. >> clerk: held on november 22nd, 2021. the meeting is being called to order at 4:30 p.m. small business thanks sfgov tv for televising the meeting. members of the public who will be calling in, the number is (415) 655-0001. the access code is 24997935471. press pound and then pound again to be added to the line. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions but you

will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star three to be added to the speaker line. if you dial star three before public comment is called, you will be added to the queue. when you are called for public comment, please mute the device you are listening on. when you are ready to speak you will be prompted to do so. speak clearly and slowly and turn down the device your listening the meeting on. public comment is limited to two minutes per person. an alarm will sound once the time is finished. speakers are requested but not required to state their names. sfgov tv, please show the office of small business slide. >> president laguana: today, we will begin with the reminder that the small business commission is a place to voice your concerns about the economic 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, you can find us online or via telephone. and, as always, our services are free of charge. before item one is called, i'd like to start by thanking media services and sfgov tv for coordinating this virtual hearing and the live stream and special thanks to matthew ignao who will be running the meeting. please call item number one. >> clerk: item one. call to order and roll call. [roll call]

that's it. mr. president, you have a quorum. >> president laguana: thank you. vice president zouzounis, will you read the ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement, please? >> vice president zouzounis: the san francisco small business commission and the office of small business staff acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland.

we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign right as first peoples. >> president laguana: thank you. next item, please. number two. >> clerk: item two, board of supervisors file 211030-police code-regulation of cannabis business. this is a discussion and action item. the commission will discuss and take action on an ordinance amending the police code to clarify that the office of economic and workforce development may establish standards governing the certification of cannabis-related pre-apprenticeships programs that relate to the social equity training and license incubation processes, underserved community outreach programs. the period for which the director of the office of cannabis may grant the

temporary authorization of medical cannabis to continue operating while they wait for the o.o.c. to operate and have several prerequisites. and presenting today, we have earnest jones, legislative aide to supervisor safai. >> hello everyone. and good afternoon, commissioners. i'm going to go ahead and share my screen here. i hope everyone can see that. can you see it? >> president laguana: yes. >> again, my name is earnest jones. i'm a legislative aide and i'm here on behalf of supervisor safai district 7 supervisor. the office of cannabis is

permitting a process that's progressed much more slowly anticipated and as a result, medical cannabis dispensaries are spending significant periods of times under the m.c.d. authorization. the proposed changes are the same requirements made of cannabis business permits under article 16 of the police code or the adult use operators. this legislation strengthens our equity and apprenticeships programs by legislating for all qualified dispensaries in san francisco and just in terms of who we work with to develop this legislation, the office of cannabis and john pierce is with me here today. u.f.c.w.5 and oewd, we all collaborated together to work on this to create something that was very useful. so the proposed changes and, again, this is an amendment to current legislation. the proposed changes would, one, the ordinance will require the temporary medicinal

cannabis dispensaries to ensure that 35% of hires are from certified apprenticeship programs to the extent feasible. two, if the medical cannabis has more than ten employees, the medical cannabis dispensary must enter into a labor peace agreement or a collective bargaining agreement with a bona fied organization. three, the intention of the medical cannabis to sell adult use cannabis from 120 days to 150 to 180-day periods. and, four, these mcds must not have received any viable public health or safety complaints in the prior 150 days. and the reason we brought this forth is it's an opportunity to take all of -- to bring cannabis to san francisco under one umbrella and basically just create one very smooth experience for all the operators, employees, and

patrons. it adds more transparency to the operations in that transitional time by holding mcd they're temporarily authorized to the same standards as those of the adult use retailers and i do have john pierce who is the interim director that can answer any technical questions in addition to what i presented today. >> president laguana: thank you. commissioners, do we have any questions? commissioner adams. >> commissioner adams: yeah. i like all of this except for the one part for change where you have ten or more employees, they have to join a union. i'm pro-union. i come from a union family, but it shouldn't be a city law. that should be up to the people who work there. the city should not be dictating in my opinion those type of rules. that's the only thing i don't like about this. it could be a deal killer for

me. why -- if somebody could explain, why was that put in there? because i don't know of any other cannabis whether it be medical cannabis that are in labor agreements right now. >> so the adult use, these are the same rules that apply for the adult use dispensaries currently. so this is something that was just mirroring what is already in article 16. >> president laguana: i'm sorry. go to 'proposed changes.' it's medical cannabis dispensary has more than ten employees, that requirement was in the previous -- >> it's in the article 16. so the adult use cannabis dispensaries do have that. >> i can jump in here and provide some context if

applicable. i'm john pierce in the office of cannabis. let's take it way back before the state of california legalized the use of cannabis, there were medicinal cannabis dispensaries called mcds. they existed in the city prior to 2017 when the law was changed. after the law was changed, our office issues a different kind of permit to new medical dispensaries. our permits are governed under article 16. the conditions of article 16 are different than the conditions that govern medical cannabis dispensaries. the proposal that supervisor safai is talking about would change the laws that currently govern mcds which say you have to have these labor agreements, it would change that to the same law that applies to article 16 which say you have to have more than ten. >> president laguana: so, currently, it says ten if it's

medical. >> correct. >> president laguana: okay. vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you so much director pierce and e.j. for being here from the supervisor's office. can you just repeat back to me, what was that 20 number of employees? was that a prior statute that's being -- that was amended to ten for the commercial campus establishments? >> so the current code governing medicinal can bus -- mcds is more than 20. the current code governing article 16 or the new permits is ten and the proposed changes to reduce the mcd law from 20 to 10. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you. i didn't even realize the mcds had that same requirement even though it was at 20. i knew about the adult use and

i know that there is still a process that the workforce does engage to get to that point. and so if you want to provide us a little bit more kind of order of operation so that maybe, you know, commissioner adams and those of us who want clarity on what the city is asking and then what is the responsibility of the shop and employees to meet that requirement or if there's a way that they decide not to, how that works. i would love to have kind of a play-by-play on that since we had one in commercial already. and then, my just overall concern is a lot of mcds are even more mom and pop to a degree. they were the original cooperatives, you know. of the their legacy

establishments, a lot of older generations are running them. so i just make sure we're not as we're trying to bring everybody up to a standardized level, we're not in a standardized level where some commercial establishments have more capital involved. so i would love to hear what your feedback has been from the mcds on this legislation. if they feel like this is leveling the playing field for everybody or if it is still a disproportionate burden for them to meet. i would love to hear about any conversations you've had. >> i'm not sure if i clearly explained this and maybe john can elaborate on this, but all of the mcds must convert. and so that's the process that we're working on and because many of these mcds are spending

a much longer period as mcds during the conversion period is how we came to this legislation. so i'll let john talk a little bit more about what he's seeing from dispensaries and that. >> yeah. to e.j.'s point, all mcds will eventually be governed under the new law, the article 16 law, it's just a question of how long it takes the office of cannabis to transition people from one to the other and the proposal today is just a method to do that before the permits are changed from one type to another. our office has not communicated with the mcds in good detail about how they feel about this proposal. so i'll defer to the supervisor on that. >> i think from the dispensaries that we've spoken to in our district, we didn't have any real push-back because

they each realized this was something they were going to have to do regardless. >> but you only have a few in your district, what about others in the city? because this should have been outreach for everyone. >> we've only spoken to dispensaries in our district at this time. >> president laguana: vice president zouzounis, did you want to follow up? >> vice president zouzounis: no. i think -- thank you for explaining kind of where this lies within the trajectory of the commercialization process. our commission's been active in the last five or so years, but, yeah, i just think i would have

loved to hear the stakeholder perspective here. i understand this is part of getting in line with the city and the state and moving into commercial cannabis law. i feel like as much as our commission has been involved, i don't feel like we're up to date. it's hard for us to make decisions that we might -- it's hard for me without feeling like i understand the conversation in cannabis, like what's happening in the industry and why the city, you know, is making proposals like this. like is this to help them or is this to put on their radar or

if this is meant to be a punitive mechanism to get you there. i just want to understand what this means to the industry itself. >> i definitely don't think it's a punitive change. it's really a change to make sure that there is parody in the operation of the cannabis dispensaries throughout san francisco. we definitely don't see this as -- these are requirements that most of these dispensaries will have to enter into within the next year regardless because they are going through the process with mr. pierce and so it's just a way to streamline the process and make sure everyone is covered under the same rules.

>> president laguana: vice president zouzounis, are you done or did you have more questions? >> vice president zouzounis: i will leave the floor. >> president laguana: okay. commissioner huie. >> commissioner huie: i think you might of just answered my question, but just to clarify, you're saying that everybody is going to transition within this calendar year or maybe not -- i guess year, that would be next november. >> so john could give the exact timeline, but we're within 2022, correct, john? >> the exact time line depends on the municipal cannabis industry themselves. we assume everybody will begin the process within 2022. >> commissioner huie: and, how many medical cannabis dispensaries are we talking about? >> 35 are currently active. >> commissioner huie: so 35 will be subject to these

changes eventually and we're trying to fill that gap between now and the next like year or so. is that right? >> this would bring the process forward in time, yes. so it would instead of having to wait until they finish the process, it would bring it to now. >> some of these, you know, are things that you're asking of the dispensary, or of the business like requiring that, you know, the new hires that 35% of new hires are certified apprenticeship programs and obviously the collective bargaining piece. so when would they be subject to those? >> president laguana: commissioner huie's asking when would the legislation go into

effect and when would they be required to be in compliance with these proposed am changes? >> i don't know when the board is planning to hear this, e.j., the condition is one that mcds are already required to fill currently. so that's not a huge change from what the current code says. >> president laguana: no. please continue. >> and then just in terms of the legislation, it was heard in committee last week and recommended for the full board on the 30th for its first reading. >> commissioner huie: okay. i'm basically just asking the question because i'm wondering

again, you know, without knowing what the dispensaries, the way they feel, without having taken a pulse on that, i'm kind of curious as to how they feel about -- do you want your text messages up right now. >> oh, sorry. >> commissioner huie: sorry. i just wanted to let you know in case it wasn't. sorry i lost my train of thought now. yeah. i'm just kind of curious as to how they feel about having to kind of speed up the process if there are significant changes especially when it comes to, you know, employees, labor, things like that because those are things that are challenging for any business to come here into compliance quickly just because we don't have a ton of

control over who's going to actually apply, what's going to happen and i see like there's this feasibility type of, clause there but, those things aren't like fast-moving within a business. >> so one of the reasons that the feasibility components is there is from my understanding is that the apprenticeship program does not currently exist. so it's something that oewd is working on. so at this moment, it wouldn't be something that would be immediate. >> commissioner huie: okay. >> president laguana: okay. so -- sorry. commissioner huie, please continue. >> commissioner huie: i'm okay. i feel like you're going to ask the next couple questions i would ask as well. so go ahead. >> president laguana: you please go ahead and ask them and i'll come in at the end. i'm just chomping at the bit

here. >> commissioner huie: no. i'm actually done. i'll go ahead and jump back in if i have another question. thank you. >> president laguana: okay. please do. on behalf of the commission, i guess we're -- maybe, you know -- i think we're all just a little perplexed and also a little shy about advocating for changes without having a clear understanding of what this will mean for the industry. i see director dick endrizzi has something that may help the matters. please proceed. you're on mute, director.

>> director: thank you, president laguana. and, through the president, just a little bit of a historical context. when the original legislation was passed to create a legalized structure for retail cannabis or just nonmedical cannabis, right. so there was some very significant deadlines that things needed to be. san francisco needed to have its permitting process in place before -- for businesses to be able to then -- like, they had to submit an application before to prove at the state level to submit an application. it was very complex. the timing was very intense. i think if my recollection serves me that when the

commission initially heard the legislation, the labor peace agreement was i don't think part of it. and it was something that was kind of a last-minute sort of push and negotiation that happened i believe with supervisor safai's office and the industry. so while on one hand, i think, you know, they're definitely your concerns around the labor peace agreement and for another day to analyze the implications of such an agreement at an employee threshold, but do note that the cannabis industry at the time who was working with the city and the supervisors to get the legislation passed did