Transcripts For SFGTV Entertainment 20240703

Homeland of the ramaytush alone. 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 loss nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place. As well as for all people 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 community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. This meeting is being held in hybrid format, with the meeting occurring in person in city hall, room 416 broadcast live on govtv and available on view on zoom or listen to by. Calling 166919006833 using meeting. Id 89641684613. We welcome the publics participation during Public Comment periods. 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Thank you to govtv and Media Services for sharing this meeting with the public. Thank you very much. Lets start with a roll call. Vice president blinman here. Commissioner thomas here. Commissioner torres , president and commissioner wong here. Commissioner. President camino will be here shortly. The next im sorry and commissioners falzon and perez are excused. The next agenda item is number two, which is general Public Comment. Do we have anybody who would like to make any comments for items that are not on tonights agenda . Everyones. Three no, nothing on zoom. Okay. No Public Comment for this item. All right. Well close Public Comment and well move on to number three, which is approval of the minutes for august 15th, 2023 commission meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes for august 15th, 2023 . So moved . And is there a second second, is there any Public Comment on our Meeting Minutes from that date . No Public Comment for this item. All right. Well close Public Comment and we can have a vote Vice President blinman. I commissioner thomas i. Commissioner torres. Aye. And commissioner wong. I all right. The Meeting Minutes have been approved for the next agenda item is number four, which is a report from executive director wyland. Good evening, Vice President blinman. Good evening, commissioners. Good to see you all this evening. We have a full crowd. We have a very lengthy agenda tonight, but ill keep my directors report as brief as possible. I just have two updates for you all this evening. You may have seen in some of our communications, both internally as well as to our external stakeholders or via our newsletter mailing list that we are anticipating. Apek coming to San Francisco co in november. This is the Asia Pacific Economic cooperation and theyll be coming to San Francisco from november 12th to the 17th. Were really looking forward to their visit. This will be 21 heads of state and their economies, their staffs that are coming to San Francisco. So well have many delegates here attending events that week. Were also anticipating between 801,000 ceos coming to San Francisco as a part of these events. Our role as a entertainment Commission Staff with support from commissioners who have actually been invited by mayor breed to be a part of our Advisory Committee is to convene leaders in the nightlife and Entertainment Industry here in San Francisco to help prepare for this week. This is an opportunity for San Francisco to really show the world what were made of and how incredible of a city we are. Also to try to reverse some of the narrative thats really out there right now about our city thats negative. This is a way in which our Small Businesses can engage with the delegation thats coming and we know how to shine. And, you know, we just had dreamforce here and i think were were getting prepared as best as we can. We are anticipate ing the president of the United States coming along with the Vice President and first lady along with many other very important people. And so this is a very big deal. We will be reaching out to our Broader Community of stakeholders as via our newsletter, as we continue forward to prepare for, were encouraging all of our businesses to activate and have events as per usual and let us know what theyre planning because we are promoting everything thats going on that week on the apec website. And for any businesses that want to reach out to the Apec Committee and pitch their venue for potential events, they can do that via the website. So well provide all of that information to our stakeholders. And again, really looking forward to this week going off without a hitch. If you have any questions about that, please let me know. Beyond that, i just wanted to flag for you that i sent a memo to all of you regarding a piece of legislation that we have moving forward right now and i will get into that a little bit more during Ben Van Houtens item. So ill put a hold on that. But i did include the memo in your binders for reference, so let me know if you have any questions as. Is there any Public Comment on the directors report. No Public Comment on this item. All right. Well close Public Comment and we can move on to number five, which is a report from our senior inspector. Thank you, Vice President blinman. Good evening, commissioners. We have received 188 301 complaints since our last Commission Hearing on august 15th. I have many updates below. Please let me know if you have any questions. My first update is about halcyon, located at 314 11th street, halcyon holds a poa and an asp with our office as conditioned in their permit, halcyon is to send their monthly calendar of events to us, sfpd, southern station and any interested neighbors. At the beginning of each month on august 20th, we received an email complaint from a neighbor stating they hadnt received halcyons calendar of events for the month. We issued a notice of violation for not adhering to this permit condition and reminded the owner to send the calendar at the start of each month. My next update is on american bites, located at 478 green street on sunday, august 20th at 5 20 p. M. Inspectors visited in response to a 311 complaint when she arrived, she observed a three piece band setting up to perform inside the restaurant inspectors zelenak informed management of the need to obtain a permit to host indoor Entertainment Management explained that they knew and they were working with a lawyer to get the paperwork for a brick and mortar permit to the ek an nof was issued on august 22nd for hosting indoor entertainment without a permit following the incident, one of the owners dropped off an llp permit application to or inperson to the office. However, it was an outdated application. Russian Deputy Director azevedo emailed the owner to let them know about the application process and has not heard back yet. Weve been in touch with this business numerous times over the last few years regarding permitting and they were well aware of the requirements. We hope to see them come into compliance soon. On my next update is about us, located at 3198 16th street. It holds an llp with our office. I visited a bar on september eighth at 10 15 p. M. In response to an email complaint we received upon arrival, i observed a salsa band performed with the front doors to the business open. I also noted that the sound curtains were not drawn over the windows. I spoke with the manager, danielle about the complaint and reminded him about keeping the door closed during entertainment per the Good Neighbor policy and having the sound curtains closed. I took a sound measurement which showed the band to be operating at 92. 1 dba and 100. 6 dbc. However, the approved sound limit is 86 dba and 91 dbc. I was unable to work with danielle to bring the volume of the band into compliance because it was their last song. But i reminded him that they must always have their doors closed and sound curtains drawn during entertainment tonight, i received an novi for violating their approved sound permit or sorry, sound limit and for having their doors open during entertainment. My next update is about trinity irish bar and restaurant, located at 1851, union street, Trinity Trinity conditionally granted or traditional trinity was conditionally granted an llp at our hearing on august 15th, but the permit has not been issued yet as were still working on correcting their door situation with sf fire on saturday, september 9th at 5 50 p. M. Inspector zelenak responded to multiple 311 complaints about excessive noise at trinity when she arrived, she heard loud music and went upstairs to the private event area and observed a dj performing for a party. She spoke with one of the owners who claimed that the dj wasnt a dj and that because it was a private event, he did not have any control over the music they played. As part of her report, inspector zelenak included photos which proved that there was in fact a dj as mentioned, they do not have a permit to host entertainment at this time. And additionally, inspector zelenskiys photo showed that the private space hosting the event includes an open air patio when the doors are open, which they were during this event. The upstairs area essentially turns into a rooftop patio with outdoor amplified sound. This was not considered nor approved as part of trinitys llp permit application. Further during intake meetings and then the hearing, the owners indicated that the upstairs private event area would be used for low Key Entertainment events such as performance on their baby grand piano. This was even restated to me personally when i went to set this element for their downstairs bar. Inspector zelenak returned later that night at 10 30 p. M. Due to another 311 complaint, although there was no entertainment at this time, she had rather, she had a rather unplanned and unprofessional conversation with one of the owners. This was the third time the businesses operated entertainment without a permit and they were issued a citation for 300 for this violation on my next update is on svn west located at ten south van ness svn west holds an llp permit with our office for indoor and Outdoor Entertainment on sunday, september 3rd at 7 p. M. Inspector zelenak responded to two 301 complaints stating excessive noise. Upon arrival she observed an outdoor rooftop activation in sound measurement showed svn west to be operating at 86. 6. Dba and 107. 9 dbc, which is four dba and nearly ten dbc above the approved special event limit which is 82 dba and 98 dbc. When working with the sound engineer, inspector zelenak was able to bring the dbc into compliance. Svn west was issued a citation on september fifth for violating their sound limit on saturday, september ninth at 7 09 p. M. Inspector zelenak responded to a 301 complaint stating excessive noise. Upon arrival, she observed another rooftop party, a sound measurement showed svn west to again be operating above their allowable limit. Inspector zelenak was able to work with their sound engineer to bring the volume into compliance. Svn west was issued another citation on september 12th for this violation. The staff have been in contact with neighbors who have emailed, called and lodged 301 complaints since these two citations were issued. Deputy director and i met with the svn west team and had a very productive conversation. They understand the ramifications of violating their permit and they have since been put in touch with the complaint and their property manager. We will continue to monitor this venue as needed. My next update is about neck of the woods, located at 406. Clement street, neck of the woods holds a po with our office on friday, september 1st at 9 15 p. M. Inspector fiorentino responded to a 311 complaint stating excessive noise upon his arrival, he observed both of the front doors propped open while Live Entertainment was in progress. Both upstairs and downstairs. Inspector fiorentino took sound measurements that showed both performances to be in violation of their respective sound limits. Lastly, when inspector fiorentino spoke with their on site manager, he was unaware of the sound limit on their permit. Inspector fiorentino gave the manager an opportunity to rectify the issues, and when he returned ten minutes later, both front doors were closed and two new sound measurements showed the levels to be within compliance. However, later that night at 11 £0. 20, inspector fiorentino returned due to another 301 complaint. Upon arrival, both front doors were propped open again while the manager was sitting at the entrance. Another sound measurement showed the showed the downstairs entertainment to be operating out of compliance. As a reminder, inspector fiorentino worked with the manager to rectify these same violations just to two hours earlier. He worked with the manager again to bring the volume of the downstairs performance into compliance as well. The next night, on saturday, september second, at 9 45 p. M, inspector fiorentino responded to another 311 complaint at neck of the woods. Upon arrival, both doors were open again, and despite the music levels being compliant, the upstairs sound curtains were not being used and a small window was found open due to these violations of the Good Neighbor policy, number one. And number seven, for violating the sound limit. Neck of the woods was issued a citation on september fifth. Inspector fiorentino reported that during his second visit on friday, september 1st, the manager stated that the doors were open so that the upstairs band could load out. Staff gave management recommendations on how to mitigate this issue to comply with the Good Neighbor policy manager ant was also reminded that the best way to mitigate sound leakage is to use their sound curtains during all upstairs performances and to keep their doors and windows closed as stated on their permit conditions. Thats all for my updates. Id like to send it over to Deputy Director for some more updates. Thank you. Thanks, senior inspector. Good evening, commissioners. I have a refresher that im going to give you regarding stratus and the recent enforcement history. So from july 1st, which was the saturday during the 72 hour suspension for Public Safety that was issued after the june 10th shooting to today, inspectors have conducted ten Security Compliance checks at the venue of the ten inspections, stratus was found in violation of their permit conditions three times. The first was on july 1st for security, not wearing easily identifiable clothing, not having a female Security Guard on site, not using the metal detector wand and only half of their Security Guards having guard cards. The second violation was observed on august fifth, when not all of their security could furnish active guard cards and the most recent violation occurred on saturday, september 2nd, when not all patrons were being wanded upon entering the venue, stratus received three citations for the violations listed above, and all three of these citations have been paid. As you know, there is a separate item on our agenda this evening regarding stratus, where you will hear from staff and the permit holder so we can discuss this venue in depth at that time. However, i just wanted to make you aware in particular of the third violation and subsequent citation issued to stratus in this past month. During the period between our last hearing on august 15th, when we were originally set to hold a revocation hearing for this venues place of Entertainment Permit and this evening, which is our rescheduled hearing date. Thank you. Anyone want to go first . Commissioner thomas . I will. Excuse me. This is a kind of a discouraging report. First of all, i want to say i appreciate the entertainment Commission Staff who are dealing with being lied to and having unprofessional interactions with with folks. Thats im sorry that youre all having to deal with that. I know its your job. And nonetheless, its particularly frustrating to hear this about trinity since they were just in front of us last meeting. Its really discouraging and makes me reconsider what we were everything that they said to us. So and west im unsurprised. That seems to be just a pattern with them of, you know, rooftops in general. But sbn in particular, of going over their limits and then, um, yeah, im glad to hear that you had a very productive conversation with them, um, because it does feel like its just a pattern with them where they just ignore it and the neighbors complain and then they deal with the citation and nothing changes. So did you feel like that productive conversation was going to lead to some different behavior in the future . I do personally in dealing with the permitting process, not to discredit anyone on their team, but i dealt with Venue Management and in this meeting it was actually the owner of the business. And so i do feel like having that conversation, including the team as well, was in fact quite productive live. And we i feel like really addressed the issue, especially because we have specifically identified the complainant who gave consent to share their Contact Information in. So they are now looped in directly with the ownership team, as is their entire property manager. So its a different apartment complex that was not initially did not initially express any concern with their permit. So they kind of just came online recently. Lee yeah, i mean, given the amount of new construction and New Buildings right around there, and i know that that building itself will at some point turn into another Apartment Building too. But in the meantime, given the rate at which housing is going up there, im not surprised. Well, thank you. Mostly i just want to say i appreciate the staff for having to deal with all of this on our behalf. Thank you. More comments. So i just had a couple of things. So its i think what were seeing now is, you know, people first of all, on the neighbor side, people got used to a certain degree of quiet during covid and thats not the case anymore. And i think people kind of reset in many cases their expectancy about quiet enjoyment and didnt realize that how things were before that. On the other side, i think were seeing a Small Businesses in general and nightlife. Theyre struggling in many cases. And i think theres a lack of trust in the city that has not this commission or this departments fault, but with break ins and incidents and lack of feelings of safety and cleanliness, ■i thin some people are kind of they seem to be acting out that thats not to excuse their behavior. Thats just to kind of say thats the reality we live in now. Um, but i do think that a couple of these may have risen to the level of calling them in here. Certainly trinity, which im sure, and you can correct me, but if, if there are open air patio wasnt clearly we denoted when we approved their llp, it was not it was not so thats going to have to be rectified somehow. And so i think they that would deem them calling them back in here certainly after their behavior and how they treated our staff as well, just to make sure they understand that. I mean, they were just in here to i mean, that was just like a month ago. So if theyre so quickly resorting to out of compliant behavior after promising us earnestly that they would not, i think we should call them back here and then im wondering about neck of the woods. Do we and i would defer to staff, do you think they have risen to the level of bringing them in here or do you want to take your shot at trying to handle it administratively or with them . The owner does seem to have really great intentions of being a Good Neighbor and there was a call out to him. He called us after the citation. There was a call back. I actually have an email since weve been sitting here from the owner, so i think that we can attempt to rectify it together. They already have pretty significant sound attenuation in place. They just need to use it. Yeah, and i think just for me, you know, clearly we couldnt have been more straightforward on what needed to happen. And literally three hours later or whatever, they stopped doing what we were asking them to do. So if that behavior continues, then i think we need to possibly recondition them or bring them back in here to have a conversation about it, etcetera. So i would just like to put that out there for staff request from the staff. All right. Any further comments, any Public Comment on these agenda items or these this agenda item . No Public Comment for this item. All right. Well close Public Comment and we will move on to number six, which is an update from everyones favorite bureaucrat, mr. Ben vanhouten. Thank you, technocrat, technocrat. Thank you and good evening, commissioners. Its been a little while, so i have a lengthy update on variety of state and local developments. I will try to keep it brief, but happy to answer any questions on any of this material. And also director whalen is going to be joining me as we walk through some Police Code Reform legislation that were going to be presenting tonight. The state legislative session ended last week, so bills either needed to be through the largest gislature or they are done for the year. The bills that did make it through are now on the governors desk for up to 30 days. So were going to see some action on the bills that were sent to the governors desk, including sb 76. That is a bill that the city has supported to allow local governments to create entertainment zones for shared outdoor Alcohol Consumption in to go alcohol from restaurants and bars within a zone as well as doing some technical fixes to the music venue, liquor licenses that were adopted in sb 793 last year. The type 90 music venue licenses that some San Francisco businesses have already started applying for and receiving some recent amendments late in the legislative session around sb 76 limited the bill to San Francisco so no other city in california will be able to create an entertainment zone yet. And entertainment zones themselves were limited to only operating in conjunction with a special events permitted by abc. So there was some concern at the Committee Level around creating a bourbon street in in local communities. So these these amendments do limit the role of entertainment zones. But certainly there is still opportunity to create these zones through a public process and the adoption of an ordinance or ordinances is next year. If this bill becomes law, another bill sent to the governors desk was ab 374. Thats assemblymember haneys bill around and cannabis cafes, which is to say allowing dispensaries to sell non prepackaged food and drinks as well as tickets to entertainment events at dispensaries. If signed into law. That bill would also require a local implementation process. Few other pieces of legislation that have been sent to the governor that weve been tracking on ab 1217 would extend abcs temporary pandemic outdoor Alcohol Service program, the covid 19 temporary catering authorization permits through to july 1st, 2026, as the law currently functions, those pandemic authorized options would expire early next year unless businesses are moving forward to permanently license those parklets and other outdoor spaces as part of their liquor license. This bill would extend the temporary program until july, several years down the line and then ab 1030 would require bars, which is to say type 48 liquor licenses to have drink spiking test kits available for sale to patrons as several bills were tracking, did not move forward this year. Ab 24 Assembly Member haneys opioid antagonist, kit bill that i know we talked about a couple of times at past hearings, ab 441, the food permitting for night markets, which is a really interesting proposal to streamline food permitting for recurring night market activities. And then sb 495, which was the latest version of, i think what legislation thats happened a couple of years now in a row around to go and delivery of mixed drinks, expanding it to bars, expanding the to go mixed drinks sale to delivery to include delivery as well. So thats thats just a quick overview of where things are in the state. Im now going to invite director wyland up to start the presentation on Police Code Reform legislation and ill be back soon. Thank you to my colleague Ben Van Houten. I must lower the microphone because of his height. Hes a very tall fellow, so thank you all for having me on the other side of the podium this evening. We just wanted to update all of you in regards to some legislation that we have pending right now that would Reform Police code. So just some background on this item. This was introduced by the mayor at the end of july, and this really emerged from conversations coming out of this body, whether it be at our annual retreats at our summits via our annual survey hearing from our Business Owners, when we sit down with them and provide technical assistance. And this was created in tandem with the office of economic and workforce development. So essentially were just trying to continue to improve our Customer Service experience for all of our permit holders, continue to simplify business business processes and streamline our permit application system as best as we can. So this would essentially implement a variety of streamlining measures, one that i would like to call out that ben will be going over is really in anticipation of moving away from the jam permit program and making sure that all of the business is that are eligible to move forward in an attempt or in a permanent shared space location in will have their permit application and license fees waived as a part of that process to encourage Small Businesses to come into compliance and to continue to host the Outdoor Activity that we have become so used to in San Francisco. And that really encourages the cultural experience for all of our residents and visitors alike. So another thing just to note to all of you, we believe that this legislation really is complementary to a piece of legislation thats concurrently making its way through the process at the board of supervisors. And this is coming out of the office of Small Business. So its further streamlining legislation and support of Small Business, but its really tackling it from the lens of planning code. And so the two really go very, very well together. I know that ben has previously presented on some of the code changes, anticipated from that planning code piece of legislation. Im sure he could speak more to that at a later date or off the cuff tonight if needed. Just wanted to let you all know too, that we did present to the Small Business Commission Last week about our piece of legislation on and they supported us wholeheartedly. And wanted to relay to all of you that they are very happy to be partnering with our commission on these pieces of legislation and support of Small Business. So just a next step for us. We are after this hearing tonight. With your support, we will be going to budget and finance committee and well let you know what the date of that anticipated hearing is. Ill pass it back to ben to kick us off with some of the reforms. Great. Thank you, director. The first set of reforms in this proposed legislation is, as maggie had mentioned, around fee waivers and also some work around supporting outdoor activities. This legislation would enable the commission to waive Entertainment Permit application fees as well as initial license fees for businesses that are moving or will move from a Just Add Music pandemic permit that want to continue offering Outdoor Entertainment or amplified sound through a brick and mortar permit from the Entertainment Commission. Mechanically the this legislation would allow the waiver to happen and there is money from wd to actually reimburse the department for those waivers. So thats that is how that would work. Additionally the legislation would allow the commission to waive application and license fees where there has been a zoning change that newly allows businesses to apply for Entertainment Permits. So for new businesses that apply for an Entertainment Permit can take advantage of the first year free program. But for existing businesses that after several years in operation, can only now apply for an Entertainment Permit due to a recent zoning change. This legislation would also enable the waiver of those fees for those businesses as well. Final item on this slide. This legislation would amend the police code definition of a limited Live Performance locale. Theres some language around the outdoor areas that are permissible under a limited Live Performance permit. Theres some reference to surrounded and outdoor area surrounded by enclosed buildings. We know there are a variety of open air and other areas that where people would like to have a limited Live Performance permit at a at an outdoor plaza or food truck park or other location. So this change would make that feasible. We also hope to streamline referrals and other requirements as part of a variety of entertainers permitting processes. This legislation proposes to remove referral of place of entertainment, permit applications to the department of building inspection where a premises has held a place of Entertainment Permit within the past year. So again, helping to support the continued operation of our existing venues by removing a unnecessary fee and referral that includes cost and time cost as well. Similarly for fixed place amplified sound permits, the code requires that those be referred to the department of Public Health and we are proposing to remove that referral in this legislation for both of these proposed referral removals, we have engaged with both of the departments and theyre both supportive of these measures. Additionally, the legislation would remove the mandatory hearing requirement for a billiard parlor permit to save time for businesses seeking these permits. It would not prevent the commission from pulling a billiard parlor permit to a hearing if there is a history, a documented history of incidents at that location, a hearing is still definitely on the table. And finally, on this slide, this legislation would remove outdated and unnecessary operating standards around arcade permits. There are some very specific staffing and infrastructure elements in the code that were outdated and are no longer needed. So back to director wyland. This is fun. All right. So just continuing on with the slides. So just to end it off here, around this piece of legislation, we will also be removing the requirement for permit applicants to provide criminal history information to us as a part of the application process. And i think this is all likely known to all of you the thinking behind this, but collecting conviction history at the civilian level through our department is really unnecessary since the Police Department is able to conduct secure background checks on applicants while also protecting applicant privacy as we refer them to the Police Department. As a part of this process. Further, i think the city really is moving away from collecting conviction histories from civilian departments, especially. And so this is, as a general practice, this really aligns with that. Were also removing the outdated language in in code around masked ball. And im looking at commissioner thomas and im glad i have your support. I know this was something that you wanted to get rid of. Weve literally never issued a masked ball permit in my last eight years in this office. And essentially, if anyone would like to host a masked ball, please feel free. You can do that under your existing eating permit or you can get a one time event permit from our office. I also just wanted to confirm that the Entertainment Commission may require an applicant now via this legislature. Action for a limited Live Performance permit to submit a security plan and as you know, there is the example of a i wont even name the business, but there was a business this year that you all saw that we had a very challenging time regulating with security conditions because they were limited Live Performance locale. So this would allow us the ability to, uh, to do that, which is great. This also establishes that permit applications re filed after over a year of inactive city by the applicant would need to be accompanied by a new application fee and this is on common but this will really help us with cost recovery. And then finally, just wanted to let you all know that we anticipate probably amending this piece of legislation to include a piece in the code that would exempt schools from Entertainment Permit processes. And this really is to exempt schools from regular School Activity that is amplified sound. So this has been coming up recently. Its a little bit challenging where we have neighbors that are coming to us really hoping that we can be the regulatory body for, say, a Football Game that uses amplified sound. And we want to distinguish the fact that we as a commission really are here to permit and regulate entertainment activity for the most part. And so if a school is hosting, say, a carnival or some other activity that is a one time event with entertainment and amplified sound, we will, of course, still permit that activity as we have in the past. But we dont want to be in the business of permitting schools on a regular basis for regular School Activity. So if you have any questions about this piece of legislation before i leave, my wonderful colleague ben, please let us know. I just want to say its been a long time coming, so this has been great to just hear the updates on these improvements and yeah, thank you. And ill follow up with staff. I appreciate that. The masked balls and the billiard, the pool tables and pinball machines are all, you know, moral panics from decades ago that we thought required strict regulation and some sort of music man era control. So im happy to see all of that out of there. Hopefully maybe the toboggan rides are getting taken out, too. Yeah, totally. We may need to have further amendments for things that are a little less pressing that we should definitely discuss in our in our Police Code Reform committee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at any rate, thank you. Yes, youre right. I have wanted to update these things because theyre just not relevant to what we do or what entertainment or nightlife looks like now. And not necessarily doing any harm by being in there, but also just didnt need to be there. So thank you. No problem. I also wanted to echo commissioner thomass appreciation of removing the masked ball. One in particular, because that was something that popped out to me and i remember having a conversation with staff about that and speculating that perhaps that was from a time when it was codification that was basically queer coding and that this was a mechanism by which Law Enforcement could raid and dances or what have you, that were attended by members of the lgbt community. So i really appreciate staff following up with that. And also commissioner thomas for noticing it as well. Thank you for that. Thats a talking point that i will happily use when we move forward in committee as well. Lets just keep it up and keep making it easier for Small Businesses to start and grow and engage and entertainment. Thank you. Great all right. Back to you. Ben. Great. Thank you. Director whalen mentioned the other piece of Small Business legislation that focuses on planning code. And im actually going to spend a couple of slides on that. This is legislation that was introduced by the mayor and as well as supervisors. Engardio dorsey and melgar. And this is really focused on planning and code reform. Its being led by the office of Small Business and really appreciate their team for all of their hard work on this. This legislation was at the Planning Commission a couple of thursdays ago and was endorsed by the commission there. And so its next stop will be at the Land Use Committee of the board of supervisors. There are a handful of nightlife related elements in this proposed ordinance. First off, clarifying zoning to support the implementation of the type 90 Music Venue Liquor license 90 is just not a number thats referred to anywhere in the planning code because it is a new type of license. Secondly this legislation would provide a legal ization pathway without a conditional use authorization for long standing rear patios at bars and restaurants. So if a bar or restaurant has had a patio for ten years or more and can document that history, this would empower the Zoning Administrator to help businesses formalize that patio through a Building Permit as opposed to going through a process. There are a number of long standing patios around San Francisco that do not or have have complex or convoluted permitting histories where you in past cases weve worked with businesses, they have dug into planning records, you know, 30, 40 years in the past. And its a challenging process for everyone involved. And this would provide a Clear Pathway to support the legalization of those long standing patios. Additionally, this legislation would expand access to the expedited review of conditional use authorizations that exist that was started by the Planning Commission known as the cb3 program and was then codified thereafter. Under this proposal, bars entertainment, uses restaurants with full liquor licenses, businesses that need a to extend their operating hours would all be eligible for this expedited review, which obviously fauci. You know, the changing between if a if a can get heard in in 2 or 3 months, that is far better than six months because the queue is only one piece of the process. Theres also often this commission, there is the Liquor Licensing process as opposed to or in addition to also doing the actual tenant improvements that might be required as part of a build out. So really, any time that we can shave off of the queue process while still having all of that hearing and Public Participation is really welcome. Additionally we that legislation would relax or remove limits on restaurants and bars in certain neighborhoods where limited under the zoning tables there. And finally would remove some of the remain zoning neighborhood notification requirements for certain changes of use, most of which in the neighborhoods were removed through proposition h. Five. Final slide. This is a grab bag of additional updates. Im happy not to spend too much time on any of this or most of this anyway. The i guess the top line item is the shared spaces as businesses need to have complete application materials submitted by september 27th. Businesses that missed the Grant Program before the compliance Grant Program. That window has reopened for further applications on the abc front at the abc recently published it. The fourth draft of their regulations around outdoor parklet and alcohol licensing after the third draft was rejected by the state office of administrative law. So theres an additional Comment Period currently open through the end of october. Sf live working with president camino on some Brand Development work. Kicking that off now, well have more updates on that program. I expect in my next presentation as well as on our ongoing efforts with entertainment Commission Staff and planning Commission Staff around downtown recovery and then finally, just to i believe this is something that president camino and i talked about previously. We have done a lot of work to advise other jurisdictions on entertainment best practices. Is the director, Deputy Director and i have all spoken with folks in sacramento about their Entertainment Permitting processes. Theyre very interested in limited Live Performance permits, which they dont currently have. The director and i talked with toronto about agent of change policies and chapter 116 of the administrative code and how our process works compared to their process is, i think the presence of an Entertainment Commission here provides a important convening space for businesses and new residential developments that they dont have in toronto , and then additional work to support folks in nashville and san diego as well. And with that, i will happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you for your time trying to run away. I just had one quick question about the abc. The fourth draft. Did they they didnt reinsert the need to serve people in parklets from a server, did they . No. No. Well, no, i have not done as close a read as i intend to. There are some elements of the prior drafts that were that were criticized based on a lack of specificity. So, for example , theres a in the new proposal, if a business cannot see directly out onto its entire parklet that there previously the draft it said essentially that the business needed to maintain control through regular service of the parklet the current draft says that a staff member needs to needs to visit the park or be in the parklet every five minutes. So its sort of a theres a kind of granular specificity to some of the elements. But but it does not appear that any of the sort of threshold threshold mechanics of how outdoor Alcohol Service would work have changed. Okay. No more questions. All right. Well, you truly put the word techno in technocrat. Thank is there any Public Comment on this agenda item. No, no Public Comment on this item. Uh, well, thank you again. I thanked him with a with an offhand compliment. Um, all right. Well close Public Comment and we can move on to the next agenda item that is number seven, which is hearing and possible action regarding applicants applications for permits under the jurisdiction of the Entertainment Commission. Thanks. President bliman. We just have one limited Live Performance permit for indoor entertainment on the Consent Agenda this evening. Staff have already set an internal sound limit for the business, which is included below. There is no opposition for this permit and sfpd did not have any added conditions. So the staff recommendation for the commission is to approve the Consent Agenda with our staff recommendations listed below. I didnt realize that Vice President had stepped away. Okay um. Do we have a motion . I move approval with staff conditions. Seconded you should do Public Comment now. Okay. Is there a Public Comment on this item . Uh uh, no Public Comment on this item. Okay. Public comment is closed. Okay may we have a vote . Okay president camino i. Commissioner thomas i, commissioner torres, i and commissioner wong. I. Sorry. All right. Okay. Uh your permit application is conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director acevedo for next steps. New script, no regular agenda. Okay all sorry. Okay, lets move now to the regular agenda. Great. Thank you. President camino. The first permit on our regular agenda this evening is for a limited Live Performance permit for the fate located at 475 haight street. The fate is a brand new, retail focused art collective. Their goal is to help local artists and artisans us have a versatile platform to help them grow. The fate plans to host a number of various events while utilizing the permit to host comedy dj deejays, Fashion Shows and bands. Additionally, their permit includes outdoor amplified sound at the front of the business to help drive foot traffic into the shop. They plan to have entertainment a couple of times per week, but would like the permit to cover Entertainment Daily until 11 p. M. To give them flexibility for their programing. They are also seeking the ability to host outdoor amplified sound daily for no more than six hours per day. They conducted extensive outreach by passing out 96 letters to their surrounding neighbors, 83 of these letters went to residents and the other 13 went to commercial businesses. And all of this documentation is included for review in your file. I should also add that as of yesterday, we received a letter of support from the lower haight merchant neighborhood association, which is also included in your file. There was no opposition for this permit. And sfpd did not have any added conditions. So here to speak to you tonight, are owners andrew and daniel. Hello. Hello thanks for having us. My name is daniel bondy. Im the president and coowner of the fate collective. Im joined by my business partner, my best friend since three years old and the general manager of the fate. We have a slew of advisors and folks that have been teaching us and helping us along the journey. Some people are here tonight behind us and in front of us, so thank you for all you do for us Small Businesses that have a passion for music, art, community. Im not sure if we have any slides readily available. Im sorry. I love these guys. Perfect. I got them in my little phone here too. Ill go through our team and our mission and ill toss to andrew to talk about our space. So weve got four folks as coowners. Its myself, andrew bryce and forrester. Collectively we have a ton of live events, retail and music and art experience between us. Our mission as a whole is the mission of the fate collective is to bring positive and creative impact to our community. D by providing artists, musicians and crafters a versatile platform in which to grow. Were really excited to be here. Were excited for what were doing and i will toss it over to andrew to talk about our objective and our space. Awesome thank you so much for having us. Our objective as the fate collective is to leverage our space to host meaningful events with the intent of bringing a larger audience through our retail space. We really want to be able to leverage these events to create positive impact for both our artists and for our community. And in the short time that weve already been hosting events with one time event permits, weve ran month long Art Galleries for our that were sponsored by apic. Weve had vendors sell their very first item when they didnt even want to. They didnt even know if they would be able to sell anything at all. And its been a really meaningful experience seeing these artists get inspiration and motivation to continue their craft because they have a space within our store. A little bit about the space. Were a multilevel retail space. We leverage the entire space for retail with our upstairs being a consignment model for artists of all multi mediums. So like knitted goods, candles, oils, posters, you name it, we have an awesome vintage selection. So if you need some good stuff and then downstairs we typically host Art Galleries. So so on a regular basis, were installing diverse backgrounds of Art Galleries. So on the screen here we have a quote from one of our vendors feel free to read it. I dont want to read it aloud, but but she is been a very successful vendor for us and shes actually going to be one of our very first employees as well. To talk a little bit about the outreach, we did, i messed up the number. It was actually 96, but but we i went out and handdelivered every letter myself, knocked on the door, put it in the mailbox, tried to speak to as many of our neighbors as possible, all in that letter i included my personal, a direct line through google voice, which goes to my number first. If i dont pick up, it spreads it out to every every other one of our owners numbers so they can get in touch with us. If theres any need for a noise complaint or anything like that, well respond right away. On top of that, we regularly have spoken with our neighbors through the process of having our placard up during our regular shop hours and then last but not least, weve created a multistage soundproofing plan. So working with the neighbors that are directly nearby to make sure that if there is noise, as we are regularly increasing our soundproofing and making sure were getting to the point, we also have purchased sound monitors, so we leveled those out with staff to make sure that we can monitor our own sound and make sure we stay in compliance , security procedures and then just to say a little bit about the support weve had from our neighborhood and lahaina has been a big supporter of ours. We actually host their regular meetings in our space. And from the emails that ive gotten from after handing out the to all of the letters, weve gotten a lot of support from local all of our neighbors. And we actually have some people in the audience here today. Thank you so much for being here. Friends this is just a little thank you from us. One of our photos from one of our events. Awesome. Ill just ill just close this out really quick. Final bit of background. And were a couple of guys and good friends that didnt have enough money to buy a house but had enough money to start a business. We think so. Totally bootstrapped it. We were doing everything ourselves. We have a ton of support. We are musicians, we are artists. I used to play gigs at random bars in college. Thats what paid my rent in college. So i just want to say that. And also in closing , at a time where Small Businesses are struggling, some shutting down and we are totally doubling down and we are taking a bet and investing every single resource we have to support the revitalization of art, music and community in San Francisco. And we are looking for your support. So appreciate you. Thank you for what you do and well see you soon. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, andrew and daniel and its so impressive that you guys have been friends since the age of three. Yeah, we went to preschool together. Okay. Do we have any questions for our friends here . Just want to commend you guys. I think this is just what that neighborhood in our city needs, and its going to be a huge benefit to the community. I have no concerns at all. So thank you so much. Yeah. As a former resident of the lower haight, this sounds fantastic. Please come stop by. I will. I do have a question on where did you get the name fate . Were on the corner of fillmore and haight, and its kind of just fate. Fillmore well played. Well played. Okay. If there are no further questions or comments, why dont you guys have a seat . Okay all right, lets take Public Comment on this item. Um. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for your time. Um, my name is gina kottos. Im speaking in support of the fate. Im a lower haight resident artist and vendor at the fate. Im also so in my full time capacity work in Community Engagement in the city. I feel that the fate really is created an excellent opportunity for local artists to gain a meaningful income and exposure. I myself had not sold a thing before or selling my vintage at the fate and i feel inspired just walking in the door, seeing the beautiful pieces that people are creating. The people who are really artists and involved in the community and i feel that with the citys efforts to use arts to revitalize downtown, to support the culture of San Francisco, this really aligns with those efforts going to the events at the haight, like the art exhibits, seeing people who are interested in the same things that i am, has been a really great opportunity to feel emboldened in my creative practice and to also know that there are those people out there and being able to have consistent events creates those consistent connections and opportunities for artists to really expand and create that network in the city that we need to support the revitalization efforts to create, allow creative people to stay in San Francisco. Ive found that the owners of the fate have been incredibly welcoming and professional whenever dealing with neighbors, local businesses and i feel that they will very quickly become an asset to the neighborhood wood and cement the culture that were hoping to create and support in San Francisco. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay sir, you can come up and whoevers next, they can just come up to the mic. You have two minutes. Yes or do we have three . Oh, we have three. Good evening. Good evening, commissioners. Im here wearing a couple different hats. Im actually on the board of directors of the lower haight merchants and neighborhood association. And im also a longtime, proud homeowner of the association. So i know that youve already seen the message that the president of the board has forwarded to you and just wanted to reiterate that on behalf of the lower haight merchants and neighbors association, that we very fully support this project has meant multiple times with the team at the fate collective, and we are excited to welcome them into our community. We are eagerly looking forward to their the activation of what has been an empty space. The opportunity to add a venue on the 400 block of haight will be strong. Social and economic draw to this commercial corridor. We believe its critical to support and promote entrepreneurs like the fate collective, thereby enhancing the success of nearby establishments and as well as increasing overall sense of vitality and security. On haight street. For both residents and visitors alike, we expect the fate collective to follow the Entertainment Commissions Good Neighbor policy, gnp, and continue to act in good faith with lomna as one of our newest but already very actively engaged and Community Members as the that said, being a long time resident of the lower haight, im very excited to see Something Like this come into the neighborhood. Its a very unique space. So surrounding neighborhoods do not have something quite like this and i believe it will help support the other Small Businesses in the neighborhood that are all independently owned, as well as increase the security of the neighborhood. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Is anyone online . No there are no more further Public Comment for this item. Okay. Public comment is now closed. Do we have a motion so moved to approve with staff recommendations . Second. Okay may we have a vote please . Yes. President camino. Aye. Vice president blinman i commissioner thomas. I commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. I. Okay daniel and andrew, your permit application has been granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Yay. Next come on, lets. Okay, lets go. Lets keep it rolling. The next permit on our regular agenda is for a place of Entertainment Permit for wasabi bistro. Grand hotpot, located at 4134 geary boulevard. Wasabi bistro is a restaurant that is seeking the permit to host karaoke during dinner service. They dont have karaoke rooms, but rather performances will occur in the main dining room. The applicant notified all of their commercial and residential neighbors of the application and received six letters of support. The neighborhood is very excited to see a new business in the corridor. Sfp did not have any added conditions and here to speak with you this evening is owner louis kwong, represented by stefano cassolato. Good evening, commissioners. Today i have the privilege of having louis kwong next to me, who is the owner of wasabi bistro grand hotpot at 4134, geary boulevard. Louis is a veteran in the Restaurant Business for almost 30 years, and good friend of mine. We reached out to the entire block, which consists mainly of merchants. Unfortunately, half the block is vacant. We also made a personal visit to the Kaiser Permanente across the street and went through their security. But and left information but didnt have any direct contact with kaiser directly. We also had a meeting with the greater geary boulevard merchants association, mr. Haller and his group and they voted unanimously to approve this. Mr. Kwong would like to, in addition to having great hotpot and asian cuisine, would like to offer karaoke to his patrons on occasion and we will operate from the hours from 12 to 2, but not all, you know, have karaoke every night, just on occasion or upon request. Thats about it. If you have any other question, does mr. Kwang and i are available for any questions . We the capacity is less than 100. Its about 87. So well do our own inhouse security. One person dedicated at the front of the venue. We have two exits, one to the right, one to the left of the venue for exit in case of emergency. Thank you, commissioners. Sounds great. All year. How many employees do you have . Well we have about two employees in the front, but in the back were about have four. And its a hotpot restaurant. Okay. And those who are selling alcohol have their lead certificate taken and the Security Guard cards we do, we are in compliance. Okay. Thank you. Have a type 41 license. So its beer and wine. Beer and wine. Beer and wine. Yeah okay. All right. Thank you so much. Why dont you have a seat . Is there a Public Comment on this item. No no, no Public Comment on this item. Okay do we have a motion . I move to approve with staff recommendations on second . Okay. Can we have a vote, please . President comino . Aye. Vice president blinman i commissioner thomas. Aye commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. Hi okay. Your permit application is conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Thank you. Okay great. The next permit on our regular agenda is for a place of entertainment change in ownership. Permit for skylark located at 3018 16th street. The new owners, kimberly and dave, competent, have years of experience in the industry, but this is their first time owning their own business. They have decided to keep the name skylark but are revamping the Business Model by bringing in more live djs and entertainment in the staff recommendation. Below youll see ive suggested a few security related conditions. This is because the previous owner had numerous security conditions imposed on their permit due to ongoing issues at the premises. However rather than keeping all of the existing conditions as the new owners are eager to demonstrate their ability to conduct a safe and secure business, the conditions recommended below were shared with sfpd, but i did not hear back from the permit officer. The applicants conducted outreach by sending 41 outreach letters to their surrounding commercial and residential neighbors. They also went and introduced themselves to all of the surrounding businesses in an effort to be part of their community. There was no opposition for this permit. And sfpd did not have any added conditions here to speak with you this evening are owners kimberly and dave. Hi everyone. Thank you for having us here today. Were a little nervous. Its been a while since weve done a presentation so just a little bit about dave and i. We are sf natives. Im first generation, Third Generation in sf, native here, and its truly very meaningful to us to be able to open our own business and sf and be able to connect with our city again. So we are we have about ten plus Years Experience in the entertainment and nightlife industry and dave will tell you a little bit more. But he started off as a dj and from there he and i kind of have been side by side and doing this dj thing. I wasnt a dj. He was. But i would be his little emcee in the back and from dj to promotions to manager, djing and staffing, nightlife activities and events at other venues. Weve done that together for about ten plus years now and but daves going to talk a little bit more. Um, sorry. Yes, ive been djing for 20 years. Sorry i thought, i mean d. O. J. For 20 years ive been in nightlife for ten and me and my wife, weve been together for probably 15 years from djing her homecoming dance in the city. Um um. Hes not nervous, by the way. Yeah. Uh i mean, i work with a lot of clubs in the city. I work with a lot of venues. Ive managed a lot of them, and im very excited that were doing something on our own. The community has been great. A lot of the businesses in the area that ive talked to, um, i mean, at minimum its like 25 years. Some of them have been there for 30 plus years, especially a lot of the businesses in our building. Um theyve all been there for 25 plus years. Our neighbors is pretty cool. Like they grew up over there and now the daughters are running the place and you know, their kids are there and we plan to have our kids around too. And yeah, were really looking forward to being a part of the neighborhood. Yeah. So with that said, with in addition to some of the outreach details that dave mentioned, we were able to meet with a lot of neighbors whove shown support and really, you know, they asked us some really hard questions and it was nice to be able to hear their support after letting them know, like, hey, we are going to be hands on. We are going to be involved. Um, you know, its, its important for us to be able to continue to set roots in the city, especially because we have two little kids and its just for us, its pretty full circle to be able to continue to stay here. Its San Franciscos taking a little bit of a beating with the transition and recovering from the pandemic and all of the changes. Thats happening. And we want to be able to provide a place where people feel safe to celebrate. Date 21st birthdays bachelor and bachelorette parties, weddings, just the fun stuff to be able to have fun again. And not have to worry so much about your car breaking, getting broken into. Is it safe to go outside . Things like that. And we want to be able to connect with our with our people in that sense. And so skylark has been around for a really long time and we are keeping the name. And i think its been 27 years and. Its just one of those things where we want to continue on the legacy but make it better, make it safer, give it a give people a reason to want to come outside of valencia street. Is so live 16th street is so alive to remind people that its fun to be outside and we want to be able to provide a safe place for everyone to have entertainment, have a drink, celebrate with friends, and just socialize. But thats pretty much it as far as like outreach for operations, we do plan to be open fridays and saturday nights. Were going to start off slow, but our intent is to be open seven days a week. Um well start off with the evenings, fridays and saturday nights and then move on to other nights like thursday nights and sunday nights and then happy hours as part of it is so that we can get to know our customers, get to know our audience and just kind of see what the natural, organic flow is for that street and for that location. And then as far as operating, weve been very lucky that weve had staff that weve worked with at other venues and at other events who know, know, who are situationally aware, and that ties into to our security plan, like being able to like be cognizant of the surroundings and like giving us feedback and just having that open line of communication in and down to our our security plan. Lets talk about our security plan or just like a rough yeah. So during nightclub hours, you know we plan to do full pat downs guest lists, dress code and add. I mean, you guys know what the situation is with the city right now. I think honestly, sometimes people are scared to be out here. I see more and more people honestly going out of the city. But us being from here, born and raised, i want to keep them here. Yeah, were all in with the city and so were looking forward to making another place. You know, that people want to go to and feel comfortable at. Yeah, thats pretty much it. Thank you, kimberly. And dave. Its very inspiring to hear you guys give us an overview of how you guys came into nightlife and how you guys are hitting it hard. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, commissioners, thank you. Um, thank you also, of course, im. It makes me happy to hear you know, from you being here that you want to preserve our community here. And also, im sure you know, the history of the space in regards to the Lgbtq Community. Um, la india. Bonita was what it was before your, um, what i guess a couple of questions like are is there going to be any sort of acknowledgment of that history in the space moving forward . And also will the Lgbtq Community be welcome there as this historically was a lgbtq, latinx, latino, latina, Latina Center in years past, as im sure you remember. So yeah, as far as being open to the lgbt community, absolutely. As someone who is like whos from San Francisco, thats a big part of my culture personally as well. And everyone is welcome at our establishment as far as acknowledgment for the Lgbtq Community, we dont have we havent planned out that far into the future. Yeah but absolutely, we want to be respectful. All of the history of the location, the history of the culture. I grew up not too far from the mission, so i am 100 in cognizant of being respectful to the community and the history thats within that place. So but in short, Lgbtq Community. Absolutely. 100. Were actually right next to mother and malia has been wonderful. Her staff has been wonderful. And the customers that she gets are just such awesome people, just in general. And yeah, we welcome all would you be interested if it could be helped facility by staff if i make some introductions to some of the cultural districts that have information on on all of this . Yeah, we would love that. I mean, if you can point us in the right direction or connect us, yeah, that would be helpful. And yeah, wed like that. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Its exciting to have more places opening up in the 16th and mission 16th and valencia area. I know mothers is new and the kilowatt is got new, folks there. And so its just its great to have a new place there. I know that skylark in the past theres been issues with security and so on. It sounds like youre trying to, you know, keep the name, but sort of change up what youre doing. Um, are there particular things that youre planning on aside from sort of what youve put in here in terms of kind of changing the vibe to make people feel safe in a space thats had some Security Issues in the past . Yeah. Um, i mean, 16 street is a, its an interesting street. It is. Those are your friendly city. You know where it is. Um, you know, i think thats the beauty of this block is that all these businesses have been around for a very long time. And and as merchants, we have each others back all the time. Um, you know, were always looking out for each others businesses. I mean, theres, theres a handful of things that are at play on that street. And so i think security is very important. And thats why you know, were going to be very mindful of the music format, the dress code, implementing a guest list. Pat downs, security. I mean, all those things are number one for us. And just establish fishing, you know, in front of the building, making it feel more welcoming using stanchions, communicating with our Security Guards to remind people who are who may be loitering around or waiting around, if they would like to come inside or if they would like to kindly move over. But yeah, its i think a lot of it is communication, too. Thats really key so that everyones kind of so that everyone is on the same page and just establishing what, establishing a more welcoming atmosphere in front i think is a good start. I mean, skylarks been around for so long and its in my opinion, one of the last places of the city thats really held on to its culture. And so thats part of the reason why we didnt want to change the name. Uh, i mean, i got my aunts and uncles that were like, oh my god, i used to go to skylark back in the days and i would like to keep that going and just kind of, i dont know, alter the vibe a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I think its important to note that when you were running providence, our inspectors consistently cited your security as like the Gold Standard of, of security programs that theyd seen to the point where we invited you to join us for the summit last year. Thank you. Yeah. And spoke on that topic. So i have a lot of confidence that youll be able to do that there. And i think i think, you know, skylark has been problematic, but it has always been there. Im sorry. Not always. Its been there since ive been here 20 something years. And the keeping the history alive there in terms of the skylark, history is fantastic as well as acknowledging the previous host of the space. So im very much in support of this. And i knew youd pop back up. Thank you. I think i told you that, too. Yeah. Youre going to be fine. Youre going to find something. So. Okay. Um are we good . Okay. Why dont you guys have a seat . Thank you. Okay. Is there any Public Comment on this item. No no Public Comment on this item. Okay. Public comment is closed. Do we have a motion for. Ill move approval with staff recommendations. Second, you guys are going to fight for it. All right. Can we have a vote, please . President camino. Aye. Vice president bliman i, commissioner thomas, i. Commissioner torres. Hi and commissioner wong. I hey, your permit application is conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Congratulations okay. All right. The next permit on our regular agenda is for an llp permit for woods lower haight, located at 530 haight street. The applicant holds an llp for their other woods location on polk street under this llp application, they are seeking the ability to host indoor entertainment, Outdoor Entertainment and amplified sound on their back patio and fixed place amplified sound at the front of their business. The hours theyre requesting for these activities are all listed below in the staff recommendations. They hope to use the llp permit to host live bands, djs, comedy acts, Fashion Shows and poetry readings. They conducted outreach by using Radius Services, who sent a letter to all of their surrounding neighbors, including those in the rear of the business and across the street. There is no opposition for this permit and sfpd did not have any added conditions. Here to speak with you this evening is owner jim woods. Good evening. Thanks for having me. Commissioners im the founder of woods beer and wine company. We make craft beer and natural wine on Treasure Island, and we have several brewpubs and taprooms throughout San Francisco. I was born in San Francisco and was an aspiring home brewer back in high school and finally went pro after a lot of garage batches. I live in the sunset with my wife and my two boys and uh, its been really an honor to have a business in San Francisco. We are a small and independent and one of the few remaining companies that are actually brewing beer in San Francisco. So we have a very different model than a lot of other breweries. Were focused on our own taprooms where we can actually have a sort of profound connection to interact with our clientele. Its really the only way to make a living these days with rising costs of materials and everything. So were selling our beer across the counter as opposed to in supermarket. Its our very first location was opened over ten years ago on the corner of dolores park wood service area. And then we have woods poke station on polk street, where we also have an llp. We have a location in the outer sunset near where i live, and then we have our production brewery winery and a taproom on Treasure Island, which has been quite the ride with all the changes out there. But we love being in San Francisco and we love the communities that we are in. All of our locations are are truly unique and they cater to that local. The local clientele and theyre all a reflection of the community. And what better way to connect with community and rich, our bond with with everyone in than to have live music. Its something thats really were passionate about. Im a musician. We love supporting musicians and they had a real rough go of it. As you all know, during the pandemic. So its really something were very excited about to be able to host live music, particularly jazz. A lot of us are really into jazz and i think itll feel really good in the bones of the space. Im going to show you some pictures here of our space page down on well, as you using the mouse. Oh, the mouse. Yeah, thats bad. Yeah all right. So you can see some pictures of our packaging that we make on Treasure Island in San Francisco. Here is a picture of our space. This was during covid. Everybodys wearing masks. Yes. We actually opened in june of 2020, which was a very bizarre time to open a location in. But weve quickly become a really key component of the community and were excited to, you know, further connect with the local community and support, support local art, local artists with this permit, i want to be mindful of your time. Um, i should also mention we have a partner joyride pizza, so we serve beer, wine and detroit style pizza with with joyride. And its been a blast being in lower haight a lot of amazing legacy businesses. We have a really great connection with low hamna as well. We host a lot of their meetings, but respectfully request the ability to host music. Thank you, jim. Did you bring us some pizza . Yeah. They wouldnt let me through security with it, unfortunately. They said go down to the loading dock. Why did you end with that last slide . Yeah, i know. Im sorry. Thank you, commissioners. Right . Yeah. Looks great. Okay, well, its great to have another San Francisco local in front of us. Its really inspiring. Why dont you go ahead and have a seat and. And lets take Public Comment. Thanks. Uh, no Public Comment on this item. Okay. Public comment is closed. Do we have a motion to so moved with staff recommendations . Second. Okay. Can we have a vote, please . President camino. Aye. Vice president blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas. Hi commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. Hi. Hey jim. Your permit application is conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Thank you. All right. The next permit on our regular agenda is for a place of Entertainment Permit, billiard parlor permit and mechanical amusement device permits all change in ownerships for lucky strike. Located at 200 king street. I would like to note for the record that in the initial application and on our agenda, it includes outdoor amplified sound on their private patio. However, the applicants notified me that they would like to remove this activity and will no longer be seeking the outdoor amplified sound on the patio. So lucky strike previously held all three of these permits and the new owners intend to take over the business and keep them the same under the same name. They dont have any plans to activate indoor entertainment often, but if they do, it would likely be in the form of bands, djs and karaoke for private events. They are keeping the existing pool tables and arcade games as the applicants also used Radius Services to notify their surrounding commercial and residential neighbors of the ownership change. We didnt receive or excuse me, we received one inquiry about the application, but i put the neighbor directly in touch with the applicants and they answered their questions. So there was no opposition for the permit and sfpd southern station included their standard calendaring condition. So here to speak with you this evening is bruce evans, who is representing amf bowling centers. Hi. Good evening. I dont have anything to add. The staff report was very thorough and complete, but i would like to thank miss acevedo for professionalism and responsiveness throughout this process. I stepped into this application in late, but when i got involved my team, the first thing they said is caitlin has been great. There were no surprises to the process. I would commend you on your application. The interactive nature of it, which is very refreshing and innovative, and i just havent seen that elsewhere. We do have brian ball, the district manager on the line. If theres any operations questions, this is an acquisition in, as miss acevedo indicated, of lucky strike. Amf does not have any locations currently in San Francisco and theyre very happy to be here. So with that, happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions . I see your security will have guard cards or the employees that you have that serve alcohol. Will they have leed certification and training . Correct. Thats actually a state law now as well. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Why dont you go ahead and have a seat. Thanks very much. Okay. Is there a Public Comment on this item. No Public Comment on this item. Okay. Public comment is closed. Do we have a motion . I move approval with staff recommendations. Seconded. Okay. Can we have a vote, please . President camino. Aye. Vice president blinman i commissioner thomas. Hi, commissioner torres. Hi and commissioner wong. Hi hey , bruce. Your permit application is conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Thank you. Okay commissioners, the final permit on our agenda tonight is for an lpi permit amendment for mars bar and restaurant located at 798 brannan street. Mars bar currently holds an lpi permit for indoor entertainment and outdoor amplified sound, but they are here tonight because they want to add the ability to also host Outdoor Entertainment on their private patios. The Outdoor Entertainment would be used for live musicians during private private events. Birthday parties, etcetera. The business notified their neighbors of the amendment request and there was no opposition for the permit. As of today, there was 12 letters of support that are included in your file. I think ive had two more come in since weve been here, so lots of support for this amendment at sfpd, southern station included their standard condition, which is listed in the staff recommendation below. And here to speak with you tonight is owner david keeley. Good evening, commissioners. David kiley of mars bar, our general manager, caleb blakely. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Um go ahead. Um, youre here to present to us and tell us a little bit about your business as well. Mars is struggling, struggling badly. We were across pinterest. Pinterest vacated three buildings, 500 people moved airbnb, 2000 people are all working from home. Zenga working from home. Adobe 850. Bryant the Police Department moved from there. So all we have are the public defenders as its been a ghost town. A typical friday happy hour. Wed have three bartender hours, two cooks. Now were down to one bartender or one cook. Its been brutal, brutal, brutal. Brutal is a mild way to put it. We were barely hanging on the city is in tough shape. But, you know, with all the good things we heard tonight, maybe its coming back. We hope so. So weve been living on events and events are the only thing sustaining us because we have the big outdoor patios. It does help us. The outdoor patios really helped us during covid because we were able to have dining outside and hopefully that neighborhood will come back if people ever decide to come back to the office. But but were not seeing it. We have no foot traffic. So thats kind of where. So we appreciate the fact, you know, that we had a jam permit during covid that helped us sustain an and now were just making it more of a formality. We thank you. I appreciate you honestly giving us your testimony of what the experience has been like for you and, you know, we hear it from a lot of our permit holders that its been really tough coming out of the pandemic. And were here for you. And im glad to hear that you guys are applying for this permit. But were trying. Weve been there 25 years. We dont want to give up. So ive been there for some of them, not all. 25. Thank you, commissioners. Well, you certainly have the public defenders on your side. I heard from several of my friends who work in the Defenders Office pushing to support this. So theyre are always a good set of folks to have on your side and may also be heavy drinkers, some of them from what ive heard, we dont judge. Okay all right. Why dont you go ahead and have a seat. Thank you. Thank you. Lets go to Public Comment and a no Public Comment for this item. Okay. Public comment is closed. Do we have a motion . I will move approval with staff recommendations. Seconded okay. Your permit application is conditionally granted. Vote, please. Oh we need a vote. Yeah so president. President camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas, i. Commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner, i. Okay. David, your permit application is now conditionally granted. Please follow up with Deputy Director azevedo for next steps. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right, you guys, were about to go into item eight. Do you think we can take a quick break . I think you have to take. I think you just have to make a motion to take a recess and get a vote. Okay id like to make a motion to have a brief recess. Five minutes, huh . Five minutes. Five minutes. Second seconded. Public comment. Is there Public Comment on this item . I dont see any. No no Public Comment on this item. Now, we need a vote. Okay president camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas. Hi, commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner huang. Hi. Okay, were going to reconvene at 725. Back at 7 26 p. M. Not bad, you guys. Okay Commission Agenda item number eight is the hearing and possible action to revoke permit number ec 1452 place of Entertainment Permit issued to jose montes ninos serve to cesar montecinos, dba stratus nightclub located at 358 ocean avenue, San Francisco, california. This hearing is convened pursuant to administrative code chapter 90 and related provisions of the San Francisco police code and administrative code. Section 90. 4 c provides decides that the commission may suspend, revoke or withdraw entertain related permits in accordance with the law and regulations governing such permits. Police code. Sections 1060. 20. 4 and 1070. 20 set forth the standards for revocation of a place of Entertainment Permit at. Section 1060. 20. And 1070. 820. Provide that the commission may revoke a place of Entertainment Permit after a noticed public hearing if it determines that any of the code specific conditions exist. Section. 1060. 20. 4 and 1070. 20a provide for revocation where one or more of the grounds for suspension listed in section. 1060. 20. 1. And 1070. 17. 1 exist and consideration questions of Public Safety warrant revocation of the permit at the current matter is set for hearing based on a complaint filed by the executive director against permit holder jose montecinos, dba stratus nightclub on august 10th, 2023, which alleges violations of police code sections. 1060. 20 and 1070. 20 as a provided as provided by the administrative code, section 90. 4 and police code sections. 1060. 20 and 1070. 20 and related law and rules. We will conduct this hearing to provide the permit holder with due process. We will fully consider the evidence provided by the charging party and by the permit holder and fulfill our responsibilities in a fair and impartial manner. Okay, well represent entities for each party, each of the parties. Please introduce themselves. As for the charging party. Hello, commissioners. My name is maggie wyland. Im the director of the Entertainment Commission and i am the charging official for this item tonight. And im here in support by Deputy Director caitlin a as well as our general counsel, Sarah Crowley from the City Attorneys Office. Thank you for the permit. Holder jose montesinos, dba stratus nightclub and good evening. My name is alejo iskandari. I am the attorney for the permit. Good evening. Okay, thank you. Okay. Before we move to the hearing, we will take Public Comment on this item. If youre here to give Public Comment, please line up in the aisles. Thats correct. Is there water . Okay water. Well thank you for having me here. Or that we can discuss this. First of all, i im ive lived in the neighborhood for over 40 years. The nightclub has, i understand , changed hands many times. I dont know how many times exactly, but it seems like the crowd that that goes there hasnt changed much. They its the same same clientele, all different owners. Ive complained many times over the years, over this 40 years at and i didnt realize that when i was complaining that actually some people do look into this and i, i felt that nothing ever changed over those 40 years because it didnt seem like it changed. There was still that noisy crowd there on the weekends until two, three, 3 00 in the or three in the morning. And it just like i said, i felt that it never nothing ever changed there, even after i had made so many complaints. I also feel that if this nightclub was in glen park or noe valley, they would have lost their permit many years ago. The stratus is just simply one source of noise in the area that intersection of san jose and ocean is a major thoroughfare. Theres a police tape. Im sure you all know that. Theres a police station, a fire station up the hill, and theres the j line and the k line. And they all create a lot of noise. It disturbs the sleeping patterns. But the stratus is exceptional in that you can set your clock by it. 11 00 till two closing time. Closing time is really serious. There they they they take their party out onto the street. Its something that thats really hard to take every every every weekend. So we one one closing comment on on this this i dont know what the status of their permit is right now whether its in suspension or theres a temporary or i really dont know what their status is, but last saturday, on september. 16th at 11 30 p. M, the noise started up at closing time. At 2 a. M. They took they took their party out onto the street. And the crowd was just like cheering on, cheering on. Sir, youre going to have to stop your your three minutes is up. Okay well, thank you very much. Very much. Thank you. Sure. Hello my name is sam berenson. Im the Public Safety liaison for district 11 on as you will hear tonight, all the incidents that are causing this hearing. I reached out to the community and at Community Meetings and the topic that keep coming up was all the violence that thats happening at this nightclub. So im representing community tonight and asking for you folks to, you know, take everything into consideration for the greater good of Public Safety. This nightclub is in a residential neighborhood, and it sounds like theyve had multiple warnings or multiple notice of violations and they continue to happen, including and most importantly, non wanding, which would prevent some of these guns to get in this club if they actually did the wanding so that is not thats a case of mismanagement. And so that could have been prevented. So thats my comment. Thank you. Nelson. All right, commissioners, we have one person with their hand raised in zoom, so im going to unmute them right now. Um, phone caller, if you could please say your name and you have three minutes for Public Comment. Thank you. Can you hear me . Yes yes. Thank you very much. My name is david hooper and ive lived out here in Mission Terrace where stratus nightclub is since 1986. I was raised in the mission. Ive got the general idea of what its like to be raised upstairs from a bar because as thats where i was raised, upstairs. So my uncles bar at 22nd and guerrero. So im not against bars, im not against entertainment, but the neighborhood, as you can see, has, i think, directed to your attention 23 different letters stating their concerns. What sam berenson mentioned was the idea of wanting. Id like to go back to the shooting that happened september a year ago. And the one and theres three people were shot earlier this june. Major major concern for the community and its a question of management. If somebody cant do it right, it puts a terrible reflection on every other business that is trying to survive. And have an entertainment license. So major concern from the community. Id like to thank my neighbor for arriving and speaking. The first person to speak in Public Comment and please seriously consider a revocation of their entertainer license. Thank you very much. Theres a gentleman in the gallery that wanted to make Public Comment. I believe so. We have one more person on zoom. Should we should we just i think well do zoom and then. Okay, well do the zoom real quick. So dennis kaleo, im going to unmute you. Then if you if you can hear me, you have three minutes. You hear me . Yes we can. Okay, good evening, commissioners. My name is dennis kaleo. Im a retired army officer. Im a resident of the area. I live in one, one two, onondaga. And first of all, i want to say thank you to my fellow neighbors for having to speak out on the safety and security. Its a very challenging time that we live in. The past two years, youve understand that weve had covid, but whats challenging is people are now coming out of their spaces. Caesar ive known caesar for over two years now. Ive done some business with him. I also have frequent the nightclub. And i just want to attest that hes done everything he can to correct those deficiencies that everyone has mentioned. Ive been working with him in reference to trying to connect with the community and also trying to make it to a safe and secure environment. Hes a Business Owner. He uses this club because its his livelihood. I dont want to see it going down because its an American Dream for him. Secondly there are issues in our community. The only way were going to figure this out and fix this is if we have Police Involvement as well. Obviously caesar cannot control what goes on outside the club, but inside the club he has used the wand. He has trained his staff to interface with customers. And hes actually taken a lot of customer advice in making the place safe. I cannot speak on the fact that there are other issues outside the club, but i can only say that i do my part as a neighbor to make sure that that the neighborhood is safe by connecting with other communities, other neighbors, by by forming neighborhood watches. So i ask the commission to take a look at his license and have the kindness in his heart and your hearts to extend him another chance to continue doing business. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I think theres one more person here. Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Ive been coming going to stratus for many, many years and its a place where i go. Usually i go to do karaoke. Its a place where you can sing, where you can dance, where we celebrate many birthdays. Its a community place. Its actually like a family place. I know max and his sons. They are good people. They always try to be within the law and all that stuff. Um, be safe. You know, i do feel safe inside. Like the last guy said, there is no way that they can control a couple of crazy people. That makes the difference. But it is a place where my wife and i, we , i, we have celebrated many birthdays. We celebrate everybodys birthday there. Every time the fortyniners win , we celebrate cinco de mayo, we celebrate cuatro de julio. You know, independence day, we celebrate. Its a community place, really. If you go there on sundays, youll see that its like a family place. We all know each other. We all take care of each other. We take care of the stratus. We want the stratus to be in San Francisco, and they deserve another chance. I know there are some crazy people out there that can make a big difference, but stratus is a community place. Its a place where we latinos get together and celebrate every cultural and birthday days. You name it, you can. We have videos of every sunday we celebrate something. So its a place where michel and bonita, they dance with the wheelchair and everything. Its a place where we all enjoy each others company. I want you to keep that in mind. Please give them a chance. They will do the right thing. Thank you. Yeah, ive been coming to stratus for a long. A long time. Im 71 years old and i celebrated a lot of birthdays there. And i always feel safe and its a place where i can dance and have a good time. And its. And karaoke. The singing, its. Its. Its a beautiful place. Community place. And its an important part of my life that i look forward to going with all the time and celebrating. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you. Okay. All right. Were going to be closing Public Comment. No more Public Comment. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So we plan to conduct this hearing as follows. Each party may present an Opening Statement. First, the charging party, then the permit holder. The charging party will present its case in chief first, followed by the permit holder. Each party will call its witnesses one at a time for direct examination. The opposing party may crossexamine each witness, the party who called the witness may ask further questions of the witness on redirect. Examine motion. The charging party may then present rebuttal evidence as the charging party may present a Closing Argument, followed by a Closing Argument from the permit holder. The charging party may then present a rebuttal argument. The case will then be submitted to the commission for deliberations and decision. As the president , i will chair the hearing and rule on any motion or objections. I may ask questions of the witnesses or the Party Representatives at any time, and i may invite other members of the commission to also ask questions as stated in the commissions july 17th, 2023, letter to the parties a maximum of 45 minutes of total hearing time has been allocated for each party in the evidentiary phase of this hearing, plus an additional five minutes for rebuttal argument by the charging party. Because it bears the burden of proof in this matter. Please note that this is a maximum and that a party may, of course use less time. The time will run when a party is presenting argument or examining or cross examining a witness in order to ensure that we have a clear administrative record, the parties should mark all exhibits they intend to offer as evidence as we received from the charging party a prehearing statement and exhibit a to r, we also received from the permit holder a prehearing statement and exhibits 1 to 2. I also want to remind the parties of a few rules contained in the commissions procedural rules that we adopted in order to assure due process in quasi judicial hearings like this one commission. Rule 12 states that when the Commission Deliberates and decides a case, the Commission Shall consider only the evidence introduced into the record and material facts of which the present agent takes official notice. Commission rule 14 prohibits ex parte communications, which means that communications are prohibited between members of the commission and any person or party on any facts. At issue, unless upon notice and opportunity for all parties to participate, it does either Party Request modification of hearing procedures or time limits. Okay. All right. Okay. So lets move on to Opening Statements. The charging party may now give its Opening Statement. Thank you, commissioners. Good evening, everyone. An appointed members of the Entertainment Commission. Again, my name is maggie wyland and im the director of the entertainment Commission Staff. As you know, were here this evening to recommend revocation of stratus, nightclubs, place of Entertainment Permit. Stratus nightclub is a venue located at 358 ocean avenue in the citys excelsior neighborhood in the last 18 months, there have been seven violent incidents at the premises, three of which were calls for service to sfpd. One of which was sfpd, responding to gunshots they believed to have come from the club and another three incidents that were separate shootings that occurred inside and just outside of the premises. Unfortunately one of these shootings resulted in a minor ultimately dying from the gunshot wounds during the two most recent shootings in september 2022 and june of this year. The permittee was not in compliance with their Commission Approved security plan. Further the permitting never notified entertainment Commission Staff of any of the sfpd responses, which is a direct violation of their place of Entertainment Permit and the Good Neighbor policy, which require that all incidents or calls for service to sfpd be reported to the Entertainment Commission within 24 hours of their occurrence. The evidence makes clear that considerations of Public Safety warrant revocation in this case , stratus has shown a pattern of failure to comply with permit conditions based on the large number of violent incidents at the business and their failure to fix Security Problems and communicate as required with city officials. Even after repeated Entertainment Commission and sfpd outreach and citations, all five of the factors, the code says the commission should consider in making a Public Safety determination for revocation are present this evening. Were going to walk you through the pattern of violent incidents at the premises tonight and this evening. I ask you to hold the permittee responsible for their failure to comply with their permit conditions on multiple occasions, specifically their security plan and the Good Neighbor policy failure. Does that increase the risk of violent incidents at the club and may have contributed to the seven violent incidents . I have briefly outlined in this Opening Statement . We ask that you revoke stratus nightclubs, place of Entertainment Permit based on the grounds outlined in Municipal Police code sections 1060 0. 200. 4 and 1070 0. 20. In a moment, youll hear from the Entertainment Commissions Deputy Director, caitlin azevedo , who will explain the activity timely on at stratus nightclub, including the issuance of two administrative 72 hour Public Safety suspensions as a directors order for revised security plan and two citations for non compliance with permit conditions. Even after the shootings and homicide took place for witnesses, we will be calling sergeant brisco from the San Francisco Police Department. Sergeant brisco has been with the ingleside precinct since september 2016. He will discuss his precincts history with stratus and attest to the ongoing violent incidents that have occurred at the premises in the last 18 months. Based on the incident reports he has reviewed and the discussions hes had with fellow sfpd officers, hes also respond to a couple of these incidents himself. Thank you so much for your time and attention this evening. Ill pass it back to you now. President camino. Okay. Thank you. The permit holder may give an Opening Statement now. Good evening. In reviewing the complaint. What is clear is that , yes, there have been some setbacks with regards to incidents that occur at the nightclub. However a more critical review of the complaint will show that and the evidence will show that on one occasion, guns shots were fired inside of the nightclub. But on the other occasions, the incidences of violence occurred outside of the nightclub and there is no clear evidence from any of the witnesses i have reviewed that shows that these incidences occurred within the 50 or 100 foot radius from the club, that the rules mandate that. I want to particular focus on the. June 20th and 23 incident at. And we believe that the evidence will show that there was a saying when it rains, it pours as well. It rained that day because that was the day that that the wind that was usually used was defective. And that wind has already been replaced. It, however, the evidence will show that my clients were prone creative with regards to resolving the issues within the club. We believe that the evidence will show that my clients were provided with a plan. That plan was with regards to security and my clients acted on the plan. Theres evidence to show that they were given the green light and theyre okay by the commission. Okay, fine. You have implemented this, that and the other. Stratus nightclub is a family affair. A lot of people go there. But not really. Can anyone control the actions of someone that wants to do something bad and no one can . P people just sometimes arms are unreasonably bad. Somebody will walk into your backyard and open fire. Its not much control you can do now there is the incident of someone being shot within the area. None of these incidents is. Is there any evidence to show that these shootings happened within that 50 to 100 foot radius, that the rules say that stratus is management has control over. However that hasnt been said. We are looking forward. To a positive resolution of this with stratus being placed in a position where they will have to show show that they are they already and willing to be part of the community and enforce. Decorum within the nightclub. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We are now ready for the charging party to present its case. The charging party may call its first witness is. Good evening, president camino and commissioners. My name is. Excuse me. My name is caitlin azevedo and im the Deputy Director of the Entertainment Commission. For the sake of giving context to everyone at the hearing tonight, let me begin by giving some background on the Entertainment Commission. And the Entertainment Commission is a Charter Commission made up of Seven Members appointed by the board of supervisors and the mayor to issue and regulate place of entertainment or po permits. The commissions permit system balances the interests and residents, nightlife, business businesses and the public at large. The commission promotes cultural, economic and employment and other benefits of a vibrant Entertainment Industry, while protecting the health, safety and Public Welfare of the community, and particularly of local residents and businesses. Through the permitting process and various Enforcement Mechanisms in performing its permitting function, the Commission Works closely with the Police Department and other city agencies to ensure that safeguards are designed for the benefit of the public. Are maintained while place of Entertainment Permits are in effect. Deputy director, are you providing testimony as a witness . No but i will be calling my first witness soon. Im leading into that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. For claritys sake, this is our case in chief portion. Correct. So we will provide a lot of evidence, and then well call our witness , if that makes sense. Okay. To continue. Yes. Great okay, so we are here this evening to discuss a particular place of Entertainment Permit for the premises known as stratus nightclub, located at 358 ocean avenue. I ask the commission to please take notice of exhibit m in your prehearing prehearing filing, which outlines the seven incidents that occurred inside and immediately in front of stratus in the last 18 months. Of these seven incidents. Supervisor safires office alerted us to the september 20th, 22 and june 20th, 23 shootings, while sfpd ingleside station recently informed us of the remaining five incidents. To be clear, this means that the permittee never alerted us to any of these occurrences, despite the fact that the Good Neighbor policy and stratus permit requires them to do so at this time, i would like to call my first witness to the stand a sergeant bodisko. Okay, sergeant. Okay. I need to swear you in. So raise your right hand. Do you solemnly state or affirm under penalty of perjury that the evidence you give in this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . I do. Okay. Thank you. Hi, sergeant bodisko. Thank you for being here tonight. I have called you as a witness because you have been a sergeant with ingleside since september of 2016, and i hope you will be able to provide the Commission Information about your precincts experience with this venue. Im going to hand sergeant bodisko exhibit m, which is included in the prehearing filing. Sergeant are you familiar with this document that outlines the seven incidents that occurred at stratus nightclub between january 9th, 2022 and june 10th, 2023 . Yes, i am. Are you able to confirm that on each of these seven days . Sfpd responded to the premises either because of a call for service at the premises or because officers heard gunshots coming from the premises. Yes, i can. Thank you. And are the summaries of the incidents in the document ive just shown you consistent with your knowledge of what occurred at the business, based on your review of the incident reports and in speaking with your colleagues . Yes, they are. Sergeant, isnt it true that you also personally responded to the incidents that occurred on july 30th, 2022 and september 4th, 2022 . Yes, i did. Is it also true that the summaries in the document ive shown you are accurate and consistent with your memory of what took place that day . Yes great. Thank you. Sergeant bodisko. I have no further questions for this witness. Okay thank you. The permit holder may crossexamine the witness. Good evening, sir. Good evening, sergeant dyer, acting your attention to exhibit m, did you you personally invest negate the incident of january nine, 2022, personally supervised the incident, but i did not investigate it. No did you go to the scene that day . Which date did you go to the scene of the incident that day . The incident of which date . Of january 9th, 2022. January ninth, 2022. I dont believe i responded to that one. Okay did you prepare this document, the declaration of captain noble . No i did not prepare this document and you did testify that you were familiar with it, correct . Yes and would it be fair to say that your familiarity is limited to you having read the document . Yes, i read the document. And that your familiarity does not necessarily extend to you having knowledge of each of these incidents, incidences i met would be correct. Okay. With regards to the first incident of january nine, 2022. Are you aware of the rule that says that stratus is responsible for all incidences and must report incidences of violence that are within 50 to 100ft radius from the club . No, i dont have a lot of experience with permits and businesses. Okay so you wouldnt be able to testify as to whether or not with regards to the incident of january 9th, 2022, whether the incident occurred with in the radius of 50 to 100 foot from the club, would you, without reviewing the incident report. Okay. With regards to the incident of july 30th, 2022, where did you investigate that incident . I was there, but i was not the investigating officer. Were you the supervising officer . Yes. Okay. And with regards to that, you the report does say that gunshots were heard from the area of stratus nightclub. Do you see that . Yes. Okay and officers response funded and observed approximately 100 people exiting the nightclub. Is that correct . Correct. And this incident occurred or the observation of this incident occurred at 1 53 a. M, is that correct . I believe thats correct. And officer, what time does the nightclub close . 2 a. M. So seven minutes to two. You found 100 people outside. And would it be fair to say that they were leaving the club because the club was closed . Thats reasonable. So it wouldnt be strange to see 100 people outside a club that was closing down at 2 00 . Correct no, it would not. Okay and the report further goes on to say that an unidentified male pointed a gun and claimed that they had a gun. The officers detained the man allegedly with a gun. And you observed these events, correct . I dont believe so. Okay. And then theres also a report with regard to that july 30th, 2022 incident. Theres also a report that somebody discharged the weapon. Correct i would have to review the incident report for the specific details. And you dont have that with you at the present time . Yes, i do. You do. Okay is it okay for you to for me to ask this officer to review the incident report or would that get up on my time . Yes, you can, officer. Would you review the incident report with regards to the july 30th incident . Two years worth of reports here. Okay um, july 30th, 2022, that is correct, sir. And what would you like me to refresh my memory on . Most specifically, id like you to refresh your memory on whether the report contains any reference as to the location of the shooter at the time. The gun was discharged. Okay give me a minute. Yes, sir. Well, the first officer on scene transmitted on the radio that there was a possible subject with a gun in the area of san jose and ocean. Okay answer your question, sir. Fair enough. In the area of san jose and ocean is stratus nightclub the only building in the area of san jose and the only thing thats open at that hour . At that hour. Okay so but the report doesnt say how far away from the club that person was, does it . No okay. Now lets quickly move on to the next incident of september 4th, 2022. Sir. Okay and again, this report, this incident occurred at 1 40 a. M. Yes. And sergeant, are you aware that the nightclub you already testified that the nightclub closes at two . Correct yes. And you already are you aware that the nightclub turns off its lights to the bar and the club in general at 145, and thats when people start leaving the nightclub . Generally, yes. Okay and so would it. Fair enough. You would understand that. 1 40 a. M. Is about five minutes to when all the lights would turn on and people start leaving. Correct correct. Okay. And so with regard to this specific incident in september fourth, 2022, this incident occurred around about the time the nightclub was closing. Correct the incident was reported to have occurred approximately at 1 40 a. M. Okay so i would be correct then that about that time the club was closing that would be reasonable. Yes. Okay and sir, you the report further says that Officers Determined that patrons leaving stratus became involved in a fight. Is that correct . That is the summary here. Yeah. And but the to the best of your knowledge, did the fight occur inside of the club or did it occur outside of the club . I dont know. Okay but if the report says patrons leaving the nightclub, would you agree with me that you could reasonably say that the fight occurred outside of the club . Correct . No anything could have occurred inside and anything could have occurred outside. I dont know what spilled in or out. Im going to object. Already asked the question ive been asked and the information is. And sir. Oh, you should rule on that. Objection okay. Um, overruled, sir, with regard to that same specific incident, the officers summary does say that i meant. Objection. Sustained. I didnt hear that. Im sorry. I didnt hear that. Oh i just made an error in my ruling. I initially said objection. Overruled. I had meant it was objection. Sustained okay, fair enough, sir. With regards to that incident , the officers reported that somebody produced a firearm, correct . Correct and that this armed individual then fired into a Group Striking a victim. Correct that is documented in the report, yes. Okay. And sergeant. Do you know how far away this person was . That was was shot from the club . I have no idea. Okay. So you dont know whether the person was shot, right in front of the clubs doorstep or 200ft away . Asked and answered, im sorry. I cant hear you. What did you say . Sorry . Asked and answered. Asked and answered. Okay okay. Objection. Sustained. Sir where are you going with this line of questioning . Im trying to go through each and every one of the incidences in seriatim. Okay now, with regards to the next incident, which is item d on the exhibit, m. It says that on february 26th, 2023, at 1 24 a. M, officers from ingleside responded to a report of a man with a gun at stratus nightclub. Is that correct . Correct. And does that report state that the man with the gun was inside of the nightclub or within the vicinity of the nightclub . Okay. And again, this incident occurred at 1 24 a. M, correct. Okay, sir, im going to interrupt you. Crossexamination actually has a five minute limit and youve gone over so no. Okay. Can i ask two more questions . Ones no. Okay thank you. Thank you. Okay does the charging party have any redirect examination. I do. Okay sergeant bodisko, is it true that of the seven incidents that have occurred at stratus all resulted in a call for service or a visit by sfpd . Yes. Thank you. No further questions. Okay. Thank you. Do any of the commissioners have a question for this witness. Okay okay. Okay. Is there any is there anything further for this witness . If not, this witness is excused. Okay okay. Are we allowed to redirect . No okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The charging party may call its next witness. No. Im sorry. Yes, you would have to give. Us information. My department did. Hi. Hi first and foremost, i would like to ask for the minutes back that were overused. Is that possible . Just to make sure that we get our full time allotted . You may reclaim your time. Wonderful. Thank you. Next question for you, president. The just to be clear, i was going to now run. We have no further witnesses, but i was going to review in depth the narrative of each of the incidents that have occurred with with our findings as staff. And i wanted to ask you if you would like me to do that as the charging official or as a witness. I think we should do it as a witness. So if you dont mind, i will. I will swear you in. Okay. All right. Do you solemnly state or affirm under penalty of perjury that the evidence you give in this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . I do. Okay. Okay were doing this on the fly. I would like to call a witness. Caitlyn azavedo. Caitlyn can you confirm for the commission what your role is with entertainment Commission Staff . I am the Deputy Director of the Entertainment Commission, and i oversee all of our brick and mortar permitting along with our enforcement division. Thank you, deputy Deputy Director azavedo. So this evening, may i ask you to please run through a summary of the incidents as you know them from the last 18 months . Please yes. The first thing id like to note is that the defendants line of questioning is irrelevant because the facts here that the seven incidents ground us. Is that thats the question that you ask. Its fine. Can you . Sure. Before she begins, how about this. Deputy director azavedo, can you confirm for me what the permit holder is required to do when there is a call for service to a premises to sfpd per the Good Neighbor policy number seven, any time there is a violent incident that occurs at the premises or there is a call for service, the permit holder must submit an incident report to both the Entertainment Commission and the permit officer for outlining the incident that occurred. And can you confirm that if the permit holder does not call the Entertainment Commission or notify us within 24 hours of this kind of occurrence that theyre out of compliance with the permit condition that. Okay, overruled. Okay. So to pick it back up, i would like to return to my previous question. Can you please run through a summary of the incidents from the last 18 months, please. Object that it calls for narrative. Im sorry, i cant hear you. Im going to object to the grounds that it calls for narrative. I just want to remind that the evidence rules is this civil rules of the evidence rules do not necessarily apply. Why . And to just advise that the president. May receive rule on, exclude or limit evidence and may decide whether certain objections is apply. Okay so his objection is that its a narrative. Okay. Overruled. As sergeant bodisko just testified and sfpd responded to seven incidents at the premises, yet the permit holder failed to submit any incident reports to us. This is an egregious violation as incident reports serve a fundamental purpose in understanding the Safety Practices in place by the permittee. And when we need to intervene without this information, we are unable to properly address safety and security practices. Putting the venue and its surrounding community at risk. You have heard some of the details regarding stratuss violations from sergeant bodisko and you have seen the others detailed in the written evidence submitted with the complaint. And so to tie it all together, id like to quickly run you through a narrative regarding each of the incidents that occurred at stratus as a reminder, the permittee failed to notify the Entertainment Commission about any of these events, and since five of these incidents were brought to our attention by sfpd in the last month, director weiland and i were unable to take real time action and appropriate follow up as we normally would have. However, it still feels vital that we share this information with you as evidence as the following seven incidents that occurred in the last 18 months demonstrate the potential safety risk that stratus poses and why we are requesting a revocation of the permit on january ninth, 2022, a fight broke out inside of stratus nightclub that continued outside and ultimately an armed suspect shot a victim in front of the club. Now, id like to point out that the permitting never informed the Entertainment Commission of this incident, and we didnt learn of it until sfpd. Ingleside station, brought it to our attention. More than 18 months after the incident occurred, the permatease failure to notify the ic and sfpd ingleside station within 24 hours of an incident was a violation of the Good Neighbor policy, which is also listed as exhibit b in your prehearing filing compliance with that policy is a is a condition of stratus permit as it is for every place of Entertainment Permit. We had our staff known of the shooting. We would have taken appropriate enforcement measures, including possibly issuing a 72 hour suspension for Public Safety, closely reviewing their security plan and possibly ordering a revised security plan tailored to prevent other similar incidents in the future. The next incident occurred on july 30th, 2022, when officers of ingleside station heard what they believed to be gunshots from the area of stratus nightclub. When the officers responded, they observed approximately 100 people exiting the venue and standing on the sidewalk. An unidentified male pointed at another man claiming that he had a gun. And when officers detained the alleged gunman, he learned that they learned that he was a victim of robbery. The victim stated that he was robbed by seven males at gunpoint as he left the club, sfpd investigated, was subsequently arrested. At least one male allegedly involved in the robbery in front of stratus nightclub. No incident report was submitted for this occurrence, which again, violates the Good Neighbor policy. The next violent incident occurred on september 4th, 2022, when an 18 year old male was shot in front of the premises after patrons leaving the club started fighting. And another individual produced a firearm and shot into the group of people striking the victim. Two. Tragically, the young man did not survive the gunshot wounds. And it should be noted per exhibit m that the Police Officers who responded that night were physically assaulted by club patrons while trying to investigate and maintain integrity of the crime scene, follow the news of the violent incident director wyland and i worked closely with captain lou, who was the captain of ingleside station at the time of the incident, and the City Attorneys Office to take swift enforcement action when reviewing the permit security plan. We determined they had violated the Good Neighbor policy again by not reporting the incident within 24 hours. Further we determined their security plan needed to be improved. So director wyland issued a directors order for a revised security plan. In addition, she also issued a 72 hour suspension for Public Safety, which was in effect from september 9th through september 12th of 2022, which is exhibit e in your prehearing filing, the permatease revised security plan was closely vetted by myself, staff captain lou and the City Attorneys Office. And it is a strong and effective plan if it is being followed. It includes includes a robust door policy, specific rules around patron entry and reentry and an increased number of onsite Security Guards. The revised security plan went into effect on september 22nd, 2022 and is the operative security plan today. The next three incidents that occurred were again unreported to the ec and ingleside station permit officer as is required for the Good Neighbor policy any time the sfpd is called for service on february 26th, 2023, ingleside officers responded to a report of a man with a gun at stratus nightclub. The reporting party said that a male suspect was bothering one of his friends inside of the nightclub as he intervened, the suspect reached for his waistband and threatened physical violence. My officers arrived and detained a suspect, but no weapon was found. Then on march 10th of 2023, ingleside officers responded to a dispute at the venue. The reporting party said she and her sister were involved in a physical altercation with a male and two females inside the nightclub. The reporting party told sfpd that the security removed her and her sister from the club, and when officers spoke with the security, they stated that they did break up a pushing match between four females. The next incident occurred on april 8th, 2023, when ingleside officers responded to a report of aggravated assault at stratus nightclub and during the course of the investigation, officers met with a Security Guard who was uncooperative and provided false information. As you can see in the stratus activity timeline under exhibit n of your prehearing filing, within three months of the september 4th shooting Entertainment Commission inspectors visited the premises to confirm compliance with their permit condition. But following the visit in october of 2022, we were not notified of any other incidents at stratus until we learned of the mostrillionecent shooting inside the club on june 10th, 2023, from supervisor chavez office. This means that between october 2022 and june 20th, 23, three incidents occurred that required sfpd intervention. But because the permit holder did not alert the ic, we lacked the information that would have led us to visit the venue to check on security operations. It is safe to say that if any of these incidents had been reported, we would have conducted follow up visits to the business within 48 hours of shooting the shooting on june 10th, 2023. Director wyland and i were meeting with acting captain noble of ingleside station and the City Attorneys Office to discuss the details and enforcement acting captain noble informed us that the suspect had shot three patrons inside of the venue near the bathrooms and then fled the scene on tuesday, june 13th. Director wyland and i hosted a meeting with the permittee attendees that included attendees of the meeting included myself, director wyland , acting captain noble and permanent officer Sean Phillips of ingleside station. Mark price wolf from the City Attorneys Office. Sam berenson, the 11 police liaison, and cesar montes , who is the permit holder during the meeting, the permittee confirmed that they were violating numerous conditions on the night of the shooting. The violations included the staff not contacting 911 following the shooting. Security not wearing a easily identified clothing or possessing valid guard cards. They were not setting their monthly calendar events to the ec or ingleside station. Only five Security Guards working that night when their plan requires six Security Card guards on saturday nights. And they were not using their metal detector on the night the suspect entered the venue with a gun. The commission commissioners, these are serious and alarming violations, owns and grounds enough to revoke their place of Entertainment Permit. The latest incident was due to negligence and it really rattled stratus surrounding community as included in exhibit h of your prehearing filing. 23 neighbors submitted letters voicing their concern for this venues operations and an exhibit i supervisor sapphire has submitted a letter outlining his discontent with the business in response to the permit violations, director wyland issued another 72 hour suspension for Public Safety, which was in effect from june 30th to july 3rd, 2023, as reflected in exhibit j on july first during the 72 hour suspension, an inspector fiorentino of the Entertainment Commission conducted a security plan compliance check, which you can see in exhibit l at. And to our dismay, there were still permit violations that night. Not all Security Guards were clearly identifiable and there was no Security Guard on site. So all female patrons who entered that night were not being patted down. Only three of the six Security Guards were unable to furnish excuse me, only three of the six Security Guards were able to furnish guard cards and their metal detector. One was not in use. The business was issued a 100 citation for these permit violations, which feels minor in comparison to what the ramifications of the security plan violations could have led to. As you can see in exhibit l entertainment Commission Staff continued to conduct full compliance checks every weekend at stratus nightclub between july 1st and august 6th, 2023, and again found them in violation of their security plan on august fifth, 2023. During the inspection, inspector Michael Fiorentino examined all six of the Security Guard cards and found one guard who had expired in may of 2023. The Security Guard explained that the renewal payment had been submitted, but he didnt have the new card in his possession yet. Inspector fiorentino asked to see proof of payment, but the guard stated his employer had paid for the renewal and didnt have a copy of the receipt. I then emailed the permit t on monday, august 7th, recounting inspector fiorentinos site, visit findings and directed him to submit proof of payment for the guard card renewal by 5 p. M. On thursday, august 10th. I explained that failure to do so would result in a citation for violating their security plan. And although the permittee responded, he did not provide adequate information to remediate the issue as such, a second 200 citation for violating their poa was issued. All right, director azavedo, thank you so much. I am going to stop you right there and i will pass it back to president camino. Okay. Thank you. Does the permit holder the permit holder may crossexamine the witness. Five minutes. Yes. Just a reminder, you have five minutes. Five minutes. Okay im directing your attention to exhibit m exhibit m correct. With regards to the events item ises, a three to g, you are not present at any of these events, were you . No and do you have any knowledge as to how how far away from, um, the stratus nightclub . Any of these events occurred other than the june 10th event which occurred inside of the nightclub based on the narrative from the Police Document that is submitted in exhibit m, it is determined that numerous of these incidents had altercations or issues occurring inside of the premises that would have in and of itself resulted in needing to be reported to the Entertainment Commission in sfpd on an incident report. So it is your testimony, then that based on this exhibit m it is a through g that each of these events occurred inside of the nightclub. I am not saying that the entirety of objection misrepresented the witnesses testimony. Sustained, but im just asking for clarification on. Can you rephrase your question, please. Is it your testimony that with regards to each and every one of these incidences, a through g, that each one well, it a through f that each of them occur occurred inside of the nightclub as opposed to outside. I would like a moment to just look briefly at this document, please. I would like to confirm for the record that incidents a, b, d and e had part of the incident occur inside of the premises. Incidents a, b, d and e, correct . Thats right. Youre familiar with the Good Neighbor policy, correct . I am. Okay. Youre aware that item number two on the Good Neighbor policy states that the permit holder is responsible for the safety and security of venue patrons and the surrounding neighborhood. The Commission Approved security plan shall be followed and permit holders shall secure the sidewalk for 100 foot radius in all directions. Correct it. That is what it reads. Okay. The permit is not responsible for events that occur outside of that 100 foot radius. Are they. Objection. Theres no Foundation Laid for the fact that this witness is in a position to testify about the legal standard. And its misleading. May i respond to that. This witnesses testified that they are familiar with the Good Neighbor policy. I only ask a question as to whether or not the permittee, according to the Good Neighbor policy, was responsible for enforcing offenses that occur outside of the 100 foot radius that the Good Neighbor policy talks about. Simple as that. Its vague as to what is meant by responsible for the issue here is whether or not the permittee has violated their permit conditions. Again, we cant have two standards. The objection of vague is the legal objection and its fair enough. But then i made the same objections and one of the commissioner, ms. Fabian, i believe, said that we do not go by evidentiary objections in that manner. So yeah. S the question i asked was whether or not this witness and i dont want to eat up on my five minute, but whether or not this witness was familiar with the with the Good Neighbor policy, she said she was. And the next question i asked her was, is the permit responsible for events that occurred outside of the hundred foot radius. Pardon . But the five minutes are up. Okay. Deputy director, can you just answer the question . The answer is no. No further questions. All right. Okay thank you. Um does the charging party. Sorry. Do any of the commissioners have a question for this witness . Actually, before that. Sorry. Um i would recommend that the charging party right. All right. Okay does the charging party have any redirect examination or. No further questions. Thank you. Okay, commissioners, are there any questions for the witness . Yes my question is, am i reading the Good Neighbor policy correctly that regardless of whether the incident occurs more than 100ft, as long as sfpd responds to a call for service at the premises, the permit holder is response is required to send the incident report. You are correct. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions . No. Okay thank you. For that question asked by. Okay but im only going to give you one minute. Okay. Maam, if the shooting occurred outside of the 100 foot radius and the police come over to the stratus nightclub to ask whether or not there are cameras, is they be allowed to look at the cameras with stratus nightclub, be allowed, be required to make a report about that. No further question. Objection vague. But if you are able to answer the question, you can answer it. Is it question. You would agree with me . Miss wang asked a question. She said. Did she understand it right that with regards to every time the police come to stratus nightclub, stratus has to write a report, correct it. If there is an incident that involves the nightclub in any way in sfpd, response for a call for service, then an incident report should in fact be submitted. That is correct. But only if it involves the nightclub, correct. Okay. The one minute is up. Thank you. Okay is there anything further for this witness . If not this witness is excused. Okay all right. Thank you. Okay. The charging party may call its first witness. Its next. We have no further witnesses to call. Okay. Has the charging party completed presentation of its case in chief . Just for clarification sake, we have a separate time period for our Closing Argument. Correct yes. Okay so i do have a couple more things to add to our case in chief that i can begin with. Now so we know that a permit suspension is warranted because the permittee failed to comply with their approved security plan on september 4th, 2022 june 10th, 2023, july 1st, 2023. August 6th, 2023 and september 2nd, 2023. As detailed in tonights enforcement report. Additionally they failed to comply with the Good Neighbor policy, as stated in our witnesses testimony on january 9th, 2022, july 30th, 2022, september 4th, 2022. February 26th, 2023. March 5th, 2023, and april 8th, 2023. Again failure to comply with an approved security plan or with the Good Neighbor policy. Both of which are conditions of our place of Entertainment Permits, our grounds for suspension of the permit under sections 1060. 20. 1, a four and 1060. 20. 1. A six of our police code. But in this instance, its important to look at sections ten 60. 2, 0. 4 and ten, 70. 20 of police code. As these set forth the grounds for revocation by the Entertainment Commission and stratus nightclub warrants such action this evening. As you can see, they have demonstrate a pattern of failure to comply with their permit conditions based on the large number of violent incidents, as the permittee has failed to fix Security Problems and communicate date as required with city officials. Even after repeated outreach and citations from the ec and sfpd. And as youll see from our permit holders testimony this evening, they they still are pushing back on the fact that they would have to reach out to our staff if they have sfpd come to their venue. And i think that thats very telling. So, again, all five of the factors that the code states the commission should consider in making a Public Safety determination are present here, including one if there is a long history of violent incidents at stratus to stratus, has a history of security plan violations. Three seven incidents in the past 18 months demonstrate that stratus permit violations are frequent and have likely contributed to the continuation of such violent incidents. Four had stratus followed its security plan, the june 2023 shooting would have been much less likely. And the same is likely true for other violent incidents at the club and five stratus has failed to comply with its permit and foster a safe environment, despite repeated warnings from sfpd and the Entertainment Commission. This is substantial evidence that demonstrates the grounds for revocation of this permit, and ill leave our case in chief. There okay. Thank you. Okay permit holder. You may present your case. Please call your first witness. Ill call this mysticism. Okay. Can you raise your right hand, please . Do you solemnly state or affirm under penalty of perjury that the evidence you give in this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . I do. Okay. Thank you. Charging party. You may crossexamine the witness. And do i have only five minutes . Permit holder. Go ahead. Five minutes. You have more than five minutes. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Montesinos. You communicate with the. The San Francisco entertainer commission by email. Sometimes correct . Correct. And you were given a plan for security based on issues that arose at your place of business. Correct correct. Did you follow that plan . Yes, we did. And while you were following that plan, did you communicate with the commission by email . I would like to direct your attention to a permatease exhibit one. May i approach this witness, please . Yes. It is. Exhibit one. Is it . See these of emails . Do you recognize that . Yes, i do. And is that emails between you and the commission . Yes and do those emails . What do those emails discuss about the revision of the security plan and were you the author of and recipient of that string of emails . Yes, wed like to move exhibit one into evidence, please. Now, with regards to the incidences that were itemized in exhibit m, you recall that, correct . Yes and with regards to the. First one where the Police Responded to a report of a 23 year old male shooting victim. Were you there on that day . On which one . Im sorry . On on january 9th, 2022 . Yes. I was there. Did you. The report does say that a handgun was exchanged between the parties inside the club, correct . Thats correct. Thats what it says. But that never happened inside. But when the police came, they asked you for evidence, didnt they . They did. What evidence did they ask you for . We gave them Video Surveillance of the inside and outside. So you do have Video Surveillance of the inside of your nightclub, correct . I do have a Video Surveillance camera system inside. Yes and you provided that to the police . I provided that to the police. Did you have an opportunity to review that Video Evidence that you provided to the police with them . I did not review it with them, but i did review the videos and at no point it ever showed that there was an incident that happened inside, for one. And it never show no guns or nothing of that nature being exchanged within the premises. Where are those videos from one camera or from multiple cameras . Multiple cameras. Okay now lets go to the incident of this july 30th, 20, 20, 22. Were you present in the club on that day . Yes. Could i actually go and grab and see the whole list of the incidents that we have on there . I didnt hear you speak to the documentation so i could kind of be reading along as well. Do you need to refresh your recollection . I just need to look at the documents. May the witness be permitted to were looking at his recollection. No no. Let me know when youre ready. So sorry. Could you let us know which documents . Yes. Yes, i will. Would you tell me which document youre looking at . Im looking at at this one here. This is the actual binder itself from the from the committee record reflect that the witnesses looking at the documents from that you presented. Yes. Thats your package. Were talking about, which incident now referring your attention to the incident of july 30th, 2022. Can you can you go on record on the mic and tell us what hes looking at . Yes the witness is looking at exhibit m and thats the declaration of acting captain kevin noble. Have you been able to locate the incident . Yeah, im there now. Okay. Its item b, do you see that . Yes. And the date of the incident is july 30th, 2022. Do you see that correct. Okay. Now with regard to that incident. The police did come to the nightclub, correct . At the police never came to the nightclub on that incident on the on the seventh, 30, 20, 22, they never came to that shooting that socalled happened in front, which never happened in front or it never happened with within that area of the nightclub. Is this area where the nightclub is located. General really an area where a lot of violence occurs . Well, theres the park across the street. So i wouldnt know if theres actually i know theres people lingering in the park at night. Okay. Now, lets quickly move on to the next item. See that occurred on september 4th, 2022. Are you familiar with that incident . Yes. And did you speak to the Police Officers on that day . Yes, i was the one that actually placed the 911 call. That particular incident. And when you placed the 911 call, it was because an 18 year old had been shot. Correct that correct. Was that person shot inside of the club . No. Was that person shot within 100 foot from the club . No not really. When the police came to the club, did they ask you for any evidence of what happened outside of the club . They did not ask me for any evidence that happened outside of the club. Were what . What led was that . The person walked after being shot, walked all the way up to the club to where one of my Security Guards actually sits, did aid to that person. So so sorry. Im going to object because the attorney has not laid a foundation for the fact that this witness has any basis for personal knowledge of where the shooter was or where the victim was or that he personally observed the shooting. Sir counsel just made an objection with regards to how you came to know where this person person that was shot actually was shot. So let me ask you this question. Were you outside when you found out that somebody had been shot . Yes, i was outside. Does your club have cameras outside of the club . It does. And did you observe this person that was shot . Yes and where did you observe this person coming from that was shot . The person was walking, i want to say southbound. And how far away is that from the immediate vicinity of your club. In terms of feet . So i want to say its probably where well aware outside of the facility of the club because i was already i want to say i was probably within 200ft from the club. So when i was placed into the hall when i was placed in the call. So its around the same same area where the guy was shot. He literally got shot probably about no more than five feet away from me. Normally what about no more than five feet away from where i was . And you were about 200ft away from the club . Yes now, lets quickly move on to the other incident. February 26, 2023. You see that. Yes officers from ingleside responded to a report of a man with a gun. Is that correct . Correct and did you make that 911 call . I did not make that 911 call. Did any of your staff make that 911 call . Okay now, that was that that call was made by a patron inside died and nobody was aware of that particular incident up until sfpd came in. Or basically i was outside when sfpd was coming in , and they asked me, i go, do you know of anybody that has a gun inside . We just received a call of a and were like, we havent had any incidences. We havent had any arguments, nothing whatsoever. And this person was already leaving the premises when he was placing that call. At the same time, they did not find a witness or somebody that actually had he couldnt identify the person basically that that told him or basically told him that he had a gun. The person that placed the 911 call did not couldnt identify the person. When the police went in there on this particular day, did they find a gun . No, they did not find a gun and they did not find the person that he so claimed had a weapon inside. Now lets move to the incident. Can you please, for the record, refer to which incident you were just discussing . Certainly thank you. Its the incident of february 26, 2023. Thank you. Okay, now lets move on to the next incident. Thats march 5th, 2023. Okay. Were you physically present and did you witness that incident . I was. I was there. I was present. And when you witnessed that incident, tell us what you saw. Um, i did see the ladies arguing and securities did escort them out of the venue. Was it a violent argument . It was not a violent argument. It was they were just exchanging words. But security then came and basically escorted one group out. Now lets move to the incident of april 8th, 2023. Are you aware of that incident . That incident . I do not recall, no. Okay now, with regards to each of these eight incidences, the incident of. March 5th, would you consider that a violent incident on march fifth . No. Okay um, with regard to the incident of april eighth, 2023, did you witness any one on being violent to another person . No i did not witness that. Okay. You are familiar with the Good Neighbor policy, arent you . Um, yes. Are you aware that the Good Neighbor policy man dates you to make a report to the commission on of. Within 24 hours . Yes of any violent incident . Correct. I have nothing further. Okay. Charging party. You may crossexamine the witness and you have five minutes. For feeding. Okay mr. Montesinos, regarding the Good Neighbor policy, are you aware that that number eight of the gnp requires that within 24 hours of either a violent incident or a call for service, that an incident report shall be submitted to the Entertainment Commission or sfpd . Yes. Thank you. And mr. Montesinos, isnt it the case that you were cited for violating your security plan on on september 4th of 2022, june 10th, 2023, july one, 20, 23, august six, 2023. And on september 2nd, 20, 23. Yes is it true that you did not contest any of those citations. Um, yeah. I did not contest any of those citations. Correct. So then at this time, do you have any basis to now assert that those citations were unsubstantiated . Some of them are. Theres an objection that goes to argument. Six i can reframe the question. Yeah. Can you reframe it, please . Mr. Montesinos, would you agree that at the time of being issued the citation, since you didnt contest them, you were agreeing that there were violations as, um. Again, i object that it calls for argument. Can you explain your objection, please . Yes the question that we ask calls for this witness to argue as to the validity of why we did not contest it. The may so sorry and objection that that calls for argument is a question that once this witness to testify and argue as to why he did not object to the violations that he was given, it calls for an argument. Actually the question was a factual question asking him for the reason why he didnt contest the citations. Okay. I agree. Can you please answer the question. Okay. Well in the one of the citations that i got, it was specifying in regards to me not having a female guard. I on site. It is not within the security plan for me to have a female guard on site. But i went ahead and still paid for it, you know, because i did note that there were other things on there that were being violated at the same time. Is that all patrons entering the club need to be patted down. They are being patted down, yes. Okay thank you. And its and it does not also say that all patrons need to be wanded, which. Youre saying that your security plan does not outline that all patrons must be wanded, outline the wanding, but it doesnt outline every patron being wanded. So but they are being every patron is being wanded right now. And male and female are being wounded and they are being as as always they were being patted down and theyre bags checked. Okay commissioners, just to clarify that, the purpose of the security plan was in fact, to ensure that all patrons were, in fact, being patted down and wanded. Okay. Mr. Montesinos, regarding the incident that occurred on september fourth, 2022, did you testify that the victim walked to stratus and the security provided aid to them . Yes. He walked back to stratus. Id like to point out that per the Good Neighbor policy number eight, that it indicates that any violent incident shall be reported by way of an incident report. Mr. Montesinos, would you agree that a victim wounded by a gunshot constitutes a violent incident at. Um. Yes and on march fifth, 2023, is it true that sfpd was in fact called for service . Yes. You test would you agree that you testified that on march 5th, 2023, sfpd was called for service . Yes and on april 4th, 2023, is it true that you testified sfpd was called for service . Um, on the prior on the previous one . Yes sfpd was called for service because i happen to see them. But that does not mean that it was actually related to the nightclub or within the facility of the nightclub because they never came to me at any point of that particular incident and say , hey, you know what . This and this happened because of the nightclub. Okay . And would you test did you testify that on february 26th, 2023, the sfpd responded to a call for service at the club and they entered the venue. Let me go back to the exhibits over here. Um what date was that again . Im sorry . February 26th, 2023. Yes so, mr. Montesinos. Okay thank you. Okay permit. Holder, do you have any redirect examination. Yes. Mr. Montesinos , im directing your attention on to number eight of the Good Neighbor policy. Do you have that copy of that in front of you, please . Yes. Okay im looking at it. You would agree with me as if you do that is shooting is a violent event, correct . Correct is it your understanding that a shooting that occurs outside of the radius that your permit allows you to control is a shooting that you need to report. Not outside of the premises . No, i have nothing further. Okay. So if theres nothing further, this witness is excused. Used. I ask a question. Oh, im sorry. Yes yes, please, commissioner, ask your questions. So exhibit a, was it . Exhibit f . Is the revised security plan that was put in place . Um, as a result of the previous incident and in it on page its labeled page nine. Can item number nine, the question is what are your door policies is e. G. Pat downs, bag checks, metal detectors and whats written in here for as a description of your policy. See is it says door policy starts at 9 p. M. Id check pat down bag checks, metal detector wand non entry of patrons with visible intoxication when patrons are not allowed to enter after 1 a. M. No. In and out. Et cetera. So according to this, as i read it, that you id check, you pat down, you bag check and you metal detector wand. Correct. Everyone coming in after nine, is that correct . Okay thank you. So that is your policy. So if somebody was not being patted down or wanded, that would be in violation of your Security Policy. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Great okay. If theres nothing further for this witness, you are excused. And permit holder. Do you may call your next witness. Can we call it icus. Before we start court may, can we have a time check . Where are they in the 45 minutes . 20 minutes . 20 minutes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly state or affirm under penalty of perjury that the evidence you give in this matter shall be the truth . The whole truth, and nothing but the truth . Okay. Thank you. Okay. Charging party. Im sorry. Okay, go ahead. So whats your position at stratus nightclub . My is the owner, and i work as a bartender. Your dad is the owner , and you work as a bartender. Bartender and we with regards to the incidences that have been detailed in exhibit m, do you have that exhibit in front of you . Yes. May i approach the witness to confirm that hes got the exhibit. You got this. One okay. And directing your attention to exhibit m with regards to each and every one of these incidents is labeled and exhibits incidents a through g. Were you at all of these times present at stratus nightclub when these incidences occurred . Did you personally observe each of these incidences as a percipient witness . Yes. Okay. Now let me quickly ask you some questions. Are you aware that. You dont have much work as a bartender in dealing with people coming into the nightclub . Right right. From where the bar is located. Can you see the entrance of the nightclub . Yes are you aware that at some point in time, um, you had been asked by the commission to take a look at your security plan on the business. Okay. Let me strike that. This is a Family Business , right . Correct. Do you discuss everything about the business with your father . And i take it mr. Montesinos is your brother. Are you aware that there had been asked to review their security plan . Yes. Do you know whether or not they did . Im sorry. Do you know whether or not they did . Do you know whether or not the nightclub was reviewed, the security plans that were presented to them by the commission . Yes. Now from the position where you were at at the bar, could you observe of whats going on inside of the club . 50, 50 . Yes. They are the 50. Youre serving drinks right . Exactly now. There came a time when. June 10th, 20, 23, thats exhibit g. You were in the club at that day. Yes. And could you tell us what happened. That day . I was at the bar. This is the i was at the bar that day. There was an accident. And on the girls bathroom. And then there was the shooting out of nowhere. But then the guy who was shot was i would by by him because im a dental assistant, so i know how to do cpr and all that. So i stepped by him to emergency comes. How long have you worked at the nightclub . Five years. You would agree with me generally that if you serve alcohol to people, sometimes they misbehave, right . Yes have you had incidents of people misbehaving inside of the club. Not normally, no. Not a lot of accidents happened in the club. Other than Security Guards that are stationed outside at the entrance to the club. Are there any Security Guards inside of the club . Yes. And what is their role . Im sorry . What is their role . If something happened, theres a fight theyre going to get involved or separated or get them out. And the incidents. Of june 10th, 2023, when gunfire erupted inside of the club, that was an aberrancy, wasnt it . Yes. No further questions. Charging party. You may cross examine the witness. Okay commissioners, do you have any questions for the witness . Okay is there anything further for this witness . If not the witness is excused. Okay, permit holder. You may call your next witness. Yeah we have a witness. I understand. Thats on zoom. And in the game. Is that okay . Yeah. Is that okay. Yeah oh, there is a yeah. Is that the. I dont know. Let him in. Okay. I dont know. I it looks like and looks like its abbreviated version john or john carlos but its. Um for the caller on the attendees in zoom is john carlos here. Can you please raise your hand. Is there a reason why hes not in attendance. Oh, yeah. There he is. Excuse me. On another joke. So im going to let him in. Okay. Sorry is it okay if we let him in . Yeah but im just curious. Why isnt he here in person. Can you. Can you come up here, please. He is actually head of security and hes basically working on a robbery case at the time that he was actually coming back in here to the, uh, to the hearing. So he actually made his other locations as well. But he was being i guess he was writing a report and being a witness to a robbery case. And to, i think in the city of oakland. Okay. So is he on duty right now . I think hes on duty at the same time. But he couldnt make it on time to the hearing when he when he advises. Okay. Um so charging party do you are you guys okay with one of their witnesses being offsite and virtually participated . No no, we i mean, we dont like that. We cant even see who this person is, nor can we see that theyre raising their their hand and testifying that theyre doing this under penalty of perjury. But theyll be on zoom. We can see them. Its my understanding if youre participating in the hearing, that you need to be here in person and we have no further witnesses. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So does the permit holder rest his case . Were going to be allowed to. Excuse me. I cant hear you. Are we going to be allowed to give a closed. Yes you will be giving a closing. Okay okay. Does the charging party wish to present rebuttal evidence . If so, please call the first rebuttal witness. It does not look like it. Just for claritys sake. Is this our rebuttal argument in. In full, its your opportunity to present rebuttal evidence. If you dont have any. Okay, we can move on to closing. Yeah we can move on. Okay thank you. Okay. Charging party may now give its Closing Arguments. Come on back. Thank you. And so this is the clarity point that i needed. Actually so after the permit holder gives their Closing Argument, we have one more chance to rebut. Thats correct. Thank you. All right. Yes okay. Commission owners, as youve heard tonight, there have been three shootings inside died. And immediately, immediately in front of stratus nightclub in the last 18 months along with an additional four visits by sfpd in response to violent incidents. Although entertainment Commission Staff have worked in partnership with sfpd and the City Attorneys Office to ensure safety at the venue, the permit holder has repeatedly violated their permit conditions, including their security plan. As youve heard tonight, there are grounds not only for a suspension of this place of Entertainment Permit, but also a revocation. The permit has continued, failed to comply with sections 1060 and 1070 of police code and poses a true threat to the community with their ongoing violent incidents and lack of Safety Practices following the most recent shootings, stratus management admitted to violating their security plan while no permit violations are acceptable , all the most egregious violation the permittee admitted to was that their metal detector wand was not used on the night of june 10th, 2023, nor could he tell us the last time it had been used. At the time. This is especially alarming. As we know, the gunman entered the club on june 10th and could have been stopped at the door had they been following their security plan protocols. Further, many of the security plan requirements stratus violated on june 10th were added to their security plan. Per my directors order in response to the violent incident last year. On september 4th, 2022, in order to try and prevent future violent incidents since the most recent directors 72 hour suspension for Public Safety was issued on june 30th, 2023. Entertainment Commission Staff have followed up and performed ten inspections, finding that on three of these visits, the permit holder was still out of compliance with their permit conditions, while an improvement, this does not alleviate the need to impose the requested permits. Suspension stratus is repeat violations require a clear message that noncompliance science will result in consequence ounces. As director of the Entertainment Commission, i therefore request that the Entertainment Commission revoke place of Entertainment Permit. Ic 1452 under police code sections 1060 0. 200. 4 and 1010 70. 20 base on the permits repeated failures to comply with its security plan leading to multiple violent incidents at the premises. Again they have proven they cant even comply with their security plan conditions when they werent allowed to host entertainment leading up to this hearing. Nor have they been able to show responsive management after the occurrence of each subsequent incident. Weve outlined this evening. I rest my case. Thank you. Okay. The permit holder, you may give your Closing Argument. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to address these issues. The three first of the case against my client is that they have failed. To do what they were told to do with regards to security. Even the best security is not fail safe. Even the best security is not fail safe. People would sneak a weapon if they can, into to almost anywhere. However id like to call your attention to something. Exhibit one on september 21st, 2022. Caitlin azevedo, who was a witness in this case, sent an email to my client. It says, hi, sir, we have reviewed and approved your revised security plan. Attached is your amended permit, which reflects a few new permit conditions along with a final copy of your security plan. For reference now, i submit to you that if my client had not out done what he was told to do, that email would not have come from them. That says, we approve your security plan. So not putting the security plan into place is not the issue because it was approved by them. Now, the are serious issues with regards to gunshots inside of the nightclub. Again, i say nothing is foolproof. Any crazy mentally deranged person can find a way to sneak a weapon anywhere near your. Yes, my client did not report that. But failure to report a an incident is not something that is so egregious that they must lose their license and their way of earning a living. Not reporting alone on the incidents. Of june 2023 was bad. And i agree with you. But what could the clients have done to avoid that . They could have wandered. But i think his testimony was the wind wasnt working that day. They replaced it. But everything anything could be fail proof. So so is it their fault that some crazy fool walked into the nightclub that day to terrorize these people . Probably they were negligent. My clients were. They will admit to negligence. And since then they have become very strict with their security since that june incident. I ask that you consider these facts. I ask that you consider the fact that my client security plans were approved and an email was sent to them saying, we approve it. If the commission had any disagreement with the plans that they had suggest, did we they have approved it. I submit that the answer to that is no. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. The charging party may give rebuttal argument at. Okay. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to rebut the Closing Argument of the permit holder. I just wanted to respond to the fact that the permit holders attorney continues to bring up this revised security plan. As you all know, it is within my power as director of the Entertainment Commission to issue a directors order to comply with the revised security plan on one of premises is not meeting their conditions to ensure safety of a venue. So this was the case in september of last year that this premises had a violent incident because their security plan could not meet the standards to ensure safety at the venue. So due to that, we helped them create a security plan that would be robust enough to safeguard the venue from future incidents. As you can see, that our security plan would have potentially helped our permit, our permit holder from actually having a violent incident again in june. That resulted in a homicide. Had they actually complied with that revised order for the new security plan, but they did not. And as the permit holders representative just spoke to all of you, they admitted to negligence on all of those occasions that we outlined this evening. Um, and just for note for all of you, the june 10th violations were not just the lack of wanding. They also failed to comply with their security plan conditions, resulting in that very terrible incident. And also just wanted to respond to the fact that the permit holder is outlining the fact that even the best security is not fail safe and that people would bring in weapons is wherever they could. And i just dont think that thats the case. We oversee 1000 permits here in San Francisco. So this is the first time im as director where i have brought a revocation to this body. This is egregious. This is not something that we do. All the time. Not at all. This is this is very important that you all really look at this case and use your best judgment here. Thats all i have. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I would like to thank the parties for their presentation. Im sorry. One last thing, just to be clear. So with respect to the evidence that were presented , submitted, um, madam president , thats as for charging party, its exhibits a through to r and for the permit holder exhibits. One one, two, two. Um are you ruling that those are all admitted as evidence, or does anyone have any objection . I i recommend asking the parties whether they have any objections or if those all of those exhibits are admitted. Oh, did you admit them . Oh, sorry about that. So you did admit them. Okay. All right. Were all in the pre filing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Uh, okay. I would like to thank the parties for their presentations. The evidentiary portion of the hearing is now concluded, and the Commission Takes the case under submission for deliberation and possible decision on. Okay. I invite the commissioners to begin deliberation of this matter. As a reminder, we are here to decide whether the charging party has met their burden that one or more of the grounds for revocation enumerates in section. 1060. 200. 1 a applies and that considerations of Public Safety warrant revoked nation of stratos permit taking into account the five considerations set forth in. Sections 1060. 20. 4. A41107 0. 20. A four of the police code regarding the first ground for suspension did the permit holder or its agents or its agent or employee failed to comply with the condition an placed on the permit as if police code sections. 1060. 200. 1a4. Regarding the second ground for suspension, did the permit holder or its agent or employee fail to comply with their revised security plan as required by section 1060. 32 Sf Police Code sections. 1060. 200. 1a6. Regarding the considerations of Public Safety , the five factors to consider under police code. Sections 1060. 20. 4. A41 070. 20a for or one in the history of violence and other Public Safety problems associated with the operation of business as to pattern of the permatease noncompliance with the security plan requirements imposed by law or as a condition of the permit. Three the frequency of the permits violations of other provisions of law or permit conditions which are violations have contributed to violence or other Public Safety problems associated within the operate portion of the business. Four for the degree to which the permit tease action or inaction has been responsible for violence and other Public Safety problems associated with the operation of the business. And five the degree to which the city, through the Entertainment Commission director, Police Department or otherwise has notified the permittee of the violence or other Public Safety problem associated with the operation of the business and or of the need to take action to reduce such problems and the promptness and efficacy of the permatease response is so. So who wants to start. The commissioners can start. I can start. I just want to say this is not a decision that i dont any of us take lightly. We understand this is your livelihood and hearing from a lot of the Public Commenters, it really struck me how much it is a hub for the latino community. But at the same time, i also have to consider the severity and frequency of the violent incidents is here as well as the fact that i think the homicide may have been preventable the most, the recent homicide may have been preventable if the security plan conditions had been met. So for me, i do trust and i do trust in the recommendation of our entertainment Commission Staff and president and i support the revocation. Go ahead. Yeah, i feel like we got a lot of information tonight that which was important to know. But like for me, my decision is comes down to just a few bits of the of the information that we received like a few specific things and the one thing we dont nobody can deny is that three people were shot inside of a permit holder in San Francisco. So that permit holder was that night out of compliance with with a already revised security plan, which would specifically been designed and put in place by this commission in order to prevent exactly an incident like that from happening. And it wasnt being followed. And specifically, the wand itself in this case seemed to be a very crucial part of that, in that in other cases, if somebody is not following a security plan, you might say, oh, theyre supposed to have six guards, they only had five. Or could something have been prevented . Its very kind of amalgam amiss or unclear. But in this case, if they had wanted everyone who walked in and somebody had tried to and that person had, you know, attempted to enter the front door with a firearm, presumably the wand would have found it. I also think that, you know, whether or not that the permit holder was aware that they needed to reach out to the Entertainment Commission whenever there was a Police Report or a call for service in their immediate vicinity. Is kind of irrelevant to the fact that they actually just need to. And that its what they sign on to when they get their permit. Their permit is codified in law and whether or not you need to or not or you knew exactly how that meant. Its kind of shocking to me that so many incident cases occurred that we were not informed of. And then for me, the you know, the fact that they were still out of compliance in some way, even after three people were shot inside of the club, is its it doesnt fill me with any confidence that the permit holder is able to operate in with a security plan. And i dont know why that is, but they just dont seem able to do it for some reason. And so i am supportive. Revocation in support of revocation. In this case, though, i dont take that choice lightly and i know how impactful that is on a business and peoples lives. I do want to point out, and this is not a its probably not much to hang your hat on, but the permit is not precluded from applying for a new permit eventually. So this is not a permanent not necessarily a permanent situation. But i think certainly in this case, it warrants it. Yeah, i will say i agree with my commissioners in supporting the revocation. Here. I feel like like, you know, this is. While it may be true, too, that even a good security plan followed completely cant actually prevent Something Like the pulse shooting, for example. Um, that is not a reason not to have and to follow a robust and clear security plan and in fact, that is our best defense against people coming into our venues and shooting people or other violent incidents. And saying we cant prevent every thing is not a reason to not prevent what violence we can prevent and ensuring that our venues are as safe as possible, all for the people, all who go into them. And again, i also fall back on the pattern. You know, we had incidents last year revised the security plan specifically to address the incidents that happened last year and then in that plan and there was a fair amount of back and forth on that plan, as is no visible in these emails as there was know Additional Information was asked for, the commission worked closely with the permit to develop a security plan that then it seems like was very quickly not followed and so its, you know, makes me question sort of the good faith of coming to us, working on a security plan to address an issue and then and then not following it to the extent that other violent incidents are happening and people are getting shot. You know, the fact that as recently as august fifth, the security plan wasnt being followed and does not make me feel like you know, that theres a lot of trust in the permatease ability to follow the security plan. And keep people in the venue safe, safe in the way that the security plan, if it were followed, would so yeah, i will join my colleagues whove spoken so far in supporting the revocation and i you know, i recognize that this is a place where People Find Community and it hurts me to have to close down a place that people clearly find community and family in. And i hear that and i, i think its, you know, we have to balance that out with the ability of a Business Owner or and a venue operator in keeping everybody safe. Safe. So as hard as it is to be a party to, you know, taking away a Entertainment Permit from a place that clearly does provide community, i think we also need to look to the larger issues of safety for everyone. So thats where i stand. Yeah, i, i think as its laid out, its pretty simple. Um, i will support the revocation because you were completely out of compliance and this has been laid out very clearly by our staff. What stands out to me, however, is that this is a Community Gathering space and the hypothesized ing and splitting of hairs and conjecture on the part of the permit holders and their legal representation in just demonstrate to me that the best interest of the community is not something that you hold, that you are exploitive of this community. And i would highly suggest that you get out of this business. Im sure youre going to do this. President camino. But i just wanted to just rather than wax poetic as i had to, is kind of go through the questions that they provided just to say so i dont know if that was your plan, but i just realized that that that its more clearly laid out than just my rambling thoughts, which i think are relevant, but maybe not as specific. But yeah, i do want to just say one thing before we go into our our decision tree here. Um so im born and raised in district 11. I am from the excelsior. And the one thing that i say is that the residents of that area deserve so much better in terms of, of a neighbor who respects their safety. We i remember when you guys came into commission for your permit and you said that the that the neighborhood, there was nothing there. There are residents there. You are across the street from a church. You are across the street from a skate park where there are tweens, teens and young adults who use that space. You located by a police station, the bart station, and multiple schools in that area. And if you do not take seriously the fact that you are responsive for the safety of the community, its shocking. And i appreciate the folks who came in during public testimony to express their joy and celebration that they experienced in your space. But one thing we are not going to be okay with is taking safety lightly, especially in this neighborhood, which is filled with families. Okay so Vice President blinman. Yeah im happy to. So just personally, you know, they provided some the attorneys provided some questions for us to consider here. And one, its the more powerful version. But so theres basically two grounds for suspension. And then on grounds for revocation. So theres like three steps at. And the first is to me and ill just answer my questions and, and ill put forward a motion. Did the charging party provide or prove by a preponderance of evidence that the permit holder failed to comply with their approved security plan and Good Neighbor policy . That that was is that was very clear to me that they did fail to do that. So i move that the charging party proved by preponderance of evidence that the permit holder failed to comply with their Security Policy and Good Neighbor policy in violation of section 106, 0. 210. 1. A four of the police code. Thats a motion second question for our counsel do we vote on these individually or all at once, or do we vote as they come up one at a time . Individual lee individually. Okay. Okay. Time for a vote. President camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner. Thomas i. Commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. Hi all right. Number two. And ill just go right to the motion because it. Its pretty much identical with the question. So i move that the charging party prove by a preponderance of evidence that the permit holder failed to comply with their revised security plan as required by section 1060. 32. In violation. Of 160. 200. 1a6. Thats my motion. Seconded. Okay president camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas. I commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. I all right. And then finally, the second factor for revocation. I move that the charging party prove by preponderance of evidence that considerations of Public Safety warrant revocation over the permit, taking into account the five considerations set forth in 1060. 200. 4, a four and 1070. 20. A four seconded president camino Vice President blinman. Hi commissioner thomas. Hi, commissioner torres. Hi and commissioner huang. Hi. I dont know how to close this thing. So under commissioner powers, under your rules, you do have to issue a written decision on within 15 days of the hearing or of the date final written presentations or supplemental filings or submissions are due. I recommend that the. Oh, im sorry. Let me. One second. Yeah you have one more motion on. Thats right. Ill make the motion. I move that the commission revoke stratus permit pursuant to police code articles 15. 1 and 15. 2 because the commission has found that one or more grounds for suspicion suspension enumerated in section 1060 point 20. 1, a applies and considerations of Public Safety warrant revocation of the permit. Yeah. Second. Okay. Im going to have commissioner torres a second. So president camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas. Hi, commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong. Hi. All right, back to your script. Theres no more script. Okay. Do you want. To okay. Motion. Okay so the motion carried the commission has revoked stratus permit at a i just. Just to reiterate. So under the commission rules, rule 12, the commission an shall issue a written decision of their findings and decision on an ide. I recommend that that the. Charging party im sorry. May when is the next board meeting. So so the next meeting should be on the 3rd of october. The. So i recommend that the charging party prepare a proposed findings us and that i recommend that the charging party then share those that draft findings to the permit holder two weeks before for the next Board Hearing and give the permit holder an opportunity. To make comments. Yes. So the next Board Hearing is exactly two weeks from today. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Um, then i recommend one week from the hearing at and then i recommend that the commission. Adopt the findings or or make a decision on the finding the written findings and determination at the next Board Hearing. Board meeting. Im sorry. Clarify. Are we. Are we sharing with the permit holder to what sort of feedback back should the charging party be seeking from the permit holder . Just an opportunity to respond to the draft determinations and then both both are both the charging Party Submission and their response would be provided to the commission or yes, i would recommend that both to the extent that there are disagreements, yes. Um however, i would recommend that the parties work to submit it, hopefully as stipulated findings. But but if not that the parties would provide their their own right. Give me one second. I just. So i think so thats my recommendation. Okay okay. Is there a motion on counsels recommendation. So moved. So seconded. So just to be clear, this is that the charging party will write a findings document, share it with the to paraphrase this isnt the motion to share it with the permit holder and that we will then we will have an additional vote in the next hearing on that. Yeah. Okay. Seconded uh, and would i would recommend that in the findings that, that it states when the revocation is, is effective because that then triggers their appeal time. I just want to be clear. So we could also that one way is to do what i just recommended. The second is to revoke. Now but the board would would then recite their findings ings and then how have the written findings is prepared and issued to the parties five days from or or okay, maybe fry this friday . Um. September 22nd, 15 days under the rules. Yes although i think that the court of the date to file an appeal before the board of appeals is ten days from the decision is that i see okay and so i even though that the rules say 15 days we might the commission might want to issue the decision earlier than the 15 days to allow for our, um, because of the ten day appeal rule. All so it sounds like its a question for the commission whether you feel sufficient urgency to do the revocation. Now and then sort of expedite the findings or versus putting off the revocation decision until the next meeting. Correct it did. Was that clear so we could so the commission could either revoke now and recite their findings and issue a written finding within an i. I mean, i recommend giving a trying to issue the written findings as soon as possible because the time to file an appeal before the board of appeals is ten days. And so the two options are you either revoke now and recite on the record the substance of the written findings and that that written findings would be issued within i, i would recommend maybe five days or until friday. Um, and that that written determination would essentially memorialize what youve decided today. Um, or you could hold off on the revocation decision and have what i had proposed earlier, which is to have the parties work out of written findings and then the board would make would either adopt or make changes to that written findings at the, at the next meeting. If we were to proceed with revocation action today. And as you mentioned, we would have to verbally memorialize our findings to then be written down. Now do we need more findings than what weve already discussed or is that sufficient to move forward . I think we have sufficient findings. I think the point is that it would put the onus on, i believe, the charging party to then get that written document to them by friday, which is a right and do oh no, sorry to be clear. So if we if the board were to revoke now, we could have we could or the commission could direct the Commission Secretary to prepare to memorialize the findings of the board. Yeah. And they would need to get that out quickly so that the permit would have the proper amount to appeal if they so choose. Is this amenable to the secretary, given the amount of documentation we have in the filing and evidence already . It seems like a simple regurgitation action. I hope so. But yes, nothing simple ever. But but that would be my. Thats my preference. I think we just do it now. So. So then i would withdraw my motion. Correct yeah. Yeah. So we have a new motion to. Okay, so i would move for us to revoke today and direct staff to prepare the, the findings and have them issued by this friday. Is that i would recommend that you recite what the essence of the findings are are and the essence of the finding is would be a reflection of the four motions that we just made. That makes sense to me. Is that. Except they would need a little bit more factual background, probably, which could be supported by the factual background that was discussed at throughout. So i guess i guess what theyre asking and i think just for process is if were going to do it now, that we should. I dont know if we have to re vote on the motions or just provide some factual background now, maybe go through these one by one and explain the facts to support what the. You dont need to go through the motions again. Okay. But but i would recommend at least residing your. Yeah the factual what what and you can state which facts you found to be relevant or or persuasive or what what what facts you want to include to specifically suggest like i mean i feel like were doing this because were trying to give the permittee the, you know, sort of maximum Time Available for them to prepare an appeal should they want to, which i agree we should give them as much time as possible. All but i dont want us to be neglecting anything in the statement of facts that we might otherwise include or otherwise be sort of rushing through that. So do we feel like we can do all of that now . Or. My question is how specific on the facts do we need to be . Because like, for example, i could say, you know, on the first one, we said the charging party proved that the evidence of the permit failed to comply with their good security plan. Good neighbor policy. I could say on september second, 2022, june 10th, 2023, and july 20, if i may, i would suggest instead we say based on the facts presented in the director of the Entertainment Commissions complaint for revocation in and refer to from pages one through ten, if thats if thats suffices. Im totally fine with that. I just want i want to make sure we, we dot our is and cross our ts. I think this suffices. Yeah. I think thats okay. I dont do the lawyers think this . Yeah. Can i have a motion . Okay all right. So now restate the motion. Lets do it again. Yeah yeah. One more time. I would like to move to revoke the permit tonight. The stratus Entertainment Permit tonight, based on the. For motions that we made and direct and. And based on the facts as stated in the director of the Entertainment Commissions complaint pages one through ten and direct staff. To prepare all of that in writing in the form of a findings document findings and findings document by this friday, i will second that. All right. And we have a vote, please. Yes. Um president camino. Hi, Vice President blinman. Hi, commissioner thomas. Hi, commissioner torres. Hi. And commissioner wong, i. Hey. The motion passes. Okay. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to agenda item number nine. This item is to allow commissioners to introduce agenda items for future consideration and to make announcements. I dont want to beleaguer anything, but i just want to make one request to staff that we have an agenda item. The chat challenges of bonafide identification and the variations that are coming up and how to best assess that for permit holders is within our purview so that they can do their jobs correctly. We you know, it would be great if that is Ben Van Houten. I think thats a good idea. But thats kind of. Yeah, he can we can ask them to ask him. Okay. So maybe to ask Ben Van Houten about that. Okay thats a good they were going to ask him anyway. It was going to happen anyways. Were going to voluntold him. Yeah okay. Commissioners, anything else . I just want to say thank you to the Commission Staff who worked on this and thank the Staff Community for showing up and thank our representatives from the City Attorneys Office. We appreciate all of you. Thank you. Yeah its clear from the size of these binders how much work went into this. So thanks. Thank you. To our city attorneys for joining us today was hard. Its not easy to revoke a permit. Its not in our dna to do that. Um i have i have one more announcement tonight from my cultural district. Hat is that we are having a an Advisory Board cohort election for the castro cultural district on october 1st. So there are five representatives of the community that anyone who lives in the nine bay area counties can vote for at the castro street fair for. And just a reminder that this weekend is folsom street fair and encourage everyone to show up and have a fun and healthy time at folsom street, one of our largest street fairs is. Right okay. Is there any Public Comment on this item . No Public Comment on this item. Okay. What is earn the meeting . This meeting is adjourned. And at. 10 04 p. M, record. Recorded. President heldfond, quou you may begin the retirement board meeting. Thank you. Madam secretary, you want to call the roll . Yes. Commissioner oconnor, present. Commissioner thomas, present. President heldfond, present. Commissioner driscoll, present. Commissioner bridges is running late and commissioner safai and gandhi will not be in attendance today. Would you call the first item, please . Item 2, communication. We welcome the Public Participation during Public Comment period. There will be a opportunity for general Public Comment at this meeting after closed session. We