as regina's said, are commission has only taken some ltd. notes on formula retail, but i wanted to come and share my experiences as i have worked for quite a long time, working with pat store owners and attending a lot of planning commission meetings and say what i think are the issues we need to be thinking about now. one of the issues i would like to speak to is how there is such a big change with big boxes coming in. it is not like in the old days were a walgreen's would come in and they would be selling a limited amount of things. now we see big box stores and the all sorts of areas that are carrying a huge number of different products impacting major swath of small businesses. that is somewhere i think we need to start looking at those stores all little differently since they carry everything from sandwiches to barbeques to pharmacy -- their impact is quite great of these neighborhoods they're proposing to come in. it's no longer simply a few items they carry. we to look that much more closely. the other thing we noticed when i was work

perhaps we could wait for her to arrive and i will ask if regina could present briefly. i know we have had a number of conversations. supervisor wiener: i want to thank everyone for coming today. when we talk about formula retail, in addition to all the points the chairman made about dealing with having a mix of businesses in our neighborhood, one issue i hope people will address today which i think goes hand in hand is how to improve our cu process. we believe in having strong neighborhood and put when we talk about the cartel activity, commercial corridors and whether formula retail stores come in. but one of the reasons we see pushed back for expanding the formula retail controls is that the conditional use process is exceptionally log cumbersome, painful and expensive. i hope in having the formal retail discussion, we can talk about ways to make it a better process for everyone. >> thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm from the office of small business. my comments today are going to be around discussions, and formal recommendations the commission has had in its committe

i did hear regina go over the conditional use criteria of the planning commission uses to make a determination as to whether or not formula retail would be necessary or desirable for any particular location, so i won't go over those characteristics again. instead, i would like to show you an overview as to where formula retail is currently permitted, not permitted, and conditionally permitted. that's going to be really hard to read. there are two places formula retail is prohibited. that would be north beach and hayes valley. there are a couple of areas where they are prohibited and one of those would be restaurants in the upper fillmore and the other would be for a pet food supplies store and formula retail restaurants. >> can we get a copy of that? it is a fascinating map and i would like to study more closely. >> yes. it complies with everything on page 2 where list of the districts. i was trying to get a sense of how much of the city was regulated by formula retail. we have places where certain of them are prohibited and everyplace else is marked by a blue with a conditional use authorizat

. >> virginia joins us by skype, regina, thanks for being with us. >> it is my pleasure to be here. >> your organization is ministering in ten different countries. what are the biggest obstacles in fighting aids? >> our organization is a long-term child development agency. we work primarily through the local church and communities where the children are. so what we have to do is try to identify the children through our registered beneficiaries and encourage them to overcome the fear, fare of stigma to be tested. we encourage all of our children and their care givers to be tested if at all possible. we make arrangements for testing to happen. once they are identified, if they are found to be hiv positive, we help them obtain the next treatment they need. >> as a christian organization, what do you do differently to combat this deadly disease? >> all of the work is carried out through the local church. the education, prevention, treatment is done through caring individuals who are members of the local church in the community. our regular beneficiaries were compassion programs, child sur

the primary staff person is ill today, so you will also be hearing from regina. i can cover parts of the legislation from the planning code, but i think it is straight forward. we're trying to help small businesses avoid the often painful and sometimes business closing lawsuits that are generated as a result of issues with the implementation of the americans with disability legislation. there have been other supervisors we have worked with over the years on these issues, carmen chu among others, and this is part of an ongoing effort by the city to address the problem with these businesses have to close because of speculative lawsuits. with regard to the planning code changes, the legislation exempts the parts of the business related to excess ability from the floor space, and we are completely in agreement with modifications suggested by staff and we will track the restaurant legislation when it comes to us next year to make sure the line up appropriately. i am available to answer any questions, i will stay through the item, but i did not want to go on and on. th

thank you, regina. for those of you looking to contact these organizations, you can find their contact information in the program you should have picked up when you sign in. for those of you who are prospective entrepreneurs, if we could limit the acronyms and talk more about what those acronyms mean. >> sounds good. thanks, mark, virginia, and leader pelosi for putting on this event, and for all that she has done -- thanks mark, regina , and later pelosi. we have been able to access resources through the sba and the cdfi fund which helps get money to small businesses in this time of need. opportunity fund is not a bank or a government agency. we are an independent nonprofit organization with a mission to provide capital to working people to help them earn, say, and invest in the future. we focus primarily on businesses that are not yet bankable. most of our clients are themselves low or moderate income people or working in low or moderate income neighborhoods. but not exclusively. we will look at any b

. >> regina, director of the office of the small business commission. our office was involved in creating the new regulations for the mobile food, so i will be here to make myself available and i have been monitoring the permit process and the hearings. i have written a letter to you and it should be in your package recommending that the board of holvis the recommendations for these permits -- the board upholds the recommendations for these permits. many of the comments that you heard any concerns from the appellants that we have heard in other hearings fall in a policy matter as it relates to how the program is structured and is not so much how dpw is interpreting the regulations. because of this, supervisor wiener has convened a couple of meetings and we have put together a task force made up of my office, his office, golden gate restaurant association, mat cohen and la cocina. i want to let you know that high a lifted out some of the areas that we are addressing. here are improvements that can be made to the program. since the program is new, these a

i want to thank kathleen from the small business commission and regina from the office of small business their efforts, not just on the saturday after thanksgiving, but to make every day a shop small day. a lot of the reusable bags were given out, and if anybody wants these, the office of small business has them as well to encourage the use of indep

that being said, i would like to acknowledge the small business office regina for all of your work and support and letting small businesses be heard at these meetings. there have been a lot of them. i want to acknowledge on behalf of myself and the rest of the commissioners the job you have done, not only from us. i hear from people all over this town, the work you have done. we feel like we have somebody in our corner. thank you. i want to reiterate what commissioner to be said. you are right on. commissioner clyde: i would like by starting to thank supervisor cohen. and also supervisor compost -- campos for bringing the problem forward. it is a problem that needs to be addressed. from different perspectives, people have their ways of addressing the problem. i have to recognize supervisor cohen with working with a contentious issue. that being said, i support the recommendations from the director because they come from a lot of thoughtfulness and giving clarity. i, i don't see -- for the businesses that are applying in the spirit of the law and correctly, that this will not be a hards

i want to thank kathleen from the small business commission and regina from the office of small business for their efforts, not just on the saturday after thanksgiving, but to make every day a shop small day. a lot of the reusable bags were given out, and if anybody wants these, the office of small business has them as well to encourage the use of independent stores throughout the neighborhood, who helped fuel the economy in reinvigorate communities across the city and across the country. he also wanted to let people know that there is a fun party organized by a group that we're calling -- it includes everything from the toy boat cafe giving out free ice cream to a number of the bars and cafes to green apple bucks giving out free beer. and you get reusable code bags as well. other participants include the rocket room and dirty tricks room. and another of -- in number of stores like the clothing store. come out thursday from 6:00 to 8:00. the wreck and park department has the annual lighting of the beautiful cypress tree that sits in my district in golden gate park, to we ask you to come

supervisor wiener: regina from the office of small business. >> thank you. good afternoon chair mar, supervisors wiener and cohen. i want to thank supervisor wiener for introducing the legislation. i think you are going to hear from many in the industry about the need to do something. and an active interest in something that will bring more consistent in terms of the industry. the commission did hear this matter on november 14th and did recommend -- i will hit on the points that supervisor wiener did not identify in terms of amendments. the commission did recommend allowing eight dogs. the commission looked at this not only from the rec and parks side, the animal care and control side, but also from the business sector side. knowing there will be businesses that will be reducing the number of dogs they will be walking, and hearing from dog walkers in a certain size threshold. the commission is recommending an eight limit and that is proim aerial around what the -- primarily around what the commission things is safe for the dogs and economically for the busin

eir regina is blind. they lost a sense of reality. so many casualties. they're not going to stop. we're not going to stop come either. >> protesters have been held across yemen by tens of thousands of people continuing to demand that the president be put on trial. there is speculation growing that he may soon be leaving the country again, this time possibly to go to the united states for medical treatment. in bahrain, hundreds of protesters have marched to demand the government resign because of its failure to take action against the security forces who have been accused of torture and other abuses. reports say police tried tear gas to disperse crowds. a senior american official says egypt has assured the united states -- officials had been assured that all property seized by egyptian security forces during thursday's raids would be returned. at last at a marketplace in the northern nigerian city of maiduguri, four people killed and others injured. army spokesperson says it was a major incident blamed on the group boko haram. the group took out -- to part in a series of attacks th