>> san francisco entertainmentce commission president due to the covid-19 health emergency, and to protect the entertainment commission members, city, employees and the book meeting rooms are closed however members and employees this precaution and the vary us local state and federal orders declarations and directives and commission members, public comment will be available on each agenda item. both channel 26 and sfgovtv.org are streaming across the screen and each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available during the zoom platform using the meeting i.d.

number. or call 46699006833 and if using zoom platform to seek select raised hand option when it's time for public comment. if calling in by phone dial star 9 to be added to the speaker line when your item of interest comes up and you will be unmuted when it is your time to speak. speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or rooalternatively, you may submia written public comment through that chat function on zoom and thank you sfgovtv and media services for sharing this meeting with the public. we'll start with our roll call. >> clerk: [roll call]

the first order of business is public comment. these are for not listed on tonight's agenda and i'll ask senior annalist rice if we have anyone. >> good evening, president and commissioners. i'm checking the queue and there's no one calling in or their hand raised and there are no chats or comments either. >> all right. excellent. all right. the next agenda item is number two which is approval of our minutes for the december 15th, 2020 meeting and i'll ask if we have a motion to approve the minutes. >> so moved. >> second. >> is there any public comments on our meeting minutes. >> there's no one with their hand raised and no chat comments. >> we can have a vote.

>> clerk: [roll call vote] >> all right. the meeting minutes have been approved. the next agenda is number three which is a report from executive director. >> good to see you all, happy new year and you are all looking refreshed and ready to tackle this new year. so, when you all took action to send a letter to mayor breed and the board of supervisors indicating recommendations for

the economic recovery of the night life and entertainment industry in san francisco. so, that letter was finalized and sent to all of our policymakers. i did receive some we were invite today speak at the hearing on small business that supervisor haney had called the tuesday prior to the christmas holiday and to essentially share all of your recommendations with them. so, got in a little bit more detail and went through them all pretty quickly and it was very interesting and good to get that before the public prior to the

year-end so you should all be very proud of the work that you did in push tag forward and i'll keep you a surprise of any of your recommendations that get traction or that can be further engage with the commission. i'm not going to go into more details on the federal stimulus and update as it relates to stages in our independent venues because they will get into that during the presentation shortly. i'll just flag in the last couple of moments i did add his papowerpoint to follow on zoom r your own computer screen which should be interesting and that will help us stay further engage and just a note to all of you, there's a new agenda item on the agenda tonight that allows for

you to add and if there are certain things you want to see, especially during quiet times like this, that we're more sheltered in place than the shelter in place essentially extended with no new end date in place as of now. we are still experiencing as you all know from reading the news and being an active participant in your communities that we are still surging here in san francisco and we have no new reopening announcements to make at this time. further, i just want to give you

an update on new year's eve. last week went creating this agenda, we were anticipating some potential new year's eve parties. we did some great work. our staff, along with certs, in first rounding up a lot of research on what was going on, potentially in san francisco, communicating with business owners that might be confused and we also had our folks out that evening so we had both of our inspectors. it wound up being a quiet night, which is great. one thing of note is that there was one party that was -- we received a tip about that was an illegal party so it won't have been anything that we would have permitted in regular times having at like a warehouse in the bayview. what was great is that sfpd was able to stop that party from happening so it didn't even

occur. which is fantastic. i think it would have been one of those covid spreaders. so glad that did not happen. that is all that i have for you all this evening. and happy new year. let me know if you have any questions. >> anybody have any questions here? i'm trying to put in gallery review. there we are. >> not seeing any. why have any questions. thank you for everything you guys are doing. what a strange time we're in right now. we'll just keep at it and keep us informed and i just do want to mention it's a really good idea to have this extra agenda item on our stand ago again da and i applaud your efforts to put it on there and to all the commissioners, we have a chance to actually state things that we would like to have a future meetings and action items so this is a chance to consider

that. >> is there any public comment on this agenda item. >> there are no hands raised and no comments in the chatbox. >> you want to just pull up the powerpoint in between each item to make sure? >> absolutely. i assume we still have none. >> there's no change. >> all right. >> we'll close public comment then and we'll move honed. on. the next agenda item is an update on night life -- i'm sorry. it's number four, which is an update of the night life business assistance in response to covid-19 and i believe we'll

have business development manager with oewd also known as the beard ben van howton presenting. >> there he is. >> thank you, president and nice to be with you again. as director had mentioned -- i think the idea of having a stand in place holder for updates on all the various things that are going on makes a lot of sense. there's always new information to share with the industry on new programs, new developments, and even just earlier today i saw an article about new state-level programs and small business relief that the governor is going to be rolling out so things are always changing in this environment and it's really helpful to be able to have the opportunity to share information with all of you and with the industry. i have a short powerpoint that

i'm going to run through today. just to highlight some existing and new -- and then i'm happy to answer any questions. let me share this. here we go. is that showing on the -- wonderful. ok. the first program i wanted to highlight, i'm highlighting it first because of the upcoming deadline coming up. the california small business -- state level grant up to $25,000 for small businesses impacted by covid-19. businesses with less than

$2.5 million in gross revenue and there's a sliding scale of grant amounts and the maximum is $25,000. it is a grant application window is open right now and the first round closes on january 8th at 11:59:00 p.m. so we're encouraging businesses to apply for that grant right now. my understanding is it's not a first come first serve program so there's no appliance -- supplying it now won't make a difference but we're encouraging business to apply for that relief before the close of that application. i'm running through and the best place to get up to date information on all at oewd.org/covid-19 where we're updating with new information.

in the recent federal relief bill, we were very excited to see the inclusion of what was known as the save our stages legislation. this is ultimately a 15 billion-dollar funding program of grants to support live entertainment, theatrical, businesses, museums, movie theaters, and live entertainment promoters as well. these grants are going to be made available through the small business administration and again unlike a lot of other sba programs these are not loans but they're grants tied too gross revenue these businesses earned during 2019. really just i can't over sate the -- i can't emphasize enough the advocacy of our venue community, of venues across the -- to make live

entertainment a center piece of that federal relief legislation. the eligibility requirements that they're on the powerpoint, you have to demonstrate loss of 25% gross receipts and the program is specifically excluding large operators which is defined in the number of ways you see there and also, a business can't take a p.p.p. loan in the new round of p.p.p. and also get a save our stages grant. there's a lot in terms of the details. they're still being figured out on save our stages. the s.b.a. is currently developing rulemaking and guidance around the program and so there's not an application live yet. i think it's our hope the s.b.a. will announce more or providing more guidance in the next few weeks about this and i know there's a lot of interest from the industry and making sure that all of our music venues are at the front of the line in receiving these funds and getting their applications in and there's actually a really important time clock to the

program that really makes it important for folks to get in early. the days of the program, the grants are only going to be awarded to business that's have experienced a 90% decline in revenues compared 2020 to 2019 and the second 14 days of the program, grants will be awarded to business that's have experienced at least a 740% 70% decline in revenue. over the first 60 days of the program there are $2 billion of relief that is allocated specifically for smaller businesses, so businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees so really there's the emphasis will be the venues and other business that's have been most impacted by the pandemic and we knee it won't be challenging it's just the grim reality of it and so we want to make sure our folks are applying at the beginning of this and

they're eligible and that think getting that relief money and there's the possibility at some point of supplemental if there's money leftover after the initial allocations so a lot of the details are still being worked out and the lincoln this i have this slide is to the information about the save our stages act that is helpful of what the legislation does and i know they and others have been involved in pushing forward the rulemaking process. and just to add to that, the director and i are talk on an ongoing basis about outreach and how we can make sure that all of our venues and promoters know about this program and a lot of details that still need to be worked out in terms of implementation but we want and

and know the details about who can apply and when they can apply. >> the federal legislation did not include the restaurants act, which would have been a grant program for restaurants and bars that a number of advocates supported and i know that was something that we had supported when it was part of the heroes act and the moye how's side of s earlier in the year. instead of grants through the restaurants act, the federal relief bill includes more forgivable loans through the paycheck protection program and i fully appreciate that p.p.p. is not a solution for everyone. just to recap, p.p.p., these are forgivable loans as long as 60%

of the loan is spent on payroll so the federal bill, added $284 billion to p.p.p. it also does a number of adjustments to the p.p.p. process with the goal of making it easier for smaller businesses to apply and also to make loan forgiveness easier. in terms of restaurants, bars, night life, businesses and the notable thing about the recent p.p.p. extension is while most business types take a loan at about 2.5 times their pre covid monthly bay roll that the business that's have the industry classification and accommodations and good service by includes restaurants, bars and other hospitality night life businesses they can borrow up to 3.5 times the pre covid monthly payroll. as with the save our stages, the application are not open and the

p.p.p. has stuff to figure out there in terms of some of the implementation guidance and rules around access to second p.p.p. loans and with respect to p.p.p. and the eidl loans that i'll talk about in just a second, it's important to note that president-elect joe biden described this relief package that passed at the end of december is a down payment and there's a need for further federal relief because we know that had this is just continuing not to be enough for businesses that are continuing to be challenged by this incredible pandemic. and just briefly on the idle loans, which have been open on a first come first serve basis, it's extended through the end of

2021 pending available funds and there's also a replenishing of the idle at advance grant funding which was advance of o $10,000 for business and idle loans and this is been one of the constant throughout the federal resources from the so i'm not going to spend too much time on it. final note, here that i just wanted to highlight is the local fee and tax waivers that were announced by the mayor and treasury in late october. i received a fee increases from businesses about how to get refunds for already paid fees and i wanted share information about that and the legislation to adopt these fee and tax waivers to make these accessible and that legislation was just approved by the board earlier today and on first reeding which

means there's another reading next week and that legislation will be off to the mayor for her signature and so out of that legislation the tax collectors office will develop a form in order for businesses to receive refunds so it's possible this is february and earlier for businesses to be able to receive those refunds on those local fee and tax waivers but it's an important piece of local support for our night life and entertainment industry. request that, happy to answer any questions again for really for all of the current or up-to-date information. our website is the place to go. there's a lot happening and a lot changing all the time and we're not challenging businesses especially businesses that have to stay closed and many of whom have not been able to operate

since march. i think that the save our stages legislation it's really a sign for some optimism for businesses to can access these funds. i'll close there and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> i had a question that i just through in the chat but i'll ask you it. do we have a sense of how many venues in san francisco are eligible for the sos federal funding? >> that's a really good question. i think part of it -- part of the answer to that question will depend on how the sba flushes out the guidelines around the definitions and that there are some particulars to what a live entertainment venues is and potentially, i think the focus really is on businesses that

offer ticketed performances and announced at least 60 days in advance that have a clear live music employee, they're employees who are focused on live music related tasks like sound or bookings or security and so i think it stands to reason that there's probably going to be some question around the margins in terms of businesses that offer some entertainment and they're not just purely live entertainment venues. whether they will qualify or what extent, i also think that in terms of in addition to venues, live entertainment promoters, it's one of the other businesses and they can qualify under s.o.s. and i think getting more var tee from the s.b.a. on what promoters have to show in the terms they're qualified to receive access to those funds and so i think it's tough to

know, it's tough to know at this point exactly how many businesses. we want to make sure they're who can qualify knows and starts those conversations with local technical assistance providers when there's clarity. >> yeah, i'm wondering is there any advocacy that the sit and county could be doing with in terms of trying to ensure as many of our permit holders as pos would be he will age able for the -- i mean, it's not it's not a total overlap between who we permit and who would be eligible for the but trying to get as many eligible would be great. >> absolutely. that's a really good question and i think we should discuss

that a little bit more. i know that our venues some of our venues, through the local members championship in the national alliance have been involved in advocating and even working with s.b.a. to a certain extent to try and make that process as sim pom as possible but in terms of being expensive it's a point well taken. >> yes, so, for example, if s.b.a. would say, if you know, if a locality has a system such as san francisco to permit entertainment venues that should be accepted as proof that they are an entertainment venue and they should be eligible for this or something like that and i wouldn't want to be excluding anyone anywhere else but certainly just trying to maximize how much relief we can get for our venues here. >> absolutely. >> >> thank you. >> sure.

>> i have a comment. >> thinking about lawrence statement, and you know, going back to restaurants and things, who have been applying for these sba loans, ok, i explain about transparency and it seems like or a neutral third party who actually knows that this is -- what's the difference between a live music venue or ticketed, you know, there are so many variables. rather than giving it to someone that maybe have no clue on how to distribute these loans or even approve them, because we're going to go through this just in the restaurant stages that you know, it's going to take forever to figure this out and s.b.a. it

will take a while and these guys can barely make it every month. i'm hoping there's going to be a clearing house that is -- they know how to screen these applications. and i like to have your -- can you e-mail me your power points so i can post it? >> absolutely. >> we're looking for this. there's so much material right now. yours is so focused on what we need, it will help us save a lot of time. so if you can send it to me, i would appreciate that. >> if i could interject, it's in your google folder so you can grab it from out of there. just a note for you, we're doing a -- we're planning to do our due diligence in communicating as often and as thoroughly as possible to our permit holders about this opportunity. [please stand by]

windchill

>> it's tied to the early implementation of the ppe of last year. we don't want especially given the early windows of time where the first 14 days, it's people who have been 90% impacted or more. billions allocated for small businesses. we want to make sure those opportunities don't pass us by. making sure that everybody is as informed as possible including our small business development center and all of our technical

assistance providers a providerg the commission as a place to amplify, and filler back if things aren't working. we want to hear from businesses, if things are broken in the early stages of this, we want to know as soon as possible. >> the problem by the time they find found and they -- the reason i brought it up is the news media is telling everybody the loans are extended. there's confusion between the federal and state. they are saying you have to get it in by the eighth. we only have four more days to apply for these particular loans. we want to get the information

out now. >> just to be clear the state program rk the deadlines on the state program, apologize -- it's been extended. >> it's what i'm talking about. i'm not blaming you. >> that's great. good news everyone. per an update from commissioner lee. january 13th. that was current as i want to tell you less than 48 hours ago. >> it gives us more time to apply. perfect. thank you. >> i have a question. happy new year. thanks for being here. i have a clarification question.

as long as a venue is qualified, they are guaranteed to give us another layer. >> as long as the money is available, if a venue checks all the boxes and meets all the qualifies of live entertainment venue. it's not disqualified by any prohibited factors. the goal is to get these loans out as grants to all the businesses that check the boxes. >> they are able to get the flat amount. >> it's linked to your revenues from the previous year. it's up to 45% of gross revenue

earned capped at -- there's supplemental grants. if there's enough money left over starting in april, the fda can start issuing a second round of grants. 50% of the initial grants that ten million dollar cap overall. maybe that's getting ahead of ourselves. if that's possible, we're talking about an unpes dente und level of federal aid for live entertainment. for all and every grant that's available. if they qualify are they able to get multiple grants or are they going to be told okay, you already got that grant.

>> i think it really depends on the options that they are looking at. as i mentioned before, you can't get a stages grant and apply for a new round of ppe or apply for this new round of ppe and get a save our stages grant. i would say that people should definitely aggressively pursue as many options as possible while looking at all the conditions. looking at small business development center. this stuff is complicated. it changes in very realtime. we don't want people to feel trapped by this. our role is supposed to support getting resources out to people. we don't want people to feel trapped or have a lack of information here.

>> overwhelmed. >> yeah. >> okay. thank you so much. >> thank you. are there other questions? >> i just want to recap. i know commissioner lee touched on this. in your humble opinion, what steps or options or advocacy can be done by this specific group here to help either on the sos stuff. are there anythings you can imagine that you would do that would concretely help or potentially help. >> yes. i think that the -- in terms of the save our stages, you know, once we get a little bit more clarity on when

applications are going to open and what steps there are for people to qualify. i think the commissions role for amplifying that information, sharing that information, fielding questions about that information to get -- we want people to be as clear as possible before the clock starts running on applications. all of those are really critical. and continuing to hear feedback from the state -- from the entertainment stake holiers hols about how is this working. there is concern. it's great the money is out there but how long will it take to arrive. that's a fair concern that many business owners have. beyond that, i think continuing to do the work of identifying, save our stages seems like a very promising encouraging

financial package for folks to qualify. there are going to be constituents and permit ees that do not qualify. while it is a rea really importt step to support the night life ecosystem, we certainly need additional steps to support the ecosystem. that initial federal package was a down payment. to continue to advocate for strategy it deepen that support and relief i think are really valuable as well. >> thank you. anymore questions? >> one more question. is there a website where we can track who received or qualified and received grants and versus who did not? is that public? >> you know. i know that at some point, the

paycheck protection program recipients became public information, i would assume that the save our stages grants would similarly ultimately become public information. i don't know that there will be realtime tracking. the ppe recipients that information on a granular level and aggregate level, looking at ppe by industry. a lot of that data ultimately became available. i don't know what plans there are to share that in any capacity. i would expect that information to become public. thinking about if your question is leading in terms of how to look at that data in terms of effectiveness and who it reached and didn't reach, those seem

like very important considerations to look back on this program with some good data. >> all right. i don't think there's anymore questions. thank you very much for coming. i'm going to open this for public comment. do we have any public comment. it would be on the phone, i think. i'm going to flash the information on the screen to be sure people see it again. at this moment there's nobody waiting to speak. in the chat as well as in the participant's list. >> all right. a remarkably uncontroversial presentation. that's great. let's move onto the next agenda

item. thanks, ben. i look forward to hearing from you shortly about this. thanks for everything you do. thank you. >> thank you. >> the next agenda item is number five which is a report from our deputy director. >> good evening. hi, commissioners. happy new year. this report is exactly the same as at our last hearing. we haven't received a single complaint. it's a true testament of the times right now. there's no entertainment happening in san francisco. i'm happy to answer any questions about the enforcement

report. i want to echo what was said about new years eve. to further elaborate on that a little bit. we received three complaints on new years eve none of which were sound related rather people congrecongregating. they were not able to validate any of the complaints. there was no activity they were able to see. it came in through certificate and not our e c q. nothing major to report out but happy to answer any questions if you have any. >> any questions? none? there's no questions.

literally no sound compliance. >> amazing. >> end of times. with that. i'm going to open everything up to public comment. >> i'm going to flash it on the screen again as a courtesy. checking and there is nobody in the queue waiting to speak. >> all right. we'll close public comment. thank you very much deputy director. happy new year. the next agenda item is number six which is new business requests for future agenda items. this is the newest standing agenda we have where we have a place for commissioner comments and questions but a specific place to flag or note things that we would like the staff to

work on and come up with future meetings. i know this is surprise to many of you but i want to open up the floor here and see if anybody has any thoughts or wants to add anything they think should be on future agenda items. >> not right now but i wanted to say i appreciate having this as an agenda item. now that i know i'll come back with some things for the docket. thank you for having this space. >> all right. any public comment on this? >> i can show off my cat if you want. >> it would have to be for a

future agenda item. >> he can wait. he just left the room. >> there's nobody waiting to speak. >> close public comment again. i think this is great. it's a relic of the past that our team uncovered and padded back in. it's really great. i think we should put our thoughts in what we can do for the future. we are at the final agenda item if i'm not incorrect. it's commissioner comments and questions. i don't want to be the first to say happy new year. i'm going to. happy new year, everybody. anyone else, comments and

questions? >> are we due for an election for our commission, chair, and vice chair? oh, goodness, i think you might be right. let me check into it, commissioner. we may have to add it for january 19th. >> thank you. >> commissioner, we couldn't hear you when you were just talking. >> i was just saying that she introduced her cat. i would like to introduce our family. the agenda was riveting.

he is a lab mix. you can spot us in the park on a daily basis. >> happy new year, everybody. >> the only last thing i want to say is right before the christmas holiday there was a board meeting that was called after when they should have left for recess to specifically focus on the effects that the outdoor dining ban had on restaurants and bars in san francisco. it was a very significant board meeting, i think. over two hundred small business owners participated and there

was hours and hours of public comment. i think there was my personal opinion is there was an awakening in the small business community that the taking for granted that things would work out for the community. those days have passed and the small business community needs to organize and advocate for themselves and do everything that all the other groups do. make sure they are not an af thought foafterthought for the n the city. i think we're going to see more and more of this going forward. i just want to flag it for everybody. small business issues are night life issues overwhelming. unless you're talking about at&t park. almost all of our entertainment

venue rz ons are one form of sml business. i'm hoping to see momentum build and change that will help the small business and entertainment community going forward. i'll get off my soap box now. i'm weirdly excited for the future even though we know how horrible it's going to be in the short term. any public comment on this agenda item? >> there's nobody waiting in the queue to speak. there's no chat. >> all right. we'll close public comment and adjourn this meeting at 6:20 p.m. thank you everybody for attending and we'll see you in two weeks. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> this commission meeting is being pursuant to the brown act to facilitate teleconferences to reduce the covid-19 transmission. ordinarily the brown act sets strict rule for teleconferencing. the governor executive order as

suspended these rules. the executive order that we continue to notice the meeting. the department has met all the applicable notice requirements. members of the public may observe this teleconference meeting via sfgov tv.com and sfgov tv channel 26. they may offer public comment by calling the published public comment phone number. i like to welcome members of the public and staff live on sfgov tv. the commission ask and thank you very much for your patience during these unprecedented times. we ask the public to have patience and expect delays and gaps during the meeting, particularly during public comment. i want to thank members of our d.a.s. staff and those from sfgov tv who are making this possible today, especially facilitating public