Transcripts For SFGTV 20130930

Busy, and you have not come before the commission before and so i know this is the severity of this is really important. And so i will start with commissioner akers. Yes, thank you for your report. Can you explain your rationale for wanting to close at midnight . They were more likely after midnight . The incidents that have occurred at noble bar since january first, have occurred after midnight. Some of the noise complaints that we get earlier in the evening, 7, or 8, but the violent incidents have occurred at 1 or 1 30 in the morning and i think that the entertainment that occurs between that time where alcohol continues to be consumed, that you are allowing for there to be more time for these fights to occur, the people to get upset and angry at each other and these incidents to occur. And that, i think that ending the music early, and then, you will have less individuals that are in the establishment, for the opportunity for a fight to occur and that is why i think that 12 is a reasonable hour. Thank you. Commissioner hyde . And so, i wanted to know, like the shootings and stuff like that, most of that has happened outside of the bar, but it is definitely within the 100 feet radius . What we have been able to determine is that there were no and there have been some assaults in the bar, all three of the shootings have been outside but in interviewing the victims and suspects and witnesses all of them say that they came from the bar and within a short distance, probably the furest distance away was the next block up, but the individuals left there and so we are able to tie. Nexus for being in the individuals that were at the noble bar, and the incident occurred shortly after they left the bar. And when they did not turn the video over, did you subpoena them to find the video . In that instance no, we asked for cooperation from the place of entertainment and they claimed that it was recorded over and it was not available and we did not, at that point, go into getting a warrant. We were able to get the video from another location nearby. Okay. And then, there was one more thing. And do you. I wanted to know, like, in, do you believe that it is the promosters that it is using and do you believe that the biggest problem is over serving . What do you think the biggest problems are . Because i think that should also be taken into consideration when we look at refashioning this. I think that is a great question to ask the owner. I think that they are the ones that can address those issues and i can say that individuals that we have come encounter with outside, and there is a very high level of intoxication, but i think that the questions of promoters should be addressed to them. All right. Any other questions or comments . Commissioner joseph. Hi. Great report and very informative and clear and i appreciate that from you. Can you tell me what kind of other establishments are around noble that are in or open at night . Noble is really unique bar in that there are not many venues that are close to mobile. And most of you know that the polk street corridor has changed dramatically over the last couple of years and there are a number of bars and restaurants, in what we termed the notebook area within a few blocks. But, noble is kind of on an island by itself down at the polk and turk and so there isnt any bars up the block that i could tie an incident to. And i can say that of the bars that are up, and in the middle of the polk area, i have not had any shootings and i have not had any of the incidents that i have at noble bar and up there i have five or six of them within one block area. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner lee, or campagnoli . Thank you. Thank you, captain. And i really appreciate your coming down and explaining in detail, what has been going on. And we recognize the significance, and besides the limitation on the hours, for 180 days, at midnight, what about the days of operation . Would you. Well, i think that currently there are permit is uncorrect as the hours of operation is 7 days a week. And i would think, i think that i would be okay with the 12, but still allow for the 7 days to see where it goes, rather than stipulate, most of our incidents are on friday and saturday night but i know that is when they generate business too, and i dont want to impact that severely as well. You are being very generous, considering what is going on. I mean this place sounds pretty much out of control. Okay. Thank you captain. Any other comments . Thank you. I have one more question. Do you feel that there are neighborhood influences around the area that aggravate the problems that noble is having . I dont think that the neighborhood itself has any effect on the noble bar. And the people who, the patrons of noble bar are transient, i dont think that there are a lot of people that are living a block away, they are coming from the different distances whether it is other parts of city or other cities outside of San Francisco. I have nothing. I am going to wait for the owners. All right, thank you, captain. And we will hear now, and hopefully there are folks from noble here. Yeah. Okay. And so, just hold on one second. Or more than one second. Commissioner with the alu. And i just want to put it on the record that as required by the business and professional codes, it has been tracking the same time lines of incidents and any report is being put together and it will be forwarded to the apc and this is basically to track it as a disorderly house, some of the owners know what this is. And basically this is to evaluate both the Current Conditions and possibly to set the conditions and even revoke the license altogether. Thank you. Thank you, for that information. Noble, could you please come up and i think that we have questions for you. Do you have anything prepared or would you like to make a comment before we going into the conditions. We do have one, one is a revised security plan and one of the other documents is demographic information and reporting crimes, that happened about and around 600 polk street. And i am sorry. All right. If you can say your name too. And who you are. Sure. And then go ahead and start your presentation. My name is daniel baren and i am one of the owner, i have the manager and the assistant manager at noble. From the documents that you have been presented with, one is an updated security plan which is a security plan that we put together based on our experience in running the club, which i have involved with the club for three years and john was for a year ago and monte has joined us recently in the last couple of months. From the day of operation at noble, we have kind of dealt with the condition of the neighborhood. And the condition of the neighborhood has is also shown by the statistics, there is a lot of crime and violence that happen within a quarter mile radius around the business and primarily there is a lot of events of burglary, armed robbery, vandalism, and car breakins and there are also noise incidents, but what we have been able to find out when we look at the Crime Statistics as of march, specifically that noble is not atypical in this scenario, and that we dont lead the neighborhood in terms of a lot of those violent acts. But i think it was pointed out earlier by the officer, none of the incidents were inside of noble from the perspective from the Business Operations perspective, we take our part of the business very seriously and we focus very happily on security and we have always had this policy with the sfpd to be open with our communication. And to be very transparent, and to be very forth coming. And we have faced some several of difficulty at times because there is a certain type of reputation that comes with operating a nightclub, it is different than a bar and different than a lounge and it is kind of the casualty of the business to be serving patrons alcohol. And having certain patrons act unrulely is a condition that we do our best to mitigate and address, but often times, there is a little of aten youation that happens outside of the club that becomes difficult for us to basically respond to, or to address. And it is not, not so much that we are, it is not so much that we are looking to provide excuses but i think that the officer of Central Station say that it is hard to be a mind reader and often times we only have our own judgment to rely upon. And you know the judgment of my staff, often times you know, falls down on an individual assessment. And only someone who is there that is actually seeing the conditions as they happened can the one that is informed enough to address themselves or to bring them up with communication with the supervisor or the manager and looking at the time line, which you know, mind you, and you know, we have a time line in our head, but some of the information that has been presented today has been news to us. And we only recently received in the last couple of hours, the specific chronology from sfpd, which i would have enjoyed a little bit more time to focus on, because some of these events kind of shook, and have caught my attention and kind of shook my head, saying that i dont understand. And a little bit of the connection or the nexus to noble. And you know, just to kind of look at the chronology that was presented and when i came and operated noble from the opening day, and in october of 2010, and we were a new venue and we had a Great Fortune of having the opportunity to work with a lot of promoters that attracted a lot of desirable clientele. You know, afluent and more composed and bigger spenders and there was a little bit of learning for me and as i continue to operate noble, you know, we started to have our first real incidents and i think that we are fortunate that that did not happen for a while. We were told by other operators that there is a level of i guess there is a learning curve and that, you know, we have been lucky up to a certain point, but you know, fights would break up but we would take our security, you know, Security Matters into consideration, and we would make improvements and dealt with the sound issue and the sound issue was a very serious one to us, and i mean, my involvement at noble is i think a lot greater than a lot of other peoples and this was my first business, and it was also an opportunity for me to test a Software Product that i gave and that had its first ride at noble and it has been since relatively successful with the merchants up and down the bay area now and that is where i have been gathering a lot of my industry and knowledge and my experience. And so, we had our first set of real incidents that brought attention to the pd through the events that we held on tuesday and that was the first time that there was ever a shooting and it occurred outside. And i have been told that up to this day, to our knowledge, no one has ever brought a gun or a knife inside of noble and we have had no situations on record and no situations of everyone elses that we have advance and the weapons inside of our club. And the tuesday event, triggered a response from us and we did meet with the pd, before officer mckakarin was there and we responded by bringing on the security company, normally, or previously known as epic, Security Intelligence specialist is the current name and john winter has the company and he helped us to do a complete security overhaul and you know, beyond just going through a lot of the formal movements, the big interest there was that we are not going to be targeted as a unsafe place of business and we did not want to be a trouble venue and that has never been our interest and you know, having john winsor there brought a little bit of control and we struggled with the same incidents, and about a year later that is when we had the next Major Incident involving a firearm. And believe that was the situation where the person was shot in the shoulder and we did meet with the captain, immediately. He was new to the position and it was our first interaction, i thought that we had a very good conversation and some of the concerns that we brought to their attention is that we get very little patrol in our neighborhood and we would like to be proactive and we kind of made it a matter of policy because it is easier to are open and to communicate than it is to hide and then, later have to reveal the truths that would negatively impact the decisions that we made. And i think that those, kind of the communication that we had with him at the time and we were very well received and we thought that, you know, we were very receptive to working together and we started to make an attempt to notify them on anything that occurred and it was not necessarily to encourage them to come and visit us, it was more to communicate to them that we are here and we dont want the trouble that comes with this corner. And we had another incident shortly after and i think, i think that was the incident that someone was shot in the shoulder and we met with the captain and it was a recommendation and it was put to us as a condition that we should stop seeking that specific night as a night to promote. To address concerns by the neighbors, which have become, you know, known to us at that time and also, to maybe kind of take the attention away since that night was trouble enough to bring a second occurrence that brought us to the table with the pd and our response was exactly there. We notified the promoter that the following event would be the last one that we will have with them since there was a lot of investment in ha night and i think that it was a holiday and we immediately terminated the relationship with that promoter and not operated on tuesday and the focus on making that decision is that we do not want to put a burden on the neighborhood so that they have so many days during the week that they feel like there is no break. And so we brait, and we have since operated thursday, friday, saturday, and during the summer season, actually, extended summer season, on a sunday day party. And looking at some of the events that we have noticed in the activity log, let me go back. If we look at the record, the incident on march 25th, where someone left the club and was approached by an unknown black males, and that, and that is something that could have happened and i believe late, after 2 00 and that is a continue that we would believe to be a continue of the neighborhood. That we have seen people in the neighborhood and not only make, and our little from the crowd and i understand that this is from the neighbor and they are not the ones that are creating the condition that exist in the neighborhood and i know that we create a condition and i am not saying that we are, you know . We dont effect that portion of polk and turk. But, we have several instances where the situations look a little bit differently, if they are reevaluated and i try not to come here and be defensive because i dont think that is going to be proactive in addressing the situation. But the most recent incident is the reason why, there was a focusing event that brought us all here today that dealt with the last incident involving gunfire and one of the i think that it is important facts that was omitted from the story is that the person who had fired the shots came from up the block and he is a merchant that runs a liquor store. And from the report that i gave you, with the neighborhood, a crime mapping, that liquor store has several, aggravated assaults and robberies and various other crimes. From our perspective, we look at the person that came in, and the merchant that came in as creating a situation in our club and disturbing our business because he had patrons in there that were well kept and you know, i know that it is described as a mober party, but i am not quite sure exactly what he did to activate the other patron. But it said in the Police Report by the person who gave the report that we responded quickly and it stopped the conflict. From my knowledge and i was not there there were no fists thrown it was an intimidation by the gentleman who came up the block and perhaps the friends that were with him. And we quickly separated two parties and we did what we believe is protocol, and separate the groups and remove one from the vicinity the one that we believe to be the aggress soar and to be sure that they leave and old that, and with the intent, and come 15 minutes later and i think that it was actually 15 minutes later that we are going to release the person. And one of the condition was to prevent us from operating past 6 30. And some of those things that have been brought up and the house lights go on at 1 30 and stop serving at 1 25 so that people have a chance to kind of push the envelope with us and no one is selling a single drink and we terminate the house lights and there is nothing like subdued will music and when we push people outside. And we get the people outside by 2 00 so that there is no one on the street and the general manager and they can monitor the situation, and we typically have the streets cleared by 1 45. There are other clubs in the neighborhood and they dont draw much attention and there is a harrington and that is a divy bar and there is not much that comes from there and there is a new venue that opened up around the corner and it is called booze land and there is chambers which is an up scale lounge and those are the neighbors that we know about and i think that they also have the Crime Statistics around there for the assault and for battery and for burglary, and a high level of incidents and car breakins and we dont have so much of that there, and we are looking at, and yeah, just for the sake of time, i think that there is a lot of questions that the commissioners have. Do you have any major points . I think that you are hit and acting responsibly and following. Yeah. But, do you have any major points before we get into our conditions . There are incidents here that we have a lot more questions about. I think that is a good idea. And i will try to hit on the major points. How many more do you have . They will be short and brief but there are a few. In the past, we actually so when it comes to sound abatement, we made a substantial invest sxment my dad is a contract and her a builder and we did a lot of research and installed an entire sound wall, three layers of sheetrock with quiet clue, green glue which is the form of quiet proofing all on suspended hinges and we actually closed down a week and had the shifts 24 hours a day and it was painful not just financial, but for my dad physically and we took other steps and we have limiters so that we can limit the range of frequencis that go out and we have locked that up so that no one can mess with it and we have gotten the smaller speakers so that the sound does not travel out and we do not use the larger speakers that the sound will travel further distances. We keep the back door closed and it is locked. Or not locked it is closed as in no one can access the door from the outside and i know that the sound issues from the back have been resolved for the most part. And with the smoking porch and the front we have people monitored and make sure that the door is closed. In the instance of the shop keeper, we do not see an immediate threat or a potential threat and we did not know that he was going to go to his shop and come back with a weapon. Had that been the case we would have surely have called. Party buses, knowing that we were coming into the hearing, we had all come together and decided that we are not going to promote this weekend and so that we dont show that there is an immediate alarm on our part, but we closed early on friday, and we asked the promoters not to promote on saturday and we had a small crowd and our numbers were nowhere near what we typically do. And when the party group arrived they did not arrive in a business. And when they left, and they arrived on the party buzz and one of the difficultis that we are going to have and something that we are going to be able to face is that the people in the clubs in San Francisco that the party buses are prohibited and we dont, and i dont want to make me assumption busy would take it that the people are clever enough to realize. And when it comes to the other conditions placed by the pd and we were receptive to the conditions, we now pat dfrn all of the patrons although it intimidate and starts to take away from the clients that we would want to see there, and if i wanted into a venue that patted me down that is a indication to walk away. Those conditions were placed upon us and we wanted to show compliance, we followed those rules and we also have instituted the training weekly and we deal with these issues. With the alcohol and son subpoenasing, the people do become intoxicated and we do see the patrons that are intoxicated and they are to hold and to control them and find members of the group and escort them out safely. And i will go ahead and stop talking so that you can ask questions. And so commissioner joseph . How is business . Business has been fine. So you are doing well with business . Well, perception by the public is better than the financial reality. The costs are unfortunately higher than i think that most people would expect in the night life. I see. And Entertainment Venues are supposed to be fun and i think that go to a venue where there are shootings and fights and knifings and people getting knifed and kurt is not fun. So i understand and i dont know if you have been in this business before noble . No i havent. Okay. I have been in this business a long time. So i appreciate you trying to educate us on how you do it, but, i think that i know how a nightclub runs as well. You answered one of my questions, that you said patting down, so you do pat them down . Yeah. Who trained your security on how to pat down . Do you want to speak to that . Our security guards have gone through the guard card class and process where the process is taught. Did you go through guard card . I have, but my card is currently expired. Did you learn how to pat down . I did. How much of your security plan do you train your security on . Well, whenever we add something to do it was in the past months or however, we have a meeting, and we what is the word . Excuse me. Yeah, we train on the stuff that we are adding and we revisit all of that is there to make sure that they are all in the knowledge of what is going on. If you hired me tomorrow as a security guard, what training would you give me. First you would be required to go through the guard card program and once you complete that and then we will sit down with me and go over. Everything . Yes. Could you just say your name . My name is john, and i am the general manager. And all of your guards are employed by you and not by a private company . That is correct. Lets talk about your promoters for a second, there is a list of promoters here. Are these your own promosters . Yes. I see. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about you made it a comment about the conditions of the neighborhood, but you chose that neighborhood. That was a conscious decision. That is correct. I want to talk about over serving. When people, and when a line of people come down the street, i mean, in mass. 30 people are walking down the street two by two and heading for your club in a line, that does not tell you that they are coming from a party bus . That is out of your sight parked around the corner . I would like to answer the question. I mean, from what you depicted, yeah, that sounds like it could be a party bus and i would not argue that. How does your security, how is your security trained to not admit people who are already drunk . Technically visible signs of intoxication are apparent and people will slur and stand awkwardly in line and someone will hold them up and i actually dont involve myself with the admission process. But i have been present outside as we have admitted patrons, and we do effectively, and i think that it is important that john respond to this question but we do reject a large amounts of patrons. The buck stops with you, you own the club . It is in your name the permit is in your partners name. You and your partner own the club, the buck stops with you and the manager can give information, but in the end of the day it is your responsibility correct. You should know that and you should understand what the policies are for the door. I understand the policy and they do have visual impressions of what is going on regularly, that is all. There seems to be over service in your club because there are a lot of reports about people being really drunk. What kind of instructions do you give the bartenders in serving . After the last meeting with the captain, we decided to move from 12 ounce cups to ten ounce cups which is a less amount that people are serving. But, and we have trained the bartenders and if we see somebody that looks like they have had too much. And if they are with the people