to advance the slides. since march, our venue has been some of the hardest hit in the industry. it was very inspiring to see the organization here tonight as well as these fitness

studios, inspiring for me as i go back to wear that hat every day and encourage and inspire our folks to come together and do a very similar thing to what you did tonight, which it's very true. it's lacking in our small business community, and thank you all for being here tonight and providing those comments. it was great to hear. so our industry, you know, is very financially impacted. they were financially vulnerable prior to covid, as well. as you know, especially after hearing more from dr. aragon tonight, this virus is a moving target, as are the guidelines responding to the crisis. our office has had to stay nimble and informed as the situation evolved. we began to work on amplifying the efforts in communication coming out of local government

around both the economic recovery and reopening processes, and essentially just putting the word out about what the roles were for our industry. so i hope to return to this commission soon to discuss more about the work of the entertainment commission to support our industry and actually speak to some of those public comments that happened earlier. that's for another time. tonight, i'm here to discuss our city's community education and response team. domenica, this is where i'd love it if you could bring up that slide deck. thank you so much. as the pandemic began, the city quickly recognized the need to support businesses that were deemed essential in order to ensure their compliance with the health order while operating. in response, and under direction from my boss, city administrator, naomi kelly, we led a department called

community emergency response team, or c.e.r.t.

[inaudible] >> -- within covid as we do that normally for entertainment permits and educating all of our permit holders on best practices to hold them accountable as good neighbors in their community. so again, that's what we're working to do now in covid times is striking this honest balance between businesses and the communities they serve. beyond e.c. staff, we have 13 active d.s.w.s, including three remote triage coordinators and ten field inspectors. we have both spanish and chinese speaking field staff to

assist business operators where english is not their first language. they come from many city departments, and i'm very thankful for these departments' support. within those agencies, these folks normally hold inspector roles or analyst roles and are well equipped to be investigated or triage support. and now, we actually have long-te long-term activations, which is great, because prior, deputy azevedo was conducting training continuously on what all the current roles and regs were so that they were fully equipped to go out in the field and educate. now, we can sort of shift gears and focus on ongoing training

and employee development of this program. next slide, please. so this is a slide of types of businesses -- sorry if this is small for you. i'm not going to read through all of these, but i'm happy to send this to you. typ types of businesses that c. e.r. t. is responding to. at the very beginning of our program, we are responding to a lot of -- we were responding to a lot of complaints about yo h grocery stores, landscapers, and businesses that weren't supposed to be open. as the health order further expanded to allow curbside retail, we spent a lot of time educating those types of businesses. and then again, when indoor retails came back on-line, we have been responding to complaints about hair and nail

salons and outdoor dining. we are very excited about the shared spaces program, and we've worked hard to make sure that businesses are held accountable around the current reopening rules. c. e.r. t. works in conjunction with ten other city agencies, and we work to assist them as a first touch of education to businesses and the health order and how this affects their businesses directly. c. e.r. t. does not have any enforcement capacity and does not issue citations or fines. next slide, please. here is a basic visual of our work flow, and this can be varied, obviously, especially if the complaint requires several city regulatory agencies to potentially follow up, based on what we witnessed. but essentially, a 311 complaint is logged. so i encourage anyone who's watching and all of the

commissioners to use 311 as the mode of alerting the city of a potential violation. it's then entered into the queue. our c. e.r. t. triage assigned it to an inspector, our inspector investigates the incident, who forwards it to the city, and the city forwards it to responsive agencies. c. e.r. t. responds to businesses that are potentially violating, and to the best of our ability, we supplement the great work of the joint information center, their community brank, along with the human rights commission and provide outreach that's not associated with complaint response. either way, when we go out in the field, we take an educational response and coach businesses about how to be in compliance with the city's

current guidelines, and whenever possible, we utilize course correction to ensure compliance for any future visits from regulatory agencies. during c. e.r. t. visits, we provide signage and documentation, and we work to provide small amounts of face coverings for businesses in need to distribute to their patrons. we document each and every visit we make, so that's why it'scome cumbersome for us to do

outreach. here are some numbers. we have done outreach in every supervisorial district and have distributed 127,000 face coverings to businesses. we also distribute signage in english, spanish, chinese, tagalog, and vietnamese. this is in response to a note that i received from director dick-endrizzi. spacing of tables in outdoor dining. it's not just about spacing the tables 6 feet apart, but it's

that diners have to be 6 feet apart, and we're receiving complaints about that. additionally, we're requiring that bars must serve a bona fide meal with their alcohol, and making sure that patrons are putting their face coverings on when not eating or drinking. c. e.r. t. does this education, but we're still receiving complaints from the public,

so -- [inaudible] >> either posted in entryways of the business or filled out at all for that matter continues to be an issue. also, on occasion, businesses have expressed an inability to enforce customers and patrons

wearing face coverings as i mentioned already. we have seen this most significantly with store owners, and i heard mention of this from one of the commissioners earlier, when owners are asking patrons to put on their face coverings, we definitely heard stories about violence and aggression happening when this happens, which is really a shame. and then, in some extreme circumstances, we've even seen store owners refuse to wear masks themselves. finally, we're seeing some delis, gas stations, seeing sugar packets out, what have you. these must be given out and not be serviced by customers. i will note -- this is coming out of a conversation that i had with director dick-endrizzi, as well, c. e.r.

t. does not service members of the public or, you know, individual patrons as businesses, but rather, we work to ensure that businesses are in compliance with the health order. if a business has a crowd outside, we'll educate them on how to be in compliance. for example, creating a queueing line out with the six-feet markations on the ground or educating business owners about required signage and face covering wearing. next slide, please. in follow up to that, i will add that in addition to working with small businesses on education and compliant around reopening rules and regs, deputy director azevedo also organize a separate outreach

progr program. we realized the need to provide outreach program to members of the public in parks. in response, we formed a cross-agency collaboration between rec and park, sfpd, s.f. fire department and nert, as well as the sheriff's department. this group supports park rangers by deploying cadets overseen by rangers daily to issue masks and face coverings to the public not complying with the health order. this is using features of rec and park that are closed or congregating or not wearing face coverings. we're supporting the existing park ranger staff, and we have at least ten and up to 20 additional staff, depending on the day of the week and the

weather out in parks each day doing this work. and to date, we have issued 32,815 admonishments, which is pretty crazy, and 29,000 face coverings. i will note we will continue to look for ways to support businesses during this work, and as we continue to see street closure activations, like the great work that commissioner yakutiel has done on valencia, as we continue to see them improve in the outdoor dining, as well as seeing an increase in the number of complaints, we need to really consider and explore further ways in which c. e.r. t. can educate neighborhoods on ensuring compliance with the closure. next slide, please.

i'll just be wrapping it up finally here. i know this is a long night. so c. e.r. t. has played a very active role during the shelter in place over the last 20 weeks, and we're looking forward to the return of businesses that are further along in the reopening plan. thank you all, and love to take some questions. >> wonderful. thank you. i almost said maggie -- ms. weiland. >> i'm comfortable with maggie. >> you can just call me sharky, too. and, you know, we certainly appreciate everything c. e.r. t. does, and i know that the shared spaces team is also deeply appreciative, especially the sensitivity with which you're handling this in helping businesses move forward. so with that, we'll go to

commissioner questions. commissioner dooley? >> i didn't have a question, but i just wanted to thank you for that presentation? it was super informative, and thank you so much for what you're doing; kind of the unsung heros here, so i'm happy that we were able to get in front of a few people tonight >> thank you, commissioner. this is -- this is our coming out party, honestly. i think deputy director azevedo and i have not done this massive of a presentation publicly yet, so thank you for being our guinea pigs. >> awesome. well, amen to that. commissioner yakutiel. >> thank you. this is commissioner yakutiel. c. e.r. t. is amazing. i love c. e.r. t. so much. the folks from the c. e.r. t.

team make me so proud to be a san franciscan and a part of making us be the best city we can be. i had the pleasure of going out with a c. e.r. t. inspector, and i was able to get a pupusa from conchita's. it shows how you can bring the community together and enforcement without being a douche bag. your enforcement commission are models on how you can do the right thing without being mean

about it. so i just want to say c congratulations to c. e.r. t. what an amazing program, and thank you so much. >> thank you so much, commissioner. >> that is ringing praise, indeed. commissioner zouzounis. >> yes, and thank you for the presentation, both director weiland and deputy director azevedo. that was a great presentation. question. so i know that you said you don't give out the fines and enforcement directly. my question is who -- how's -- where is that data housed? if we want to know -- i know you gave some good examples, but if we want to know data of fines by sectors, where is that

housed? and with that said, i know dr. aragon alluded to a couple of these enforcement things. in particular, he said there was a surveillance system in place. do you -- >> i have -- that was my first time ever hearing anything like that, so that's news to me. >> thank you for that. >> thank you. >> so in response to your question, i would say we do have a great tracking system to know at least what complaints per business address have been lodged. every single complaint has an investigation followed up by our team and invariably is followed up by the enforcement

agencies that actually house those permits. so the majority of them you would see sent over by the department of environmental health. however, if you look at our list of other agencies that we're responding for, it's a long list, and unfortunately s we cannot track at this point the life of a complaint, so where exactly it goes beyond our shop is unknown unless the action is a large action. so if the city attorney's office and department of environmental health determines that a notice of violation or cease and desist letter or extreme notices of noncompliance where they've already done everything they can, they will shutdown. those, we're more aware of, and i will say in the last few weeks, the number of cease and desist letters has definitely

l gone up. i think that is a policy call, and i would like to see some of those numbers gone down, and i think a lot of it is fatigue. some are businesses at this point. yeah, i'm happy to work on those stats a little bit further, but it is hard for us to know exactly what happens once we have mitigated it to another agency. >> thank you. commissioner hui? >> hi. thank you so much for coming tonight and for lasting so long. we are on a marathon of a night. so i just had a quick question in terms of you said this was kind of, like, your coming out party, and it was interesting because there were a couple of things that i actually didn't know, like, in terms of the no self-service items. like, there are a lot of things

that happen that, like, for me, i'm not sure if they're best practices or not regulated. so i'm wondering, do you have any plans to have, like, maybe a larger town hall or something that we could invite our merchants to. now that you have a pretty good f.a.q., and i know the city has, like, a 2,000 page f.a.q. kind of thing, but you're an expert on what people are -- what type of information our businesses are really needing. >> right. >> how can we support you in that? >> thank you. i would love your support. i -- so it's -- i have presented to my entertainment commission because obviously, i have to update them on staffing and what we're all doing. besides that, i have participated and deputy azevedo have participated in probably five webinars that have been hosted by the city, but i was

talking to her just today about the need to have a focus on more neighborhood outreach that is digital because, you know, we can only do so much in person, but her and i can certainly participate in more of these, i think what we need to do is really ask our board of supervisors to kind of take on that leadership role of hosting neighborhood webinars. if that's something that s.b.c. wants to hook us up with, as well, we will present anything and everything around what we expect because that's what we're going out and telling people in person. if we see on the first touch that you have self-service items, something terrible is going to happen to you, we're going to tell you what you need to do to come into compliance. so if that can happen earlier in the process, that would be better. >> thank you so much. >> so i guess one little question we have: do you have the resources you need right

now. do you anticipate needing more resources in the future? you mentioned that the cease and desist rate is going up. do you feel sufficiently resourced and staffed? >> we are -- we are understaffed by about 5 inspectors, and we're working on that, and that's really because we moved from, like, these short-term activations to requesting long-term through this calendar year, which is hard to secure not only the time but also the actual employees that have background in doing inspection work. and so many of those inspectors have been called back to their regular jobs, so we're sourcing from weird -- not weird. we love them, but random agencies like t.t.x. and s.f.o. that you'd not ever expect to see an inspector from s.f.o.,

even though they're some of our best. we need more proactive outreach because we are shoveling s-h-i-t against the tide at times, and as much as we can educate on the front end, our jobs are going to be more manageable because right now, it's just reactive because so many businesses are open and people are very active in san francisco with how they utilize 311, which, you know, no problem here, but -- >> so when you get -- it sounds like your recruiting only happens internally. would you like more budget for recruiting -- you're tapped out? >> yeah. we don't even have a budget at all. we have to utilize existing -- >> scity resources, got it.

you're basically a secondhand store for inspectors. >> i think if you look at all of us, we're just wearing so many hats right now. >> yeah. there's a lot of people doing that on a number of different fronts, to their credit. >> i'm excited though, in the future, for you, president laguana, to ask us about our needs in entertainment. >> when i was listening to the public comment recently, i was thinking about my suggestion for jamlets, which are the accompaniment to parklets. ja jamlets should be just like where people jam. >> we're working on it. >> i'm looking forward -- we should definitely organize something with the

entertainment commission because everybody in the entertainment business, we don't even have a dream of what we're going to open. we don't even have a dream that dr. aragon is going to say that we can get back in business, you know? it just seems really distant and far away. well, are there anymore questions from our commissioners? seeing none, are there any members of the public who would like to make comment on item number 3? >> i think commissioner hui had a question. >> i believe i called her, didn't i? i did, yes. >> okay. >> now you know the source of my confusion. the list is very hard to discern. are there any members of the public who would like to make comment on item number 3? >> there is a caller. i'll take it now. >> great.

thank you. >> go ahead, caller. you have the floor. >> first of all, i want to say thank you very much for your time and effort organizing what is obviously one of the nation's best pandemic responses in our city here, and obviously, you've been integral to that response. as a small businessperson in the city, my question, i guess, would be more general, and that would be is there some opportunity for more economic activity to makeup for the regulatory closure of all of these physical locations? i know that there's some discussion of these parklets and jamlets. those do seem to be very organized and directed in specific areas of the city, and while i'm encouraged because they're vital for our mental and physical health to be able to dance to the music, i'd ask

what the opportunity is for a business to be in compliance with these structured regulations to offer music to people that isn't in the structure limitations offered to these small opportunities that are very, in my mind, economically restrictive and limited to very few members of our public? >> thank you for your comment. typically, you make public comment, and you're not allowed to interact, but miss weiland, if you wanted to respond, you may. >> certainly. i'd mention that within those outdoor gathering guidelines, i believe it's section 1.1.5, you are allowed to host entertainment, so that would be allowable within shared spaces,

within outdoor dining in general. it limits you so that you're not allowed to have vocalists, even if they're masked. you're not allowed to have w d woodwind or brass instruments. but we don't have a way to regulate that in a way that -- [inaudible] >> sorry. that's my alarm. i think what president laguana and i are thinking about is more so along the lines of how do we move beyond outdoor dining guidelines and allow for spaces where you are still socially distanced, but you're

just there toen j enjoy a performance, you don't want to have food and bev, and that's something that needs to be changed here at the state level, but more to come on that later. >> i would just add to that that three of our commission members are members -- including myself, are members of the economic recovery task force, and we have discussed on the task force repurposing public space that's either not in use or isn't used very much for precisely these kinds of things. just today, i was making calls about the balboa parking lot next to city college, and whether that could be a place for a drive-in movie theater or a socially distant, you know, kind of entertainment event like what another speaker was referring to. we have a lot more items, so

we're going to keep things moving along unless any commissioners have any other comments. thank you, miss weiland, thank you director azevedo. thank you for coming and presenting, and we appreciate everything that you're doing. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. next item, please. >> item 4, board of supervisors file number 200786, temporary waivers of permit fees for cafe tables and chairs and display merchandise in the public right-of-way and use fees for parklets. ordinance waiving, for a two-year period, permit and renewal fees in the public works code for cafe tables and chairs in public sidewalks and roadway areas, and for display of fruits and eventual taveget

nonfood merchandise on public sidewalks, and waiving fees for use of parklets. discussion and action item. >> hello, lee. very excited to hear what you have in store for us. >> hello, everyone. i'm going to keep this brief. [inaudible] >> -- there's not a whole lot to report, and the intent of this is pretty straightforward. essentially what we're doing is waiving the fees for tables, chairs, display merchandise, and parklets. those are all permitted obstructions of the public right-of-way that existed before covid-19, and the genesis of this predates covid-19. we were conducting a study on this in august of last year. this one, on some level, became

moot when the shared spaces program took off, and of course, there are no fees associated with the shared spaces program. over the last couple of months, we started to hear from restaurants, other users of this -- [inaudible] >> -- obstructions of the public right-of-way they had been contemplating before the emergency, as well, and were worried about being charged fees. so we heard from the golden ga gate restaurant negotiation to that effect and a couple of other associations -- association to that effect and a couple of other associations that i work closely with. i think we might need a little bit more language in this legislation to make sure that all of the public space obstructions, creative uses of

the public space, whatever you want to call them, are quote, unquote, grandfathered in so they don't need to seek approval. there is something else that i want to say about this, as well. this will go before the budget and finance committee -- [inaudible] >> now fees here are tied to cost recovery. anything over cost recovery requires approval as a tax, and that cost recovery is based on staff time that it takes to implement these obstructions of the right-of-way. in this instance, and i think what shared spaces has really shown us is we can really minimize the staff time that's required -- [inaudible] >> and as long as the city is providing clear guidance on how businesses can self-implement these programs, then we can

actually not expend a whole lot of staff time and expense on the cityside, and that helps to justify this, as well. the other rationale here that, you know, was wemp we we were o identify barriers that were big problems for businesses, keeping them from participating. [inaudible] >> we're talking about $200,000 a year -- [inaudible] >> -- that wants to put out tables and chairs, that wants to put out display merchandise, that wants to put out a parklet. when those fees are in the

hundreds of thousands of tl dollars, that is a barrier -- [inaudible] >> -- hey, that small businesses are used to innovation. they can implement them according to guidelines set forth by the city, and they can find innovative paths forward, especially right now. for all intents and purposes, this is a two-year extension of shared spaces. the only reason it says two years is it was a more difficult draft exercise to say that this was permanent legislation that would sunset in two years. but certainly, the board of supervisors can make this permanent by actions the same as they could revoke it by any action, as well.

[inaudible] >> -- and a strong desire to see it continue even after the covid-19 emergency. that concludes my presentation, and i'm happy to answer questions. >> thank you so much, lee. commissioner yakutiel? >> hi, lee. this is commissioner yakutiel. we're estimating that 50% of our businesses might be closed by the end of this nightmare. it could take five to ten to 15 years to get back to the place where we were before, where running a small business is actually profitable in this city. one of the things that we first started talking about when i was brought onto the small business commission was how to save san francisco small businesses from closure, and that was before the pandemic. why not just waive fees for tables and chairs altogether?

two years seems like not enough time to actually do what we need to do, which is go back to a place where san francisco was friendly to small business, and i don't see why we wouldn't just waive these fees all? >> i think i just answered this question, respectfully. the answer is because this -- the department requested a sunset on this, and by any measure, we can extend this past two years. i'll put on my ben rosenfield hat, my controller hat, my city attorney hat. the whole concept of fee relief and charging fees was a consequence of a prop 13 in 1978, which really impacted our ability to assess taxes.

when prop 13 went into effect, it hobbled our ability to collect taxes by city government, so we came up with the fee structure that we currently have. there are businesses that are going to be able to afford these fees. the fees are, they are traditionally a lease to ask the city for use of the public realm so that's another theoretical thing that we need to balance here, is the privatization of public space. in two years, if we're at a whole other place of recovery, we can have that conversation. i think two years is enough time to provide immediate relief and to extend shared spaces out. >> okay.

can i make a couple of comments. i think it's time for the small business community to push back a little bit on what city departments say that they want or need and start speaking about what we need in order to survive in this city, so it doesn't matter that the department asked for a sunset. you want to help small businesses? a don't ask for a sunset. second, just because something is revenue neutral doesn't mean that it's a good thing. there are plenty of areas where the city expends money that it might not be necessary, and i don't think that fees need to be taken in order to fund particular positions in the city. the third thing is i don't think we should be thinking about this, with respect, as a

way to mitigate some damage of what's happening right now. we have an opportunity right now to clear the way and make san francisco easier for small businesses, and i think this particular piece, outdoor tables and chairs, is a great example of something that's only adding to the speerps of being san francisco. there's no negative from taking up space in the public purview if it's entertaining the community, expanding small businesses, and helping people enjoy the richness of their local community. so i think actually, wiit was your boss, supervisor peskin, who said this is something that's contributing to the public good. so why are we asking for money from small businesses to beautify our community? the small businesses should be asking for money from our city, not the other way around.

>> commissioner yakutiel, this is a fee waiver that i'm presenting to you. we are waiving fees for that very reason, and maybe i can just leave it at that. >> well, i'm saying, why leave it at two years? >> if this body wants to make a recommendation that we extend it indefinitely, godspeed, please do. >> well, how do you think that this recommendation would be taken by the office that's crafting this recommendation? >> i'm in the discovery phase. i'm in the middle of a legislative process. i think the reason we bring this to the commission is to get a position by the small business community. >> and we're deeply grateful for that, lee. >> thank you, commissioner. >> okay. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> good evening, lee. how you doing? >> good evening, commissioner. how are you? >> wish we were having a beer

instead of a late-night meeting. i have a question that i've heard from some members of my constitue constituency, calle 24 had. [inaudible] >> no. so this legislation does -- has no impact on the use or current regulatory scheme for permits. it just eliminates the fee. >> okay. that's it. thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. i think, you know, we should probably have a discussion about this. before commissioner yakutiel spoke, i was thinking of recommending that the legislation be extended to

three years in the perhaps optimistic hope that it would be harmonized with other ballot measures that are coming down the pike. with that being said, you know, i will say those tables and chairs generate tax revenue, they generate sales tax revenue, they generate jobs. as commissioner yakutiel said, they generate a beautification of the city. it's magic, and it reminds me of the city that i was hoping i was moving to in 1990. and i want to see a lot more of

it, and want -- oh, i'm being reminded by the commission secretary that we need to take public comment before we offer discussion. i'll phrase it as a question. as commissioner yakutiel, would a recommendation be useful to you and your office? >> yeah. just to explain where we're at in the process, we introduced this on july 21. it is subject to the 30-day hold, so we are in the middle of that. this is the 30-day portion for public comment, after which it'll be brought to committee. we are in the early stages of the legislation, but this is exactly the time where we're looking for input from the small business commission and others. >> perfect. okay. so are there any members of the public who would like to make

comment on item number 4? >> yes, we do have some. i will take the first caller right now. >> thank you. go ahead, caller. >> good evening. this is steven cornell, and i -- after listening to this whole thing with the doctor earlier, why can't this also include all fees for legitimate businesses in the parks? the parks are charging a fee to the -- their recent structure to use it. this would be a great time to eliminate those fees also. thank you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. this is tracey sylvester again. i stuck around to represent all of the people that spoke earlier today. i own e.h.s. pilates, a legacy business in san francisco and have been running classes in

the park i think the last six weeks, going into nine weeks, because the permits are being renewed on a three-week cycle, which gives us no time to plan or being able to market or gain any traction because we don't know when they're going to be pulled from usage. also, i have accrued over $1500 in permit fees and am faced with the next round of $900 fees on top of my $8,000 a month rent, my employees, and all my fixed operating costs. so i plead, plead, plead with anybody that's out there that can help to please get these permit fees waived for the fitness community, using the parks to somehow have a glimmer of hope and a lifeline as part of shared spaces. and as this juncture, i'd also like to ask that those permits be extended for the exact same amount of time that they're

allowing businesses to use shared spaces for bars and retail so that we can all have a little bit of a lifeline. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> there are no more callers at this time. >> great. so let me ask you a question, lee. is this legislation able to take on things like the park and recs fees? is there a -- >> i don't know the legislative source of those fees. it would take a little bit of research on my end, but i don't see why not. the fees here are fees that are assessed by the department of public works. it sounds like the fees that are being assessed for the use of park space are probably accessed by the recreation and parks department, and i assume that these fees are in the parks code. i'm happy to look into that. >> so just to bring you up to

speed, some of the physical fitness trainers who are prohibited from working in their fitness studios, they are going to the parks. there is a small nominal fee that they're being charged per person or sometimes per space. it's, like, $1 or $2 per person per hour, but in aggregate, it adds up, and it's a sore spot, certainly, especially given the fact that they can't operate at all. so commissioners, we should consider an action here. >> commissioner laguana? >> yes. >> can i please propose that the official recommendation of the small business commission is to thank the office of supervisor peskin for this legislation and strongly suggest that the fee be waived in its entirety, not waived for two years? >> yes, i think that's an

excellent motion or a suggestion. we'll make a formal motion here in a second. i'm also going to recommend that we, if possible, the legislation be amended to waive the parks and recs fees for fitness studios. >> second. >> domenica, i guess, should i formulate that as a formal motion, domenica? >> yes. >> okay. i move that we thank supervisor peskin and his office for his excellent legislative idea, and that we further recommend that the fee waiver for seats and chairs be extended indefinitely, and we further

recommend that the park and recs fees for outdoor studios and fitness instructors be waived. >> i'll second. >> is this the right time just to say something here? >> no? >> no? okay. then i won't. i made my point clear. >> we're about to vote, yeah. >> on the motion as presented by commissioner laguana, seconded by commissioner adams, roll call vote -- [roll call]

>> motion passes unanimously. >> okay. thank you, lee. have a good night. next item, please. >> item 5, presentation, update and report -- >> i think we're making an agenda change. >> no, no, no. >> we're staying on course? okay. perfect. go ahead. >> item 5, presentation, update and report on the shared spaces program and relates resources. discussion item. presenter is robin ab abad ocubillo, senior planner with the planning department, and i'm so sorry because i totally just really destroyed your name.

>> hi, robin. >> he is logging on and off -- and he's here. robin, you're on. >> oh, thank you. apologies for being late. i stepped away for one minute, and it was me. am i able to share my screen? >> i think -- >> it looks like i'm able to share. >> do we have to give him control? [inaudible] >> okay. >> thank you so much. okay. great. good evening, commissioners. some really great stuff on the agenda tonight. it's really great to hear from director weiland and deputy director azevedo.

they've been a huge part of the shared spaces program and making it a success, so it's nice to hear from them about everything that they're doing. so just following up, there's a big update on that that's immediately responsive to the resolution that you passed on july 13, and then some notes on the program that are scaling up and expanding. so, you know, to date, we have

over 1500 shared spaces applications. prior numbers that i gave were hovering right around 1,000. that didn't account for about 500 temporary loading zones, so we're doing some acquisition and expanding what shared spaces actually oversees. the distribution of the different types of shared spaces across those different shared spaces. we have about 63% up and

operating. others are awaiting, you know, additional information or in some stage of review, and then, you know, a small percentage overall, about 12% were ineligible for diverted. the former label we were using for this was denied, which i think was confusing for some folks, so just to add a more descriptive label, these wouldn't have been appropriate to have a shared space there, or, for example, was a full street closure and was diverted to a single lane instead. also just want to let everyone on the commission know as well as those in the public that are watching that at

sfgov/shareddashspaces, we have a dashboard that you can look at, the status of these spaces and where they're appearing across the city. it's part of our data transparency effort to be sharing more real-time live information with constituents and stakeholders. i'll talk about this a little bit later, but one program area that has recently been added to shared spaces are -- is an application process for the use of surface parking lots. so these are either privately held or, in many cases, surface parking lots owned by the sfmta. similar to parking closures, these are situations where a group of merchants under the vagus of the merchants association or some other local organization operate a single shared space permit as a group.

we've got one in, and we expect to see this number continue to grow. the numbers in the columns and rows here in parentheses are the updated chart as we continue to move more information into the appropriate category. i just want to address, following up on my last presentation, what's already being done, what's in the process of being implemented, and what we're continuing to analyze, and i'll get into some specifics.

this slide has changed much since the last time i came before you. simplifying the prerequisites was a lot of feedback that we were getting, simplifying the process. i also mentioned that the shared spaces program has an equity strategy, and that's helping us, you might say, triage these applications for the program. we know that not all applicants are equal in terms of their technical fluency, their experience navigating city bureaucracy and processes, so the shared spaces is a strategy for us to focus additional

technical assistance in certain neighborhoods and with certain communities. the e.s.l. communities, immigrant-owned businesses, opportunity neighborhoods, and equity zones, as defined by the office of economic and workforce development. beyond that, we've got a no-frills shared space. we recently released guidance with respect to that.

we wanted coming up with staffing requirements was really onerous and burdensome, as well, and then, i mentioned insurance -- excuse me. [please stand by]

>> we're -- it's getting late so i'm not going to go into detail and just go quickly and get to the sustainability strategy. just noting there were many ideas that came from your commission, constructive ideas that we're still looking at earnestly and incorporating into our program. so, your resolution and feedback we've been getting from the economic recovery task force and others have prompted us about the strategy. there was a big experiment using borrowed time, borrowing staff from every nook and cranny we

could find in the city. there are these response roles and there's been a significant investment in those emergency, with that response function to staff this program. at the same time, due to the volume, we know it's not long-term sustainable. you all have given us feedback about the turnaround time when we have thousands of applications and relatively. so it's how we strengthen that timeline, how we minimize as many barriers as possible for

participation, for example the former requirement to provide a certificate of insurance naming the city and county of san francisco as additionally insured. we also want to ensure that as these sites become more numerous and more and more businesses are leveraging this program as part of their survival strategy during this economic stress, we're also doing it in a way that reflecting compliance with all of our safety directives so this pandemic is shorter and not longer. also, there are some efforts we want to take to track and report more accurately. so how do you achieve this? well, there are different ways you can do this. you can add people. you can add capacity to our team or you can beef up the partners capacity like non-governmental

organizations and partners who are helping us deliver this program. you can streamline procedures, look at requirements that may have called for a longer public notice period or more in-depth review. we talked about this in the forthcoming draft ordinance. also, easing requirements, making sure that applicants don't have to produce as much stuff, right? whether that's a super detailed dimension site plan or going through the own -- onus steps and eliminating some of those and material and final grants. so moving forward regarding insurance. formally applicants needed to go through the process of getting

their policyholder, name them on the certificate, e-mail the certificate to the city. now this is a self certification requirement. this reduces a huge stressor for applicants who have many, many things on their minds, so supporting their families, getting some of their employees back into jobs so they can support their families. so this is no longer a requirement for approval. you just have to self certify at the outset that you as a merchant or participant in this hold the reck -- requisite policy. so large projects like the merchants association. that was one of our first big pilots and what was required at the time was that the project, a single entity, in this case the project sponsor, the merchant's association takes out a policy

that will take out everything and all the merchants that were participating in that closure. not only do they have to acquire that, they have to produce the documentation, they had to go through all of the complex role of getting their making arrangement with all the participanting merchants on the block to get them covered. this is also no longer required in submitting proof of documentation at the outset. instead of having one entity carry the policy for everyone which the city risk manager is allowing is for these roadway projects or soon-to-be parking lot activations to move forward as long as the participanting merchants carry a policy for themselves. so a huge shift, a huge lowering

in the barrier. so code also requires a detailed site plan. we know for some merchant associations or groups of businesses, it's the last thing they know how to do, the last thing they have time to find an engineer to produce this kind of drawing. so we work with our partners at department to sort of make the requirement more basic so that it's easier to produce and possibly something that the city staff can produce in partnership with the applicant to get that requirement in the door. we talked about street closure barricades and our first responders, and the fire department to come up with a different specification for the type of signage and physical barriers that are deployed, you

know, at the intersection to indicate a street is close to vehicular traffic and open for pedestrian bicycle traffic only. so this is key because now organizations like the merchants association don't need to provide staffing, right? as long as the barricade strategy we're using and we're going from -- i don't want to go into the technicality but type 1 barricade to cones. once we make that switch, fire trucks and other emergency response vehicles will be able to run over the barricades without damaging their rigs and their vehicles. simil similarly you know, there were some requirements that we had to delineate traffic, or rather delineate shared spaces from active travel lanes, disposed some conflict for our partners

at the mayor's office with disability and the constituency they advocate for. this was a sticking point that gummed up design and site planning for larger shared spaces. so we worked to fire it to specify a solution for this that satisfies jurisdictions and needs from both, you know, communities in a way that is objective and can be applied to all situations so we no longer are involved in that kind of intensive back and forth site by site review. they are now objective standards on how you handle that physical edge. so, there has also been a lot of feedback about roadway closures and how long it can take. the program, when it was created, committed to turning around applications within two weeks.

that is the fastest, maybe that the city has ever done anything. so it's a big lift and big challenge. you know, we acknowledge that some of our early pilots, especially have len ya being one of them took much longer. we learned a lot from that and identified very specific ways we can tighten up and shorten those city review timelines to ensure that we get closer to two weeks. so some key features of this are to involve the fire department from the very beginning. i'm going to show a chart shortly that details what the ten business day or 14 calendar timeline looks like interagency so there is maximum clarity and transparency both within the city, between the departments that delivered this program and the public so folks understand what we have to do and where we're at in the process. we're also taking a leap and

changing what the standard requirement is for public noticing. it's a fine balance between doing something expeditiously and also having a measure of you know, community engagement and an opportunity for stakeholders, residents, other business operators in the neighborhood to provide this city with comment. so, you'll see here some folks on this call and folks who are dialing in are familiar with our city's process for temporary street closures, which is run by the interdepartmental staff committee on transit and transportation. that's laid out in city code. transportation cody vision one, article 6 to be specific. we're taking that much longer timeframe that can sometimes be entail in the road closure process and compressing it, getting really tight, setting up clear expectations for all the

jurisdictions involved and reviewing so we can meet this shorter timeline. okay, so moving to closure and i'm going super fast. i'm sensitive to the fact that everyone has been on the commission call for the last four hours. i want to wrap up my stuff. so i just mentioned that we have just launched an application for a capta-- applicant to get to pe property. think of parking lots. so you have some sense of what a potential site could be for this. we haven't yet gotten the official applicant from pacific catch and the parking lots owned and operated by is s.f.m.t.a.

so i also mentioned that we wanted to provide better guidance around how to build what we're calling a shared spaces platform. we're not calling these park lets because they have a different program. those are publicly accessible open spaces that are not associated with exclusive use where shared spaces are about commercial activities and outdoor dining and retailing. the concern and the goal here is to of course allow and facilitate small businesses to build out their curbside spaces if they have a permit to occupy through shared spaces. in a way, that is of course a.d.a. compliance and acceptable, but also it's safe.

it's designed and built and structured in a manner that will be safe for occupation and that doesn't impede emergency access to things like fire hydrants and pipes. so fortunately with our parklet program in san francisco, which is going into its 11th year now, we have some very well developed design criteria that we're able to transpose and make available to the shared spaces platform program so that folks who want to do something more elaborate than put dining facilities out in the curbside lane with a barrier can do so and understand what the expectations are for health and humid safety and a.d.a. accessibility. dr. aragon referred to this earlier, this has been a huge preoccupation. personal services. the discussion earlier this

evening focused on indoors and the restrictions that the state helped directives place on those activities indoors. so we've been working with d.t.a. staff to explore what it may look like for personal service provision out of doors in shared spaces. so hopefully more on that before the end of the month. there are many other things that as part of the sustainability strategy we have yet to explore and incorporate. it's a work in progress. what we really tried to focus on and the first part of the sustainability strategy are some of those process and like kind of regulatory requirements and easing those up so that we can move people, more people through the pipeline faster. okay, so with that i'll end and take any questions from commissioners or the public. >> great.

do we have any commissioner questions? here we go. commissioner. >> i'm so sorry small business commission. i'm never sure if i should -- i just go for it. i apologize if i step too quickly. just a couple quick questions. thank you so much for presenting. why was the 3% slope indefinitely paused for shared spaces? >> the 5% slope? >> is that a very steep slope? it's hard for me to say. san francisco is such a slopey city. >> it is so credit really goes to our mayor's office of disability who has been trying to reach an acceptable way to work with businesses who are on streets that are on a slope of over 5%. so, new guidance on this is

eminent and i think i can say we'll be able to officially approve folks, but we don't have language back, final language back from m.o.d. and our city attorney yet so i couldn't celebrate that with you here tonight. it is something that we are working on at this moment. >> okay, thank you. i want to thank you for coming up with the solution to permit the platforms. this is something that you've been working on interdepartment tally and you could have said no platforms, redo everything, but you came up with a collaborative approach. thank you. i wanted to talk about the fire department for a second and just ask you -- i know that your team has been working with the fire department and i just wanted to get some insight on how that conversation and that relationship is going because

obviously there is such an essential partner in this and how the small business commission may be able to assist in any ongoing conversations with the fire department. >> yes, thank you for asking about that. yeah, we are -- i think all of the departments are pushing their comfort level in order to make this program successful and to think of approaching this in a different way than we approach business before in this city. so, you know, i think that the feedback that you've given through your resolution and through your own work in the community has had an impact. we've come up with a solution for having to staff barricades. that was very clear feedback that the commission gave our program and we shared with the fire department. the issue is generally about timeline and turn around.

so we continue to build that close collaboration with the fire department and you know, i want to keep everyone posted about how we're doing with that. >> my last question to you robin, i have been on conversations and been invited to zoom meetings with eight different merchant associations across the city to discuss full street closures because the board that i'll on was able to accomplish it and folks want to know how it was done. what i realized is that a lot of folks who are in merchant corridors, where it intersects with a line, we're told at the outset that they shouldn't really even try to shut down a commercial corridor with a bus or light rail line and while it was technically feasible, they were dissuaded from doing it.

i know you are a planner and you have been a planner for a long time, i wanted to ask what you thought about folks trying to shut down their streets are being dissuaded from doing so if it intersects with immunity lines. it will cost them time and money and essential workers, you know, time to get to their jobs. i wanted to bring this to your attention as the director of the shared spaces program and ask for your thoughts. >> yeah, thank you for asking about that commissioner. it's a balance, right? there are many demands on the streets. economic recovery sits alongside getting people around safely and efficiently. revenues are -- the revenue

outlook is still dire. the muni is running core service. the bus lines that are left are even more critical to getting -- to giving options to folks to get around. i think it's natural that this conflict would come up because of a lot of bus lines running down the commercial district where a lot of our neighborhood services and you know, the 26 hasn't run down for a long time. i remember that from the early 2000s when i first moved to the city. i think there are solutions to this. there are ways to use a lot of the street and not the whole of it, right? you can still take curbside lanes, depending on how wide the street is and still not interrupt muni bus routes.

there are side streets. sometimes it's actually more ideal to take 18th street, either side of castro. some of these more intimately scaled streets are in better condition for this kind of outdoor activity. we're also looking at surface parking lots. in our commercial districts, there are one or two parking lots that would make an ideal venue for a group operated shared space. so, i think there are solutions, you know, that closing down the street is not the only option. there are ways we can get businesses operating, serving people safely in the public realm, getting their employees back in their jobs, but in a way that also doesn't negatively impact getting people moving around. a lot of our transit dependent

commuters are lower income folks and we have to make sure their ability to move around is there. >> all right, thank you so much robin and thank you so much for being a fierce advocate for small business during this time. >> thank you. >> commissioner ortiz, you got your hand up. >> hi robin. thank you for your presentation and bearing with us this late. a couple of things from your presentation. [inaudible] >> i worked personally with businesses and i know the process. everybody has been very respecti respective. thank you for that. that's what i've been advocating for, and it's cumbersome especially if english is not

your first language. thank you for that. we really appreciate that. the presentation kind of show it is southeast quadrant of the city. there are not many green dots. i'm an advocate for equity and like one of the things i mentioned throughout the process is my constituency, we don't have desktops. we use our cell phones. if you use google translate on the desktop, it says language. on your phone, i said it numerous times, we need to get that changed. [inaudible] >> overall, thank you. just to let you know, we're out

here. we're here to help. we're here. i know everybody is stretched thin but we have the resources in the non-profit sector. >> thank you. >> thank you commissioner ortiz, i appreciate that. >> so robin, so first i just want to commend the extraordinary amount of progress you made since your last report. you know, i was expecting a quick report and it was a long report, even though you were going through it quickly, simply because of all the things that got done. i feel like there were some changes made since this morning. so, you know, i think as a commission we want to give you guys all the credit for really rising up to the challenge here and really trying to work

through these problems. we understand that there is still a lot left to do. we're here to support you through that. you're making tremendous progress and that absolutely deserves credit. a quick question, you know, it came up their -- that irving street was working through -- having to come up with the site plan is what the director responded with. in this update i saw today, it sounds like we're moving away from the formal site plans. is that retroactive to urban street? can you give us an update on where they're at with their street closure project? >> yes, thanks president for asking about that. so, irving street, it's the perfect place to have a roadway closure of shared space.

you have all of the merchants in the area, really advocating for this. this is not something the city is imposing. they're asking for it. supervisor mar's office has been a huge advocate of seeing this happen and the community group out there has been doing a lot of outreach to folks in the neighborhood. it is absolutely the ideal set of conditions that the city would want to see to get a shared space done. you know, the ask, the next step for that project was for the community group to produce the site plan. that's what the code required. that's what my team had asked them to produce earlier this month and i think at the same time we recognize that as i said earlier, not all community groups have the same or the fluency to produce such a document. that's why we've been -- my team has been working really hard to

find a compromise about around the site plan requirement. i think we hit a good one with the fire department. they're asking for something that's more like a basic diagram rather than a detailed dimension site plan at this time. so that is absolutely retroactively applies to irving street. that's the only outstanding piece. now that we -- as of late last week, we have had this agreement between all the different departments delivering the program about what the site plan requirement is. we can start working with all of these folks, these applicants that are outstanding and get them moved through much more quickly. >> okay, two weeks ago you mentioned a stainability report. today you made a number of -- you know, there are elements of your report that i couldn't tell if i was looking at the sustainability report that you

were talking about last week or if i was just looking at a summary or abstract version of that sustainability report. is there a more detailed report that we haven't seen or what we're looking at now, that is the report? >> right, the shared spaces sustainability strategy is in essence, there is more detailed text than what i shown you today. it really is a list of 14 or 17 points, issues and the various -- the staff memo does have all of the various different possible solutions and what i summarized for you are what the agency has aligned around. what you're looking at is the current state of the sustainability strategy. it's a living document that's evol evolving, and we're building upon it as we identify more ways to solve the issues that have been named.

they will move from being analyzed to being implemented part of the list. >> great. well, you know, it was great to get that level of detail. how do you feel we're doing with expanding outward into some of the outer lying districts? what is your sense of the obstacles there and do you feel like we're making head way or you know, is there help or assistance that we can provide? >> thank you for asking. i really appreciate how constructive this commission is and how supportive you are of the program. so, you know we are making good head way in some of those outer neighborhoods. we have several pilot projects in development.

there are some of these projects that have been floated in the sunset three roadway closure probabli projects, one of them is active. they're seeking an expansion to go bigger. so we are seeing traction and devoting some extra staff, extra city attention to those neighborhoods to ensure that we see broad adoption among different communities and geographically in different parts of the city as well. >> excellent. first, is there any commissioner comment before i go to public comment? nope? okay. are there any members of the public that would like to comment on item number 5? >> yes, we have two. i'll put the first one through.

>> please. go ahead commenter. >> hi, this is tracy sylvester again. i'm taking this opportunity -- sorry, it's a fire truck. i wanted to take this opportunity when the fitness group came together earlier to talk to you robin about the permit fees and the parks. i wanted to also speak on public record that these fees are $15 an hour for us to run our businesses in the park. the permits are only given for three weeks at a time. we're offering free classes and trying to promote and get people to attend these classes, with low enrollment, sometimes it's an out of pocket cost with no break even in order to try to build some business opportunities in the parks as part of shared spaces. when i went to apply to shared

spaces in the park, the only application available to me is if i were a restaurant where they were waving fees for restaurants to do business in the park but have been charged every three weeks, almost $3,000 in fees to be able to participate in the shared space program. it feels like the mission is on fire right now, sorry. you guys can hear all the fire trucks as they're going by. i wanted to see about the actual fees associated with the shared spaces program in the parks and i wanted to find out if there would be any way to wave and refund those fees for the small businesses that have been operating out of the park? one of the other areas i was trying to be very creative with shared spaces about is to have a pop-up tent or a space outside of the park on the sidewalks. one would be on the valencia corridor, where the street has

been closed down during thursday through sunday to promote business or sign people up for classes or be there to offer some type of marketing for the people that are paying for the permit fees to be in the park. i was told that, that is not a part of the shared space program and shared spaces and park and reck are not on the same page. i wanted to let you know that's happening and any support would be great to give more access to the small business community to do business in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. next commenter? >> first, i wanted to say i was attempting to make a comment on the previous item, but that i wanted to echo the pilates studio that came before me and when she commented on the

previous ones. the permit fees and the prohibition their permitting process that is in the parks right now is obscene. it is unreasonable. it is absolutely insane. if you look at france, germany, any other country in the world, they do not treat their citizens like we're doing here. it's absolutely insane to expect some business to be forced to pay money to have people gather. i mean it's unconstitutional to prohibit people from gathering. that's what this process has done. i appreciate the shared spaces program and getting a little bit of our roadways out of the hands of the cars and just a little bit of our sidewalks and the end of businesses and the people that want to use them, like is common in paris or in any other

major european city, we absolutely need to look fundamentally at why we're treating our citizens this way and expecting people to come up with so much money and paperwork to be able to gather. it is insane and it is absolutely unreasonable bureaucracy. >> okay, thank you. so, i think that's it for public comment. public comment is closed. commissioners, any further discussion? so, you know, for the callers that called in earlier on the previous agenda item we discussed the parks and rec fees and asked that supervisor peskin amend his legislation asking to wave the park and recks fees.

just for a back story, we recommended those park fees be waved in our resolution for the economic recovery task force. so this is not the first time we brought this up and we brought it up a couple different times in a couple different forums. we will continue to push forward on that. i will say that i think eventually we will make progress. so, robin, i appreciate everything you're doing. that was an excellent update. at the next hearing we're going to hear from some of the underlying communities about the issues effecting them, so that will be useful to connect on that and hopefully we can get some public comment that will further illustrate the challenges. you guys are heading down the

right path and we have your back and just keep up the good work. please tell your team how much we appreciate everything they're doing. we know you probably need more resources to get through these applications. we will try to brainstorm some ways on how to get you those resources so we can move quickly. this is urgent to the small business community. so, thank you for your time. >> thank you commissioners. i appreciate it. >> okay, for the members of the public, we are going to skip a couple items. we're moving late on our scheduling here, it's almost 10:00 p.m. we're going to double back and come back to them, but we're going to skip to item number 8. so can you call item number 8 please. >> item number 8, board of supervisors 200765, emergency

ordinance. covid related employment protection, emergency ordinance to protect workers if they test positive for covid-19 or isolating or quarantine, and to protect applicants from discrimination if they test positive for covid-19 are isolating or have previously isolated on quarantine due to covid-19 symptoms. the presenter is paul. legislative aide to hillary ronen. >> thank you paul. welcome and thank you for joining us. i appreciate your patience. it's now a quarter to 10:00. that's an unreasonable hour to ask someone to make a

legislative presentation. we're here, we're listening and we'll do our best. >> my pleasure and i appreciate the diligence and commitment to getting through the agenda. i know you have so much work to cover and we're honored to have some time. so i'll just get started. the legislation before you is the safer act. this is an emergency ordinance that seeks to expand employment protection for workers who are unable to work because they test positive for covid-19 or they must quarantine due to covid-19 symptoms or exposure. here in san francisco we have a widespread covid testing and that's part of our response to the ongoing pandemic. it's so important because it has allowed us to identify and quarantine and treat covid positive individuals to prevent

further transmission out in the community. unfortunately for some of our residents, especially those who lack adequate employment protecti protection, the lack of protections for covid status in particular has discouraged workers from being able to acce access the city's robust testing. for many workers in san francisco, especially our low age workers and essential workers, there is reluctance to take a covid-19 test if they believe a positive diagnosis and the need to quarantine could lead to them potentially losing their employment and income. in this period of unno, ma'am ma'amic -- economic uncertaint., right now in terms of the

legislative framework that we're operating under, there is patch work that already provides protections for workers that can't work because they test positive for covid or must quarantine. some of those laws were referenced in the helpful and thorough memo. the challenge is that there are small gaps in those people that result in a number of workers still not being covered from that level of protection. a covid positive worker cannot be legally be fired if they're using paid or unpaid leave. if a worker doesn't have any leave benefits because they used it up, because they haven't been with an employer for a long enough period of time to accrue any lead benefits or they never had it in the first place, or undocumented workers, they are

still vulnerable of being fired for being covid positive and in quarantine. so we're trying to make it unlawful for the firing, the demotion, or the discipline of an employee by essentially making that type of adverse reaction considered a discriminatory action against someone who has covid.

. >> so with the assurance of a positive diagnosis, we're hoping this legislation will be

key to encouraging residents to get tested here in the city so they can monitor their health and also facilitate the gradual reopening of our economy in san francisco. the last thing i'll mention is with this initial draft that you have before you, we sought to really cast a wide net on what protections we could imagine based on some of the existing discrimination employment protection that already exists in city code. for example, we looked around protections for workers who were hiv positive, and we did that to see what the possibility of a starting scope of this legislation, also with the understanding that through conversations with the small business commission, with the department of public health, to narrow and make more

adjustments in this ordinance for emergency health. i'd just conclude by saying we have no pride in authorship. we are open to any and all amendments and provisions that would help improve the efficacy of this legislation and help address any unintended consequences. we're welcoming feedback and any thoughts you have and ideas on how we can strengthen the intents and the purposes of this legislation, so thank you for your time. >> thank you, paul. do we have any commissioner questions or comments? if no one has any questions, i'll jump in.

paul, you've seen our l.s.b. staff memo, and it sounds like you're amenable to adopting the suggestions there in? >> yeah. some suggestions have come to our attention through the department of public health, for example, one regarding applicants. but even in the drafting process, we had flagged that as needing more input from mental health professionals. the current provision for that particular provision is what you all had recommended in your proposed revision to the legislation, so that's very much in line with where we were going, and again, the three recommendations that you put forward wiare balanced, reasonable, and -- [inaudible]. >> i think the one thing that's

challenging in small business right now is just because we're having a pandemic and just because we're having a lot of things going on doesn't necessarily mean that, unfortunately, employees are going to do what they're supposed to do, and sometimes you have to take adverse action. it's come up once or twice, you know. i mean, things are just unvoidablu unavoidable, like one employee threatening another. >> great. >> so i think having that language clarified around that was what really stuck out to me. other than that -- >> i have a quick question, commissioner. >> i'm sorry. commissioner yakutiel, go ahead. >> this is commissioner yakutiel. hi, paul. >> hi. >> thanks for burning the 10:00, midnight oil with us.

we're hearing businesses that are taking the proactive step to shutdown for a couple of weeks when an employee tests positive for covid. there have been a couple of businesses in the mission that have done that. i know andy town coffee has done that. does this apply in the case when a business decides to cease operations for two weeks until everyone gets tested and everyone comes back? is this now saying that they need to pay their employees 80 hours of pay if they've made the executive decision, as a small business, to stop running for a week or two until they know what everyone's status is? >> so it wouldn't apply in that context, and we've been getting some guidance around writing a provision that can keep to that scenario just to be explicit about it. oftentimes, these things aren't addressed in the legislation. and that would be specific for us and be helpful to clarify

where it's not an applicable scenario like that. >> so i will say this is great, and we want to make sure that employees are not being attacked for needing to take care of their own health. that's important, and i think people even in the middle of a pandemic should have the heart not to take retributive action towards an employee who is sick. at the same time, a small business -- you could make the argument that having a small business pay for everyone's pay for two weeks when they're ceasing operations just to do the right thing, to make sure that the employees of their business are healthy, that's a different scenario. that's not them being idiots, that's them trying to make sure they have a safe working environment for all of their employees. so my only caution here is to find the balance between making

sure that employees ars are do the right thing where trying to do the right thing, an employee is facing tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee-based compensation for things that are not actually done. do you understand what i'm saying? >> we would love to collaborate with the mission and help you get the word out about the program, so if there is a circumstance where there is a worker that you're aware of that needs to take -- needs to take time off to quarantine, if they're ill or they've been directly exposed, and a small business does not have the need to offer that type of support, that program is also available to support those employees and having additional support, as well, during that period.

>> i think there is also a p.r. piece to this. there is also pressure, public pressure, on small businesses to make sure you test your employees, and we want to create environments where small businesses are doing that, creating a safe working environment and not worrying that that might mean that they have to pay everyone's salaries even if they're not working. >> right. >> okay. commissioner zouzounis? >> thank you, paul, for coming to the commission tonight. it's -- if staff can read back for me for clarity? it sounds like section 5-a or

5-b is when we weighed in for a different deferred start date. i'd just like to know if that's the area we already weighed in on. but i do have another question outside of area of 5-a and 5-c. >> great. >> so a kind of logistical area, if you could help me understand. are the small business who -- an employee calls, you know, halfway through the day, saying i can't come. is there guidance that you expect to be giving small businesses around, like, a kind of statute of time or best protocols for an example like that in which they're not going to be on the hook for having to

pay someone for time that they have no idea they weren't able to work for? for example, i just don't want them to get into a situation where a small business has to incur up to $16,000 of fees or fines because they weren't clear exactly on kind of the logistical timeline of when they had to pay someone and why? >> yeah, and we're going to be -- we're working with the director of the office of labor standards and enforcement and d.p.h. on outlining that protocol just so that, also, employers are also fully aware what the nature of the responsibility is. that type of language doesn't always make it into the legislation, but it's -- the legislation empowers the o 4ls to issue guidance to employers and employees, and we're committed to making sure that's crystal clear. and they've recommended some

tightening of definitions so there's less room for interpretation both on the employers and employees side so it's much more adminstrable to them, but that's something that we'll be working on. >> okay. well, listen, i have to say, we really appreciate the spirit of collaboration with -- with the commission, and in particular, you know, taking our staff recommendations into account. it means a lot to us to be able to have that conversation. it makes it a lot easier to have that -- have a good constructive working relationship, which is all we want. we want to have you guys look great. does a commissioner want to make a motion? do we -- >> clerk: public comment. >> oh, shoot.

my bad. i forget. it's getting late. are there any members of the public who'd like to make comment on this item, number 8? >> there's no one in the queue at this time. >> okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have a motion? steven, you're muted. >> i'll make the motion to approve this legislation. >> i'll second. >> who's the second? >> me. >> approve as is or approve with modifications? is. >> i believe it's approved as is, but it could --

>> my motion is -- >> i don't want to leave anything out if we discussed anything. >> this is regina. so the legislation as it was posted did not include the recommendations in the legislative review? so paul has indicated that they're taking the recommendations, so i think we want to make sure that the commission supports the recommendation -- our recommendations being amended into the legislation. >> so can i amend the motion? what's the procedural here? >> i'll withdraw my original motion and remotion, which i can do that -- i think i can. >> yes, you can. >> and the motion that i'll go forward with the legislation with the recommendations put

forward through the small business commission that we had already discussed. thank you. >> and i'll resecond that. >> on the motion to vote on the item as presented -- [roll call] >> motion passes, 7-0. >> thank you, paul, and thank you, supervisor ronen. >> thank you all. good luck, and have a great rest of your evening. >> so i'm lost on what we're on. i think it's legacy business, item 6. >> item 6, approval of registry business applications and

resolutions. discussion and action items. the presenter is richard kurylo, legacy business program manager. and rick, i'm going to pass the ball to you so you can take control. >> good evening, president laguana, small business staff, meeting attendees. richard kurylo, legacy program business manager. i'm going to share my power approximatpower -- powerpoint slide with you. okay. can everyone see this? >> yep. >> great. before you today are four applications for the legacy business registry. each application includes a staff report, a draft resolution, the application itself, and a case report and

resolution from the planning department. the applications were submitted to planning on february 18 and heard by the historic preservation commission on april 15. h.p.c. had a one-month delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. per the admin code, h.p.c. has only 30 days to make a recommendation, at which time their nonaction is considered a positive recommendation. even though h.p.c. recommended all four applications on april 15, we're using march 19 as their official approval date. item 6-a is city nights. the business is the bay area's only 18 and over night club founded in 1985 by brit hahn, a 25-year-old san francisco native. ray nova joined city nights in

1995. city nights is one of the longest running large capacity night clubs in the country, having entertained over 6 million people from all over the world. the venue has featured some of the world's largest entertainers, including grace jones, lady gaga, prince, justin bieber, and m.c. hammer, to name a few. the core feature tradition the business must maintain to remain on the business registry is entertainment venue. item 6-b is korean martial arts center. the business is a martial arts center, founded by meryl jong in 1983. it is considered one of the community's neighborhood-serving institutions where people from all over the neighborhood learn

and perfect their skills. students have gone onto be successful martial artiststious participating in the junior olympics and traveling to korea for annual competitions. korean martial arts center is one of the oldest family-run businesses in ingleside. in 1996, jong's nephew and sister began managing the business. the core feature the business must maintain is martial arts training. item 6-c is new conservatory theater. it's a creative hub for the queer community, and a center for innovative arts and education for youth.

it was originally located at the first unitarian church. in 1985, the theater moved into its current home at the lower lobby of 25 vanness avenue, consisting of three theaters. during new conservatory's tenure there, all three spaces in the lobby have been renovated and approved. the core feature presentation the business must maintain is theater. item 6-d is royal motor sails. it's a business founded by walter anderson in 1947 and incorporated in june 1956. the business sells and services audi and volvo vehicles. it started at a repair shop at

280 vanness avenue. in 1956, walter acquired a car dealership and business franchise. they have been operating in san francisco for well over half a century, and they do not have any other business entities. walter ran the business until 1979, when his son took over the business. the core feature the business must maintain is automotive sales and services. all four businesses met the three criteria for listing on the business registry, and all four received a positive recommendation from the historic preservation commission. the motion in support of the businesses should be framed as

a motion in favor of the resolution. thank you. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions, and there are businesses representatives waiting patiently to speak on behalf of their businesses, and they've been stuck in a meeting in limbo for quite a few months, so just really thankful for their patience and understanding. >> yes, thank you, and it's wonderful to hear your voice again, richard. commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> thank you, richard. thank you for all the businesses being presented with this honor, and thank you for waiting for us. [inaudible] >> -- if i remember, so it's about time for city nights. >> thank you. commissioner zouzounis?

>> thank you, rich. good to see you. thanks for always being so attentive to our legacy business applicants. i just wanted to give a quick shoutout to -- [inaudible] >> in the industrial neighborhood in the south of market, we're facing a lot of businesses potential closures, so definitely want to support businesses in the trades providing important jobs to our communities, and definitely went to city nights when i was younger, so good to see these businesses before us today. >> thank you. commissioner hui? >> thank you for staying up with all of us and staying patient during this whole time. i've really enjoyed earlier

this year, like, all of the legacy business presentations, and i am so excited to have several more legacy businesses tonight. i wanted to -- i guess i'm not the only one who spent time at city nights, so yea! i'm really excited for all of you guys. i know my friends are excited to see city nights on this list, as well. i shared it with them, so congratulations, everybody, and thank you so much. >> thank you. let me just say, i hope i am applying for a legacy business approval at age 100, and thank y you, echoing the comments of my fellow commissioners, for everybody's patience. it's been quite a surprise the past few months, but we're back in business and appreciate you sticking with us so late

tonight, so with that, we'll go to public comment. are there any members of the public who would like to comment? >> yes, there are two -- or three callers. i'll put the first one through. >> perfect. thank you. caller, go ahead. >> good evening, commissioners. thank you very much for the great care you take on behalf of the city. this is ed decker, the founder and artistic director of the new conservatory theater center, and i wanted to express my gratitude to all of you on the small business commission and to our champions, supervisor preston and mandelman, and my thanks to rick kurylo on the small business commission. over the past 39 years, it has been our privilege to serve the

citizens of san francisco. with the support of this great city, we have been fortunate to grow, thrive, and become a cornerstone arts institution, operating just down the street from all of you in the heart of the civic street district. with your endorsement, the new conservatory looks forward to continuing that legacy for many years to come. thank you, all of you. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> good evening, commissioners, and office of small business staff. i'm alex with the ocean avenue association, and i'm here to speak on behalf of the korean martial arts center. it's a ingleside gem. i'm so happy that it's being put forward as a legacy business. i can't imagine the neighborhood without it, and thank you for your time, your consideration, your care for the city, and i want to extend

a special thanks to rick, of course. >> as do we all. thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. my name's mike jong. i want to praise the board to recognize the korean martial arts as a legacy business. i know master jong and the instructor for a long time. they are not only famous in taekwondo, haikido. i don't to keep everybody very long, but thank you very much, and stay safe. >> thank you, too. commissioner dooley -- i'm sorry. is that all the public comment? >> i have -- this is richard kurylo. i have something to read from andy hanson from royal motor sales, is that okay?

>> yes, please. >> my grandfather, walter anderson, the founder of royal motor sales came to san francisco as a teenager looking for work on the golden gate bridge. walter was unable to find work on the bridge and instead started working in a local body shop. during walter's time at the body shop, he developed a passion for cars. several years later, in 1947, walter founded royal motor sales. walter is still alive and well, and next month, he celebrates his 101 birthday. in 1979, walter's son, michael, took over the business. i joined royal in 2003 and now run the day-to-day operations. at royal, we take pride in having very deep roots in san

francisco and being a part of the community. we have partnered with many charities in san francisco, including ucsf, san francisco general, and girls and boys club of san francisco. through the decades, we've been delivering the courageous kids of the ucsf hospital with backpacks with school supplies. myself, my grandfather, my father, all take a lot of pride of the fact that we have been in san francisco, family owned business for well over half a century. we provide jobs for 150 people in san francisco and feel privileged to serve san francisco's residents automotive service needs, often servicing generational members of the same family. we look forward to servicing san francisco for many years to come. thank you very much for your time and consideration, andy

hanson. >> thank you. commissioner dooley, i see your name on here. >> i just wanted to congratulate everyone on these beautiful legacy businesses? it really shows the diversity of long-term valuable to our community businesses that are still out there and -- [inaudible] >> -- a legacy business. >> all right. thank you. i move that we -- that we approve the -- >> sorry. we have one more speaker, ray bobbit, but he said his microphone is not on. sfgovtv, is there anyone who can help. >> is he a panelist or an attendee? >> attendee. >> okay. i only see a meryl jong.

>> do you see a ray? >> no, i only see a meryl jong, and it looks like they're on some kind of a tablet. >> okay. i don't know if he'll be able to speak. >> sorry, ray. yeah, there's nothing that we can do with that one. >> commissioner laguana? >> yes. >> this is commissioner yakutiel. as we move through this pandemic in a crisis, i think our availability to bestow legacy business is going to be ever more important, and i just wonder how we're going to choose the kinds of businesses that we want to bestow this on? it's not really like an actionable point right now, but i would vote to approve these businesses and also, moving forward, just thinking about how we're strategizing on what

types of businesses we're protecting. >> i think we can follow up on that in a conversation in another meeting. there'll be opportunities to explore that issue and how we structure this overall. historically, we've left it up to staff, but if you want to expound on this process, question can bring it up in -- we can bring it up in new business in the next meeting. >> sounds good. >> i move we approve the businesses as presented. >> second. >> motion made by commissioner laguana, seconded by commissioner yakutiel to approve the businesses as presented. roll call vote -- [roll call]

>> this is regina. commissioner adams had to hop off the meeting. >> okay. [roll call] >> motion passes, 6-0, with one absence. >> can i just say how satisfying the little button beep is on the webex for muting and unmuting? do you guys hear the beep? >> no. >> no, you cannot say that, you've not been recognized, so put it back on mute, please. >> board member laverde-levine: trs.

[laughter] >> commissioners, we're going to move onto the next item, and i'm going to continue the other items to the next meeting. next item, please. >> item 7, general public comment. allows members of the public generally on matters in the commission's jurisdiction but not on the calendar and suggest new items for the commission to consider in the future. discussion item. >> do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on any item not on the agenda today? >> we do have two in the queue. i'll unmute the first caller. >> okay. caller, please go ahead.

caller, you have the floor. caller, are you there? next caller, please. >> hi. this is ray bobbit. i had -- from city nights, and i had a snafu in my communication, and i wanted to thank you guys, and i wanted to thank rick, and i wanted to thank the commission. i had a thank you prepared, but i just really want to encourage the commission as well as the city to do everything they can to support night life entertainment. we're really in a tough spot. i think maggie alluded to sort of a dream of when we may open,

and i think san francisco has earned the opportunity to have quality night life, and we're all in such a terrible position, but i just wanted to take this opportunity to speak not only in the celebration that we have to be a legacy business, but on behalf of our entire industry. we hope that there will be a way to support us and our industry, and we'll be fighting real hard to do so. i just wanted to thank you again, and i just wanted to shed light on the fact that the night life entertainment will need a lot of support, so -- >> thank you. i'm so glad you could join us for comment, ray. i'm sorry about the snaf you h had -- snafu earlier, and i will say as a musician, entertainment and night life has been an ongoing focus on behalf of the commission, and we will continue to move forward. are there any other public

callers? >> that was the last one. >> okay. seeing none, public comment closed. then i think we just have draft meeting minutes, is that correct, next item? >> yes. item 9, approval of draft meeting minutes, action item. >> are there any members of the public who wish to make comment on draft meeting minutes? >> i see a person, the same person who had audio issues before. i believe it's because they're on a tablet. >> i see. i've got it. you know what? we'll reopen that item so they can make their comment. >> okay. >> going back to item number 8, caller, go ahead. >> hello, folks. can you hear me? >> yes. >> fantastic. well, first and foremost, thank

you all for your hard work this evening. you're coming up on the five-hour mark. with that being said, my name is tedi kramer, and i am one of the cofounders of north beach delivers, which is a volunteer organization here in san francisco. we have generated over $50,000 for local restaurants in the north beach and chinatown community. the reason that we are calling this evening is because we want to help all of you and your districts with generating revenue for your local restaurants. how does it work? we help provide marketing and operational support for restaurants and do free delivery on a highlighted night of the week for those local restaurants in san francisco. our program has spread to russian hill, it's going out to the outer richmond, as well as the east cut as well as nob hill.

we want to bring it across san francisco, across california, and the rest of the united states, and we need your help. so i plan on sending a deck to director dick-endrizzi to pass along to all of you for more information for all of you. we were on three news stations this past sunday, so we are growing rapidly, and we want to do everything in our power to support local small businesses and local restaurants across the city. so i hope to have the opportunity to present to you auto formally or talk with each of you individually about how we can support you, your neighborhoods, and small businesses. thank you. have a fantastic night, and please be safe out there. >> thank you, caller. appreciate it, and appreciate what you're doing. is there anymore public comment? >> no, there is not. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item 9, approval of draft meeting minutes, action item.

>> are there any members of the -- >> sorry. you broke off there. there are no members of the public in the queue. >> yeah, i think i have a teenager watching a movie and a wife watching another movie, and my internet is not so great right now. seeing none, public comment is closed. i move to approve the meeting minutes. do i have a second? >> i'll second. >> motion by commissioner laguana to approve the meeting minutes, seconded by commissioner ortiz-cartagena. commissioner adams is absent. [roll call]

>> motion passes, 6-0, with one absence. >> okay. i'll just say, it's times like this i could not be prouder to serve on a commission with people like you. the commitment here to this community is extraordinary. i'm sure we're all very tired. we're going to continue the remaining items. just double-checking, director dick-endrizzi, do i have to make a motion to do so, or can we do it just by a stroke of the pen? >> you are able to continue those items, but it's still good protocol to call public comment just in case? >> all right. >> and then, of course, if there's any commissioners that do want to have something to say, they are certainly willing to be able to call out the item that they want to say something

under. >> okay. we'll open this up for public comment. >> oh, let's start off with the commissioners. >> are there any commissioners to comment on any of the items? >> this is commissioner yakutiel. i would like to thank director dick-endrizzi and the clerk for all their effort for making this meeting possible. i know commissioner laguana, you were very involved in this, as well, so i just want to thank all of you for putting so much work into this meeting. >> absolutely. any other commissioners would like to comment on any of the items? i'll just say -- >> cynthia is in the chat. >> thank you for drawing that

attention. commissioner hui? >> so are you asking if we can just comment on any of the things that are going to be moved to the next meeting? is that what's going on right now? >> yes, that's correct. >> okay. you know, just one item. there was one item i wanted to ask about in new business i think was the idea of putting together a pretty wide kind of survey for the small business community. is that something that i can work with the office of small business with to ensure what type of information we want to gather from the small business community? >> sorry. don't mean to cut you off, director dick dl-endrizzi.

i know that commissioner yakutiel did a similar project, and then go ahead, director. i think you were about to comment. >> i -- yes, i was just going to say that you can explore it with staff, and then, we can come back to the commission with proposals. sfl ok . >> okay. i just wanted to put that out there so we can start on that sooner rather than later, and i do have the draft from commissioner yakutiel, so thank you very much for that. >> i'd be happy to help you in any way i can on that project, as well. so it's a work in progress, for sure. are there any other commissioners that would have comment on any of the items? okay. are there any members of the public that would like to comment on any of the items that we are now continuing?

>> there are no callers. >> okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> adjournment. >> yes. does domenica introduce adjournment? >> yes, and because we're virtual, we still need to take a motion and a roll call vote on adjournment. so who would like to make a motion? >> i move that we adjourn. >> i second. >> i'll second. >> motion by commissioner laguana to adjourn, seconded by commissioner hui. roll call vote. [roll call]

>> the motion passes, 6-0, one absence. meeting is adjourned at 10:32 p.m. >> great job, commissioners. thank you. >> thank you, commissioners. >> thanks, everyone. >> good night. >> good night.