this is matt caster and ben rotan. we are officers on the savetherave.org committee. so we've come before you today, i think this is actually something that's been a long time coming. i guess a little bit of history first. i'm a former youth commissioner. i was on the recreation and entertainment committee of the youth commission in 2003 and 2004. i worked on the legislation that extended the after-hours permit for 18 and over events. previously, that was only

this is matt caster and ben rotan. we are officers on the savetherave.org committee. so we've come before you today, i think this is actually something that's been a long time coming. i guess a little bit of history first. i'm a former youth commissioner. i was on the recreation and entertainment committee of the youth commission in 2003 and 2004. i worked on the legislation that extended the after-hours permit for 18 and over events. previously, that was only eligible for 21-and-over events. we got that changed. all right. so while i was on the commission we did a number of things. we declared a state of emergency in san francisco due to the lack of entertainment and recreation options for young people, particularly under 21. the youth commission as you probably know represents ages 12 to 23 so that was a big issue for us. we have this hearing in the board of supervisors' chambers, we had the department heads, we had many supervisors there, we had lots of media and we provided a platform for the community to come and voice their concerns from all sides, from the poli