practitioners that's one thing that gives us a license to practice massage therapy and prevent massage establishment we're looking to take back the regulatory permit for the licensed establishment you can be a business owner like a physical business intermitting entity we want to regulate for about 50 percent of the massage establishment in san francisco have at least one violation so in addition to the illegal activity we look at other things like sanitation and rereceive construction to make sure there's 0 proper equipment there are other violations that impact health that are not associated with an illegal massage establishment the type we want to close down we go in and do routine inspections and respond to public complaints as well. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> i have a few questions what are other counties doing like san francisco are we on line with the fee schedule. >> san francisco is probably a little bit more expensive because san francisco is more expensive again, our costs of rover our fees and operating costs i think we all know one of the most expensive places our

so basically a chiropractic office where a massage is not permitted will not be able to allow massage as an accessory to simplify is. >> yes. >> okay. >> or if a new business offering chiropractic services contemplated having massage tail be better 0 open up massage first, because the conditional use is going to hold up the entire as opposed to rather than waiting to go into business your permitted services you'll hold back and apply at a later date. >> as long as it is permitted in a cu use or the chiropractics office will not be able to have it. >> and any area. >> yeah. and this legislation is offered to be changed or the same plays for the accessory use for anyone else's. >> as the ordinance is proposed massage can only be an accessoryy under the four or five things the hotel or the chair massage. >> can you state the logic and not include the prolific e whoifk e chiropractic services. >> do you have a rational besides excluding the chiropractic office. >> this is legislation before our ethics commission i believe their seeing problems various types of businesses including the cho

. >> so whatever. >> for the planning code for a chair massage if you're getting a massage in the open of it's a chair massage it didn't require a permit. >> okay. >> any other questions? thank you that was a little bit told us >> i looked at every possibility. >> thank you for being here if there's no other questions commissioners time to open up for public comment okay and i will say as and also do in the best interest of you in the comments and for the best estimate there's a 3 minute comment it pains us to give the hook prepare to read it it keeps you on script and be on the point that are accountable here so we welcome the public dialog so, please we're here to listen to you what you have to say. >> i'm eric can a massage therapist i have a lot to say i'll be brief request we be given more time to review this amnesty program we received today we want to get this right we're a small we're small businesses and this affects us and our ability to live in san francisco and work in san francisco it is emotional and financially hardship and there's roadblocks in our place for the purpose

the new state law was changed you can look this up but city after city passed moratoriums on new massage permits i choose to take a better approach and turning the clock back to 2006 when every massage establishment had to file i'll be happy to answer any questions but we have planning staff that will go into detail about the programs we're thinking have to make it easier for people. >> thank you very much with the outreach you've done what's the primary objections you've heard from the massage establishment in san francisco and united states conditional use requirement. >> okay. >> and also especially, if you have received an exemption and filled the proprieties they wanted an easier way to come into the fold and that's what the planning department will elaborate more. >> commissioners another questions awhile supervisor tang is here. >> call up the other planning department. >> the cu part. >> condemn good morning diego sanchez with planning department i'll present planning department recommendation currently, the planning department well, i'll go over the current controls for massage

next one has to do with a home base massage. someone who provides massage in their home. this will be exempt for conditional use process and does not require a dph permit however whoever is practicing must present a massage practitioner permit. we hope those slides clear up some of the common scenarios. the second thing that was really important to the community that i wanted to provide to you is the amnesty program. what are we doing about all the establishments or practitioners who have been in existence already and for the most part have an exemption. this is different from what the planning staff presented to you last time. sf govtv if we can have the screen here. all right. so we want to be able to allow existing massage establishments that are operating without proper land use approval to legalize as a massage establishment and this would also be dependent on zoning controls where establishment is located at the time of the application. so we would allow them to continue in operation to continue the land use approval and participation in the amnesty program is depen

industry we want to make sure it is fair across the industry massage is a small business and yes there's work we need to do to make our process shortly and faster you know cheaper all of that; right? i'm commit to working on that i've been trying to do that for small restaurants in general in district 4 so i'm committed to working on that but it doesn't mean that you know, i know that is unfortunate that this industry has been you know hijacked by a certain group of individuals not practicing massage and it's unfair but we need to bring everyone into our fold so we can again, do better he oversight cindy mentioned that i'll reiterate after the new state law was changed you can look this up but city after city passed moratoriums on new massage permits i choose to take a better approach and turning the clock back to 2006 when every massage establishment had to file i'll be happy to answer any questions but we have planning staff that will go into detail about the programs we're thinking have to make it easier for people. >> thank you very much with the outreach you've done what's the prima

other areas there are massage establishments yeah. i'm repeating myself they're not permitted so i think that i wanted to be mindful there's going to be there's a lot of moving parts and if the planning commission recommends on the 26 to recommend the conditional use process then that has a certain amount of weigh so i want to be mindful we're communicating the nuances ahead so those folks that came in through the can you tell me take certification the establishments that opened since that certification came through we - >> could be grandfathered. >> i support amnesty and grandfathered. >> do you have anything to add? i mean it is mind-boggling a little bit >> sorry this seems tedious. >> okay. so. >> i would make a motion to move item number 4 to the meeting on the 13th so that gives supervisor tang time to talk with the community of those two items the other motion on item 5 since that is going to be horde at planning. >> how about we take one motion at a time so item 4 is a motion by tatdz to move item 4 to april 13th is there a se

process again, i hope about that makes it to the board of supervisors we find a way to recognize massage therapy for the health care it is and not unfairly burdened with that the industry is not unfairly burdened with a high entry thank you. >> thank you. >> hi i own susie a left hand practitioner by the city of san francisco i have 6 people working for me all of which are both licensed practitioners and certified massage practitioners we're in 5 hundred square feet in a street level location we're legally zoned to do nails and if we want to do hair we could not offer massage so when it went through with the conditional use permit and what's going to happen next we'll not get through the process we're tiny a weird let's go building we're not been able to get though the process it's not going to happen that is what 50 percent of my people are making to survive in san francisco one of the things that are important to me is that understood that the current ordinance to deal with criminal operations that is not what we are we're tiny if we go through the fee process it's not going to be the

but in some of those neighborhoods, again massage was flat out prohibited. so whoever was the district supervise at that time made a very conscience decision. there was a very conscience effort to prohibit massage in certain neighborhoods. we wanted to show you that as a visual. >> it's possible that was a neighborhood group that went to their supervisor as well, right? you don't really know what the original -- origination of the zoning restriction was. if you realize that a massage that they didn't object, suppose there is a business that is open and objectionable to anybody because it's completely legitimate, the process to amend the zoning requires a typical process where a community group would come to their supervisor and say this is zoning prohibited and they can take it to their planning? >> yes. we are going to be doing a lot of that outreach to the district supervisors. we are going to be pointing out where there may be issuesch we're going to give them full information so if they decide they want to allow in certain areas, they have the opportunit

currently massage is not in there. we are happy to continue that conversation, it's not part of it right now. i think the larger picture with the planning department today in general is how is it

they don't have to be a certified massage practitioner. just those certified practitioners do. >> i'm still concerned about this kind of lumping everyone together and i inside that's just to make it a set thing. but i do hear what everyone is saying and i think we are lumping true health care providers in with perhaps some more questionable people, and i do feel that they need more consideration. >> is this division 2 classification which applies to health care providers does that apply to san francisco? >> that's a state code, a state business profession code. >> so if there was a move to include a class of massage practitioners in this division to classification that would have to be done at the state level? >> correct. >> that's another complication. does the city have any authority to designate a division to classification independent of the state? >> we do not. >> traditionally for most of our environmental health programs we can make more specific classifications but we don't have the ability to preempt. >> you can restrict but not e

. >> hello, i'm damon thank you you've heard from both sides there's a lot of us who are massage community provide a health care needs to our communities that is low-cost and people can come without having a referral it is low cost health care for everybody it's a big part of it is important myself as a sole proprietary if i were to go to start my own business all the different licensing and fees and costs added it that with them in the city it is hard to open and maintain a small business and just from what we've heard from that i just wanted to mention something from ab 47 that was mentioned in the section it states as the intent of the legislation that local governments impose necessary fees in keeping with the requirements of existing law and highlighting this being mind fell to protect the massage therapist and providers during the transitioned period and low therefore, for the local economy we're wanting to raise our standards and not be loingd with the illegal businesses we look forward to collaboration to staying in the community supporting our communities without having to be over

therapist to a newly formed entity called the massage council is creates a volunteer program for massage certified through this entity but unfortunately, it also created a lot of loopholes that restricted local establishments so in a nut shortfall they had hundreds certified you're exempt from local permitting which medians you didn't have to get a permit from the department of public health or go through land use planning over the last several years we've seen many establishments under the prevents exemption and seen a lot of proliferation of establishments in san francisco it is fine but those lack oversight for the cleanliness and were established with illegal activity we hope this prevents illegal places if opening and close those in existence and provides services in need and robust permitting and listening program for all massage establishment to flourish in san francisco as i alludes two parts to the legislation two amendments one to the health code 3 things in the health code we want to codify simulating that losses local jurisdictions we're adding additional amendments to improv

currently massage is not in there. we are happy to continue that conversation, it's not part of it right now. i think the larger picture with the planning department today in general is how is it that you are really better support the smaller businesses citywide across the industries. that's something they have been looking at. they hired additional planners, like a dozen of them and they have programs for small types of businesses that maybe don't have to go through commissions. so i'm very interested in looking forward to that bigger conversation where again, massage would be included as part of that. the second issue is that you spoke about in terms of outreach in making sure people are aware of this proposal for conditional use process. this has been the process for many many years until 731 came into place. the other thing i want to highlight about it is that our office actually sent out a letter to 200 establishments about this and talked about the conditional use permit. by law i'm only allowed to send out 200 s

as pointed out again by members of the massage therapy community. in terms of the planning code, again, we are making the amendments to the amnesty program as outlined earlier, we plan to exempt the sole practitioners and establishment owners of conditional use process up to four using the space and extending the time when establishment has to be shutdown due to any violations as mentioned currently it's a 1 year requirement but require 3 years before the new establishment can open. those are in a nutshell the amendments that will be contained in the substitute legislation. >> thank you very much for that review. >> so, commissioners upon that file you can either take official action tonight. supervisor tang did say that the likelihood is that these two items will go before land use committee in early may. we have a commission meeting on the 27th if you want to reserve making a final recommendation upon reviewing the revised legislation once it's substituted, but it would be helpful to at least put some statement on the record for me to at least be

the recommendation would be that massage therapist be classified as other health care professionals currently that are currently in operation in san francisco that does not require conditional use. >> perfect. >> may i start that as the certification with about correct we don't want massage therapist. >> massage thooefts that meet the certification refrigerates in the city or state of california you can get a california certification or a san francisco certification but not both right. >> i'm wondering if we need to go into that level of detail i think item number had the health department kind of the direction to supervisor tang to try to do something it eliminates having to make those distinctions so we make a distinction that provides the confidence that - >> we call them massage thooefts that's out of my recommendation i'm recommending those regarded as a massage therapist. >> we're talking about establishments so i think i mean one could say if you have one definition it is item 4 but the direction to commissioner tang to work to create a definition that parallels ass this as a house ind

any other massage.y in, he began touching her inappropriately despite her saying no. >> murphy was trying to take off the victim's underwear when another worker stopped him. that is when she ran out. investigators discovered the salon is not licensed to do massage. >>> there is no crying in baseball, we all know, now san francisco supervisors say there shoulden be chewing tobacco. mark kelly has the story. >> reporter: like the 7th inning stretch, chewing tobacco has always been a part of baseball culture. well san francisco became the first city to ban chewing tobacco producing on their playing fields to protect kids from getting addicted. at batting practice tonight, the chew tobacco ban seemed to be a home run with the giants. >> i definitely don't think it is a good idea for kids or anybody for that matter. it is known to cause cancer. >> reporter: the minor leagues banned it way back in 1993. the majors have tried but got pushback from the players union. so today, san francisco stepped in and banne

she went in for a pedicure and decided to get a massage. once she was on the table, she says 53-year-old troy murphy assaulted her. >> i began like any other massage but shortly into the massage he began touching her inappropriately despite her saying no and stop. >> police say murphy was trying to take off the victim's underwear when another worker arrived and stopped him. investigators say the salon is not licensed or permitted to give massages. >>> we're now hearing from the san jose police chief about his pursuit of a murder suspect who escaped from jail. as we first reported yesterday, 26-year-old hector arias is back behind bars. the pictured shows the scrapes and bruises. arias slipped out of a holding cell on monday then flipped his handcuffed in front of him and scaled the barbed wire fence. he ran across the parking lot and straight into police chief larry esquivel who was driving into work. the chief describes what happened next. >> and i attempted to unsuccessfully tackle him. [ laughter ] >> and more of a kind of a forearm shiv

and cholesterol listed to be more effective in front of the land use we meaning the professional massagestablishment this is useful if it requires that we make a strong recommendation and defer hearing this legislation at land use then i am all for making the recommendation. >> i'll make the motion. >> i'm not sure i made a formal motion. >> i want to they want to have time i want to hear where they say that's influences how i vote i want to say and give a lot of kudos to katie tang they did a lot of outreach so i really, really appreciate the outreach but i'd like to make a motion that the supervisor wait until after our may 8th meeting. >> may 11. >> may 11th meeting to hear one more time those individuals once thankful had a chance to look at the amnesty program and then vote on that. >> yeah. >> make our recommendations because as i said we have what we have goes to ludicrously that means a lot. >> if i may make a comment our objective not to be obstruct finding no way, shape or form it is civilized over the last week everybody the community here is extraordinarily responsive conside