Transcripts For SFGTV SF 20240705

Entertainment commission. For all of you that dont know me. My name is maggie weiland. And im the director of the Entertainment Commission. Nice to see high oh, thank you all so much nice to see all of your faces today. Although this is our 13th annual summit. This is actually our 20th year of being a City Department here in San Francisco. So this is a big year for us. Um i dont believe i see him in the audience. But i did want to thank terence alan today for all of you that know him. Yes so terrence was a founding commissioner on the Entertainment Commission, and he had the vision in the early oughts to create this department. Um and really, um, find a way to strike a balance and find compatibility between nightlife , venues, neighbors and law enforcement. So thank you to terrence. Hopefully he is watching this somewhere. Ah um or watching it later, and i just wanted to thank all of my current commissioners who are here today. Youre going to be hearing from many of them during the programming today. I wanted to give a special thanks, especially to commissioner al perez, who unfortunately is not here in person today, but he is watching our live stream and so al, if youre watching hello. And with that i also just wanted to thank sf google tv for producing todays events so that you can view this later or you can watch it online live right now. Um so thank you so much. Um also just wanted to thank everyone thats here in person. Today we actually have a bigger gathering this this year than than last and it really shows its very important. Bringing all of you here together so that we can learn from what issues youre facing right now and try to assist you as best we can. Also you are also key to the vitality of San Franciscos culture and our economic core. Um and so thank you so much for being here with us today. Youre the reason why San Francisco is an amazing place to live. And to work. Um and i especially love going out and i know all of you do too. So thank you for all that you do. Ah welcome also to 49 south van ness. This is a beautiful building. Weve been here for just two years. Our offices upstairs on the 14th floor. So come visit us anytime. Um lets just see. Oh also upstairs is our permits center. So definitely go and check that out. At some point. Its beautiful. We have many City Departments that are represented there that are here with us today at our resource fair, which is the first time were actually doing resource fair and i loved it. I hope you were able to meet some new people from different departments. We will be bringing that back after the first break so you can meet with folks then if you didnt get a chance to do that, at the beginning, um, todays agenda if you could bring that up. Okay so this is also in your programs. So were gonna have some great opening speakers that are with us today who championed nightlife in San Francisco. Were also going to be premiering a Harm Reduction video that we put together and we have two great panels for you today. At the end of our summit. Were going to have a happy hour. Thats that gambit lounge in his valley. Um and were ready to drink some drinks. Were ready to mingle. So please do come. Theres going to be many opportunities to chat with all of us today, so if there are things that you want to talk about that are not on todays agenda. Well have many opportunities to do that. Um. Oh also, just a little note about the happy hour is a cash bar, and it is 21 and up so you cant invite your nieces and nephews. Unfortunately um, and if you want to eat some food, you can get food anywhere in hayes valley. Um and bring it over to gambit lounge to enjoy. Um you can break it any time as well. It doesnt just have to be during the official break. The restrooms are out this one of these doors. To the left. We also have hot cookie here today. Um, if theres any left, hopefully, i dont know. Um we also have some free coffee for all of you. Um finally, i just wanted to thank my staff. If all of you could stand up, i would love for you to see who the staff are. Thank you. Yeah so, uh caitlyn azevedo, dylan rice. May leong i think is waiting outside for the mayor right now , um, and then we have andrews arena and we have sids, ellen ac and mike farentino, who are outside staffing right now. I couldnt do any of this work without all of your support. So thank you all so much. Please take a moment to meet the staff. Theyre here to support you in any way you might need today and moving forward. Um, i also want to just call out my colleague ben van houten, who i adore so much. Um we call him the beard. Um he is my thought, partner. Um and ben and i are we feel very fortunate because were able to go and spread the word about what we do with the Entertainment Commission. Um globally, so we share what we do with other big cities not only in the united states, but in other countries for folks that are seeking to do something similar to what we do in the Public Sector in their cities. So ben, thank you so much for everything that you do. Um i also just want to say that youll have another chance to celebrate with all of us at our 20th Anniversary Holiday Party to be announced. I dont know where it will be. Unfortunately it has to be at an unpermitted establishment. Um which is very weird, but the ethics rules have changed in the last couple of years. So we have to make sure to stay on top of that we will invite you to all of that. Make sure that you sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of, um our information as an office. Its on the postcard outside on our tables. Um and then finally , we welcome any feedback that you have for us relevant to todays event or just in general. So theres a q r code on the program for today. So you can take an Anonymous Survey and say , you know, you guys stink like you need to get better or we love you or hey, we have a great idea, can you you know, please look into this, so please let us know. Hopefully we dont stink. But you know, well take it if thats if thats the case. Um so i am not sure if we have our first speaker here. So i will introduce her in a moment and instead i am going to introduce San Franciscos first ever drag laureate, darcy dra linger to the stage. Ill be the drag mayor. How about that . How about that . Um shes gonna walk right in. I know. Right speech. Thank you, maggie. Um it is really such an honor to be able to talk with you all. Ive spent plenty of time watching these events and not actually speaking and it i gotta say the Entertainment Commission has been so instrumental in, um in what we do, i own the oasis. By the way, if you dont know that is on 11th and folsom. Im the owner and artistic director. Um we have been open for a little over eight years and we brought back the name that is synonymous with that corner of 11th and folsom. But we couldnt have you know we were some drag queens wanting to open up our own our own establishment, and the Entertainment Commission was so good to us, and so, um gracious and helping us make this a reality. And i think in so many instances um you dont expect that these larger Government Agencies are going to really take care of us little people, and they did. And it was a really, really, we wouldnt have been able to open and get the permitting that we needed to open and such an expedited time if they were not there taking care of us, so i bought out my Business Partners two weeks before the pandemic hit. At the time. I thought it was the, um worst decision ive ever made in my life, and but it turned out really to be one of the best. Um you know, i pivoted immediately. And we created meals on heels, which is a drag Delivery Service where we drop off food and a curbside. Um curbside drag show , and it was really about sustaining the culture that we have at oasis sustaining our performers sustaining the restaurants in our neighborhood. We were also the first people to have Outdoor Dining and drag shows. Um, and again. It was a need to help sustain the community and by really going through this rough time and being part of the community. It helped me to understand and listen to the community, but it created this real a bond that i dont think i was would have been able to be the drag laureate or this ambassador. If i hadnt have gone through that, um and it took we even even after all that we almost had to close and it took 12 hour telethon and a whole lot of people to save us, but they did. So i already had a big stake in San Francisco nightlife, and at that point it got so much bigger. For me, you know, people think of San Francisco for a myriad of things off the top of their head from the Golden Gate Bridge to what else did i say oh, to tech . Um but you also think of drag and you think of the Leather Community and those things are vital and owning a mostly nightlife establishment. I mean, we do have daytime parties as well. My general manager, dana, whos here can attest to that. Im a huge advocate for San Francisco nightlife, and that is part of what i want to bring to the table as the drag laureate. I have a vested interest in restaurants, nightclubs and theaters that employ drag performers and l g b t q. Staff nightlife and some brunch spots. Um and that community make a significant part of their living. Thank you. I got glasses from zelda so i can see me make me look smart. Um many venues have closed. Many struggle to stay open, and i know firsthand. Um i believe we as a city should make the road Opening Night life venues more accessible, and we should work with these Business Owners to help them stay open. Nightlife is a huge revenue generator not only in taxes, but also in tourism. We face plenty of struggles with neighborhoods not feeling safe, with so many high rise residential buildings and coaching on the nightlife spots and areas and parts of town and the cost associated with opening and operating venues. Valuing. What we provide as culture and sparkle to San Francisco is especially crucial at this time. Nightlife is what is bringing people to San Francisco. It is what is going to help revitalize San Francisco. So i think that it is really, you know, we should be really proud of ourselves for what were doing, but we should also have the expectation of the city can help us and together we can revitalize the city. I think through nightlife and Entertainment Venues, so i look forward to this partnership, a partnership in stimulating San Francisco night Life Sustaining and invigorating the livelihoods of venue operators, bartenders, technicians and performers alike. Wow. It is. It is a tough road, but its in our blood. As so many of you in this room can attest to it is the magic of those moments when you see the joy and all of those peoples faces. Um it is it while it is economic. It is so much more than that, so i am so proud to be building this business and all of these businesses bigger and stronger. And San Francisco id like to introduce oh, maybe i get to do a big introduction. Oh well, its the woman of the hour. We didnt wear red together. We did that to each other. Well, um does she want to go now . All right. Well i just finished and i put my glasses on. So i look really smart and you just sat down, but im going to bring you up here. Ladies and gentlemen, shes been a great advocate to oasis. She was part of the telethon that saved the day for us. And so i am having a great time, and its only been a few weeks being the official drag laureate. But we are having a great time and we got 18 months ahead of us. I am so proud to introduce mayor, london breed. Oh, hi, everyone. For the night live community. You guys sure look like youre not ready to party. Too early. Working all weekend. Um the other day i was coming from dinner down near the Ferry Building and ran into some people from canada and they were like, where are you guys going . Whats going on in San Francisco tonight . Now, to be clear. It was like barely eight oclock. And i couldnt think of where to tell people to go where the party was at. Yes, we have a lot of various local bars and entities and other places. But i was like, man. What i cant even think of the top of my head what might be going on on a wednesday night in San Francisco that i can direct someone to and so number one . I need a list. Um because i cant get caught off guard like that again. Um number two. I do want to take this opportunity to express to this community. How much . Um, we appreciate so many of you continuing to hang on. Um we know the pandemic has been difficult and things have changed a lot. And in fact weve struggled with our economic recovery. Um but im still hopeful because i know there are so many people who want to have a good time who want to support various businesses who want to uplift community. Um and there are a lot of various neighborhood places that are really coming back and are the vibrancy and represent the very best of our communities. And i think some of the things that the city has done we know, um whether its the delay of taxes , whether its the removal of taxes and fees, whether its the um, resources that we provided to make sure we were getting money in the pockets of our, um , Nightlife Community. All of it has had an impact, but we have not gotten there yet. So what are we going to do in this city . Well what we hear about one of the most challenging things is not just the bodies and the people from visitors from conventions from bay area residents as a whole, um, but also the issues around safety and that has been at the top priority of my budget. I submitted my budget last week to the board of supervisors. And it is my understanding, maggie. You guys will be combing through it and looking at the things that you support and hopefully advocating to ensure that the things that you care about that you want to see, uh, supported through this process that you would at least make sure that your voices are heard you have all demonstrated high. Dori and honey, i didnt even see you guys sitting over there. Um, you all have demonstrated by your work and your advocacy. When you come together, you can make great things happen. Um i see steven lee. Hes left the Entertainment Commissioner. By the way, stephen used to let us into his club with when we werent even 21 and the reason why i tell you all that. Because the statute of limitation and ran out and but but the fact is back then things used to be so fun. There were always opportunities to have a good time in San Francisco, and we got to bring that back. And we cant bring that back without all of you and i think part of this summit. Youre going to be having a lot of conversations and youre going to be hearing different panels about the things that happened in the city. Like my desire is to get to yes, is to get to a new day in San Francisco. Its to get rid of bureaucratic layers and policy and dramas and all the things you cant put this here and you cant set up this and you cant do this. Dont you get tired of hearing what . You cant do that . Thank you, darcy. Thats why she you know, her Job Description is just to be absolutely fabulous. That is her Job Description. So shes definitely nailing it. So what i am trying to do and what . I hope some of the conversations that come out of today is its really about how do we help you make it happen . Not just the Financial Resources that weve taken into consideration, not just the jams , permits and the various policies. But what are some other things that are making it more expensive and more difficult for you to get going for you to start to build up your various places that you want to leave open . And how do we get to a better place around the ability to allow those establishments to be open longer . What is impacting your ability to be successful in San Francisco . Um i do know that over the years again go back to the taxes and the fees and it used to be way less expensive to throw a party and work with the promoter and provide the security and all the things that you need to do, and you would still be able to walk away covering everyone else and supporting your establishment. Um things have changed and weve had to make some significant adjustments. But if i know one thing about this community, i know this community is creative. I know this Community Wants to see good things happen for San Francisco, and i know that many of you have hung in there for many, many years, and i appreciate the fact that youre here and im looking forward to the continuous conversation that needs to take place and also especially the feedback from all of you so that i can work hand in hand with maggie with your various commissioners in order to implement policies asap. Um San Francisco is fortunate because we have a number of big conventions and events and activities that are coming up. Um the Asian Pacific economic collaborative, which is going to be the Biggest International event in San Francisco since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. This is 21 heads of state. This is all of their staff and everybody under the sun and the question when they come here is going to be after theyre finished with Mosconi Center and meetings and events. Where are they going to go . We have to be ready for them. We have to make sure we show them how amazing San Francisco is. Well have 400 people from press all over the world right here in San Francisco. Were going to throw a big event for them at city hall, and then were going to send them out into the world. Over the course of the time that were that theyre here. And what story are they going to tell about San Francisco . Theyre going to tell a story about how they were out till four in the morning, and its underground spot that they cant disclose the location of and how good of a time they had in San Francisco like no other place anywhere in the world. Thats the story of nightlife. Thats the story. I want to start telling. And were here to continue to work with you to get to that place. So thank you all so much for being here. Isnt our mayor. Incredible thank you so much. All right. Im going to introduce our next speaker for today. The wonderful honey mahogany who is here with us from state Assembly Member, matt. Heinous office. Thank you, honey. All right. Party people. Um i actually am very, very thrilled to be here. The last time i was speaking to you all in the setting, we were at mezzanine. Was anyone there for that . Do you remember that . I have to say im still getting used to this office sliding. I feel like you know, we need we need some stage lights and some warm yellow lighting to happen. Um but no, its a this is a this is a beautiful building. This is my first actual time in 49 south finesse. And its a pleasure to be here. And its also a pleasure to see that the that the city is taking nightlife. So seriously, um its also an honor for me to follow. Of course, our mayor and darcy draw linger. Three San Francisco natives who are still here and fighting for nightlife. Darcy and i also have some other things in common. Were both drag queens. Um were both blonde when i have hair. And um, we both own bars in the south of markets. Um were also both capricorns. Which is why were both so busy. Um it is really, really hard owning a night life venue in the south of market, the mayor alluded to issues with Public Safety and how sometimes the insanity of the streets just gets into your business and gets in the way of you doing being able to do your job. And so thats something we definitely need to solve. But on top of that, i also agree with our mayor that San Francisco has been and can continue to be a place where arts culture and nightlife draws people in. I firmly believe that the reason that San Francisco has been the place where tech has had not just one, but two different booms is because innovators creatives, people who think outside of the box have historically come to San Francisco for that unique San Francisco flavor for that, um, anti establishment culture for, um, the incredible opportunities to participate in our rich and diverse arts and culture scene. And sadly, over the last decade or so, we have seen so many of our most historic venues shuttered. The pandemic didnt help. Um we got shut down. You know the stuff we as in the stud. My bar got shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, and it was really, really heartbreaking. Weve gone through so much just to save that venue to keep it from closing only to be shut down a few short years later. But theres hope. Um while our city our country is in shaky on shaky economic ground, we are seeing an opportunity to rebuilt. It is now our turn with all these empty storefronts with all of this, um well with hopefully rents going down a bit more with a vacancy tax on the books that we can actually use this as an opportunity to fill those empty storefronts to have a resurgence of nightlife because i honestly dont know that office will ever come back to San Francisco like it used to be, but what i think we can do is bring back entertainment and nightlife. To make sure that when people think of San Francisco they think of the fun they can have that when people want to look at places where they want to live. They look at San Francisco because they know they can have it all. They can have jobs, nightlife and culture. Great education. All of these things right here in this amazing progressive city on the west coast of california. Im here representing Assembly Member haney today. Um for those of you who have been around for a while. You remember that we established the music and nightlife Entertainment Venue Fund during the pandemic, and to this day Assembly Member haney is continuing to fight for nightlife. We have worked very closely over the last few years with senator scott wiener and many of our nightlife partners to put four am on to have four am nightlife into the state of california. And while unfortunately, our efforts got vetoed and put down we are determined to bring it back, so we will be continuing that fight and bringing it back until we pass that bill because again with as expensive as things are here in San Francisco, as hard as it is being a nightlife operator, those key few hoursn e of us can stay open and keep entertaining folks right here in the city. On top of that somebody member haney has just introduced, um cannabis cafes legislation. You know, we there are so many ways to be an entertainment establishment and venue and cannabis cafes can be one of them. Weve seen it in places like, uh, um europe where they have successful venues of this kind. And we like to bring that to california give us more options to build the entertainment sector right here. Another thing that really needs to happen. I mean, i speak again from personal experience is that some of our historic nightlife corridors areas where we can and should be able to open up nightlife venues now have nightlife, principally forbidden from being opened. And when you dont have those opportunities to expand and grow and add businesses, um sometimes things tend to die out. We know that when theres a concentration of clubs and venues and bars that it increases, foot traffic and safety, and that it means that people are going from bar hopping from one place to another. We need to bring that back and soma and in other parts of the city we need to reinvest in nightlife. Make it easier to open. Um prevent us from having to go through all the hoops and paying all those fees and having all those hearings so that we can open a business show San Francisco good time, contribute to our economy and keep San Francisco alive. So thank you for all the work that youre doing. Please consider Assembly Member haney and myself and ally. Our office doors are always open. Were in the state building right by city hall suite. 14 300, so please stop by any time and will be in there in the fight with you. So thank you. Thank you, honey. Um that was amazing. All right, we are going to welcome to the podium. Ben van houten from the office of economic and Workforce Development. Lets give it up for ben. Is this how do i do this . This kid . Its still too short, okay . This is great. This is great. Not self conscious enough about my height. This is wonderful. There we go. Is that better . Um good afternoon. Everybody uh ben ben hutton from the ice of economic and Workforce Development. Um a pleasure to be here with all of you today i am. Im planning to talk about some. Some recent policy wins some upcoming opportunities for the nightlife entertainment sector. Um i was going to start with my i think im still going to start with me every every speaker so far, has acknowledged that you know, this industry is still in recovery. That night, life and entertainment were one of or or the most impacted industries during the pandemic and everybodys resilience to get to this point today is amazing. Remarkable it is the result of advocating organizing fighting. To pull through. And were still not all the way through it. You know, we know that, uh, employment in hospitality and leisure is growing faster right now in the last couple of months than in other industries, but it is still down significantly since before the pandemic. Um you know, we know that attendance is better now than it was a year ago. But its still down from where it was before the pandemic. And, you know, i know that ah, for many 2019 wasnt great either. So we cant just go back to a pre pandemic standard. That shouldnt be what we aspire to. So you know, with that in mind, i think everyone being here today. Um a lot of things im going to talk about are the result of Advocacy Organization Coalition Building thats already happened, um, you know, keeping up that work, and youve really honestly heard every speaker today. Say lets keep keep building your asks, articulating your needs, organizing and pushing to get the support that you need to i support this city. So with that. Im going to run through a couple of recent, uh, recent recent developments that i think are interesting for the sector and hopefully creating some new opportunities. Um music venue. Liquor licenses. How many people in here are familiar with the type 90 Liquor License. Wow all right. Oh, great. This is a, uh that you dont often get that many hands in a room hot race. So last year, senator wieners. Sb 7 93 create a new type of Liquor License. Its a its a music venue specific Liquor License. Its the type 90. As of january 1, you can apply for a type 90, but handful of businesses around the state already applied a couple in San Francisco, um and a couple businesses got their nineties issued. Um, but the long and short of it is that a type 90 authorizes the sale of beer, wine and spirits. Two Ticket Holders two hours before through one hour after entertainment events, so thats thats when you can serve alcohol is before during and after entertainment events. Um you can admit patrons of all ages. If you want to, and you dont have to serve food. Um venue has to meet the definition of Music Entertainment facility. Um, one of these dead byzantine legal words legal terms, but it basically means you have to have a stage. You have to have an audience area. You have to market your performances you have to. You have to pay performers. Theres a whole bunch of specific specific requirements to what that means. But if you check all those boxes you can apply directly to abc for a type 90. For 17,000. Um this this is an amazing opportunity. For new venues for existing venues if you hold a 47 or 48, you could conceivably and this is where i would say talk to a Liquor License, attorney or permit expert or abc directly, but but the concept is you can apply for a 90. And then privately sell your 47 or your 48 to a different owner of a different premises, so there is real opportunity here for entertainment operators. Lets go to the next slide. Couple caveats. Ah theres still additional work ongoing to refine support the implementation of the type 90 Liquor License, so right now its only authorizes service around entertainment events and you know, early on in the process we heard from many owners saying, what about private events . Private event that dont have entertainment where im not doing not doing a public facing publicly marketed entertainment event. Um there is currently legislation. Sb 76 by senator weiner. That would enable music venue licenses to also sell alcohol at private events, regardless of whether they have entertainment or not, so its gonna be really important to monitor the progress of that bill and support that bill in order to get that that piece implemented. Theres also a, uh wrinkle around if you have multiple rooms, bars and multiple rooms. Thats another thing thats going to be puzzled out in the sb 76. Um also working to clarify the permissibility of type nineties and local planning code because the plane code doesnt say anything about type nineties. So if you want when you apply for a type 90, were going to go to the planning department. Theyre gonna say wait a minute. What is . What is this . Um some businesses have already gone through that process, and its worked out. Its worked out fine, but bringing clarity around the zoning permissibility of type nineties is a priority. So long and short of it. This is a significant opportunity for new entrepreneurs for existing entertainment businesses. Um the folks that niva, california and their co sponsoring sb 76 of the Barry Council as well, but a really leading the charge here and really excited in the long term by this opportunity, and happy to if folks want to connect offline here or elsewhere about the type 90 really interested to hear. Is it working for you . Is it not gonna be working for you . Whether the barriers and kind of puzzled some of that stuff out because this is new. This is the i think this is the first music venue. Entertainment venue focused Liquor License of its kind in the u. S so um, next slide. And getting a lot of questions recently around shirt spaces, Outdoor Entertainment outdoor Alcohol Service, um, which is really complicated, so im going to be endeavoring to walk through a little bit of where we are some things to monitor on that front moving forward, so the shared spaces Emergency Program ended technically, at the end of march. There is a grace period in place. For businesses that applied for a permanent permit. Um and that grace period extends to september 20 7 2023. Um if you are operating in a park it with the shared spaces permit and you currently have a jam permit for that for that park lit. Once you get your shared spaces approved, then the Entertainment Commission can facilitate the transition of that jam permit into a permanent ongoing license as part of your existing Entertainment Permit as part of a new permit. So that the from a triage perspective, its your shirt spaces permit should already be in and moving forward. Then you can do your jam permit and then you can move into the alcohol licensing as well. I do want to highlight that some reforms that were adopted last year make it a lot easier to offer frequent Outdoor Entertainment and amplified sound in recurring street closures. It used to be that you could do entertainment 12 times a year in a specific place with legislative reform there now businesses and some of the operators are probably in this room who are doing outdoor, recurring street closure or other activity more than 12 times a year, so think about that, as well as if youre interested in that sort of activity. Next slide. Excellent, so alcohol. Post pandemic expansion of Alcohol Service going from from temporary pandemic permitting to the permanent system has been a topic of frequent conversation, so right now. If youre doing pandemic outdoor Alcohol Service in a park lit or other non contiguous areas, what they call it. Youre doing that with a temporary catering authorization that abc issued under existing law. Those temporary catering authorizations will expire march march 1 of next year. So under existing law in order to move from the temporary alcohol permitting under the covid 19 temporary catering authorization to permanently serving in that park letter, rather non contiguous area or any area that wasnt part of your existing premises. Youre going to need to file to expand that premises before before march next year. However. There is pending state legislation right now that would extend the covid temporary permits until july. 1 2026 so if you are concerned about the conditions that you might get as part of the permanent licensing process if you are concerned about potential hurdles in the permitting process to permanently expand your premises. If a b 12 17 is adopted, your temporary permit will be good for, uh, two additional years. As a result. Um and this bill the pretty early in its life cycle, but it passed the assembly that unanimously so i would continue to monitor this this year to know when your temporary catering authorization is going to end because theres a pasta again. Theres a good chance at this point that these things could still be valid until july of 2026. Additionally you know for businesses that are looking to permanently license outdoor space, especially when they have entertainment. Weve been hearing feedback and concerns from Business Owners around the conditions being suggested or imposed on their licenses around outdoor space around the ability to use amplified sound and outdoorm weh sfpd, the Entertainment Commission and abc on bringing some increased coordination and consistency to how licenses are being conditioned, especially with respect to Entertainment Permits. So i think you know where we are trying to head is to encourage alignment between departments. So if you have an Entertainment Permit your Liquor License conditions can align to follow the rules of Entertainment Permit, as opposed to having a different, different set of sound conditions. So that does an ongoing project that were working on. But i really pleased by the momentum so far. Next slide, please. Um, several other. State state bills moving forward, um a b 3 74 as honey mentioned Assembly Member haynes bill to allow dispensaries to sell non prepackaged food and drinks and tickets, entertainment events and consumption lounges could be really important step forward and the integration of entertainment into cannabis spaces. Sb 76 is the music venue Liquor License bill that i mentioned earlier. But what it would also do is create the ability for local governments to designate entertainment zones so common outdoor areas where restaurants and bars could offer to go beverages that could be consumed in that common area, so restaurants and bars could create block parties. They could. They could be a partner. In a street festival and serve drinks that could be consumed within that area. Subject to whatever local government rules restrictions. Regulations are imposed there. Um and then, as before, 95, senator dodd wood, you know, right now there was all sorts of to go and delivery creativity during the pandemic. Right now. The rules are that restaurants can serve to go drinks with meals. As before. 95 would expand that to include the delivery of the delivery of cocktails not just to go but delivery for restaurants and bars without the male requirement, so another another possibility there. Next slide. Um locally, there is a lot of work underway on a number of fronts. There have been important efforts to reduce barriers entertainment in a number of zoning districts. Folsom street, uh, supervisor dorsey led some some work on folsom street to relax, uh, various Entertainment Venues on folsom street, but certainly some more work that absolutely could be done in the south of market to expand opportunities. Um limited life performance permit areas are now theres now expanded opportunity there and now st l o. P s can go until 11 p. M, which is a nice nice improvement. Um we are continuing to explore further streamlining and further reforms to support nightlife and entertainment. You know, over the past. 45 years weve done a number of legislative legislative efforts to make it easier to start a nightlife entertainment business, but the work is certainly not done. Were also working in partnership with the Entertainment Commission on a number of projects related downtown economic recovery. Um you know, one of the mayors recommendations in her downtown recovery strategy is to transform downtown into a leading arts, culture and nightlife destination. Were currently gathering data to develop arts, culture and entertainment zone downtown. That would support both. Attracting nightlife but also retaining this key nightlife, entertainment anchor destinations that already exist in the downtown area and that are really important to the success of the area. Excellent two. More short. Updates sf live is an outdoor Concert Series that will be curated by local venues. We have some really great Production Partners that we are working with parks, alliance noise pop union square and illuminate the arts. Um that series is going to kick off in full and spring 2024 and there will be more information about how local venues can participate coming in the next few months. Um union square is going to be doing a pilot series of concerts starting soon that we will have more announcements about that real soon, and were also going to be working with our partners at plant agency and cultivate labs on a social Media Campaign designed to showcase local music and nightlife to again build that brand that San Francisco is a music and entertainment city. Finally baby. Its the Public Library is launching a digital local music collection. I think this is the coolest thing so i bring it up in every every slide deck. Um you can, so were encouraging local artists to submit to their program getting honorarium become part of a local, uh, like local music collection, uh through the Public Library and is that i think that might be is that it . Oh, no, jesus. Um uh, my department is hiring and were hiring a person to help with the economic recovery. The arts, arts, culture, entertainment, nightlife sectors, um we have all sorts of cool projects, but with desperately love some additional help to help all of you be as successful as you can be. So please, uh please encourage people to apply. Please apply. I think its really its a really good opportunity. I will say i have been doing this work for itll be 10 years next week. Um so to have a second person doing this work is what you dont need to be in the class. But thank you. Thats very kind to have a second person doing this work and working to support all of you is going to be really just make all of us more effective, so really appreciate it. And with that i think i think thats it. Were gonna do this for coming here. Very good. I hope that wasnt too boring. Thank you, everybody. Im im gonna be around. So if you have questions or want to talk more oh, wow. Okay. No problem. Hi. We re missing. Not a not everyone. Is this tall . Um okay, so thank you so much. Ben that was wonderful. Um and you spoke the perfect amount of time so um alright, so i wanted to welcome to the podium commissioner laura thomas , who is a huge champion of Harm Reduction in nightlife, and shes going to help premier. The video that we all put together. So heres laura. Thank you. And thank you for adjusting the microphone rate perfect spot. Um how many folks were here at the summit last year . And so you got to see cocina rude, um, live and in person and, uh, in part because of the work that cocina has been doing from the stage at oasis and in other venues, um, we asked her to work on this, uh , video. So um, you know, i serve as the Public Health representative on the Entertainment Commission. And one of the things that i have tried to do from that perspective is ensure that our, um our workers, our audiences are neighbors are able to fully enjoy all the entertainment and nightlife that we have to offer in the healthiest way. Possible um, obviously, there is a very, very, very long tradition of mixing intoxicating substances with entertainment. Um thats certainly predates all of us here in the predates nightlife in San Francisco. Um but i think its also really important that we ensure that our workers and our audiences are as safe as possible while theyre enjoying themselves and that were doing everything we can to reduce any potential harms and so whether thats around, you know, carting people and not letting people in unless theyre over 21 cutting people off if theyve had too much to drink, providing clean water, uh, for free for people. Um one of those is also ensuring that we know how to recognize and overdose and opioid overdose and know how to reverse it and that we in our staff and our Community Members are trained in how to do that. So that is why we decided to, um, to create this video as an initial training videos so that anyone can watch it can quickly learn how to use Fentanyl Test strips to understand if theres fentanyl in any substances that they may be doing, um as well as how to identify and reverse an opioid overdose using narcan. And so we did this in partnership with the San Francisco department of Public Health, and i am deeply grateful for their expertise on this, um and as well as cocina rude, and i just i wanna, um you know, given extra additional shoutout to darcy drawling er, who was here earlier. To heck, lena to cocina rude to all the folks who have worked to help create the queer nightlife spaces that we have in this city. I think it is not at all a coincidence that, um cocina, you know, cocina picked up this saturday night at oasis, uh, after heck, lena, and shes the one who started doing this, and i think its not a coincidence that its our queer in lgbt folks who have been stepping up to say, what else can we do . Um, to keep ourselves elves and in our audience is as safe as possible. So with that, im going to hand it over to, uh, dylan to hit play on the video and enjoy the world premiere. Overdoses from fentanyl have had a devastating impact on San Francisco and our entertainment and nightlife industries have been hit particularly hard. Fentanyl has found its way into other street drugs. Even a small amount of fentanyl can be fatal. The San Francisco Entertainment Commission has partnered with the San Francisco department of Public Health to make this short video to raise awareness and prevent another tragedy from happening. This video is to help you understand the signs of a fentanyl overdose and what you can do to save someones life. Fentanyl is the leading driver of Drug Overdose deaths in the united states, as well as San Francisco. Whats involved in nearly three quarters of Overdose Deaths in 2022 . A very small amount of fentanyl can be fatal and people use drugs maybe unintentionally exposed to it as its been found in other drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, pressed pills and methamphetamine. This training will give you a basic understanding of how to use Fentanyl Test strips and how the naloxone or narcan nasal spray works to reverse an opioid overdose to save someones life. Naloxone is a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. Thank you for taking the time to watch this video. Overdose can affect anyone. But anyone who learns how to recognize an overdose can reverse it. Doesnt have to end in tragedy. Naloxone can save lives. Fareed red queen and Harm Reductionist cucina rude will provide a brief overview of how to use Fentanyl Test strips and an overdose recognition and response training. China is a prominent figure in San Franciscos nightlife and Harm Reduction seen, she has instructed audiences and staff throughout the city on how to use naloxone and other life saving strategies. Thank you so much. Im coaching a rude i will be demonstrating how to use a Fentanyl Test trip to test drugs for the presence of fentanyl. Fentanyl test strips are one tool that Community Members used to reduce potential harms of using drugs and make informed choices for how to use them in a safer manner. Heres the procedure to test your drugs for fentanyl using Fentanyl Test strips, depending on the types of drugs, theyre testing that steps may be slightly different. Before we get into testing. Lets identify the parts of the Fentanyl Test trip. This is what a test strip looks like. You will see an area that is colored solid blue. This is where you will hold the strip. Place the way the end of the strip down in the water and let it absorb for about 15 seconds. Do not insert past the solid line. Now, lets do our testing. Put a small amount at least 10 mg of your drugs aside in a clean, dry container. For most drugs, youll need half a teaspoon of water. If youre testing methamphetamines use one full teaspoon. Place the test trip into the water. Take the strip out of the water and place it on a flat surface for 2 to 5 minutes. Positive results. Make sure to hold the test strip horizontally with the blue end on the left. A single pink line on the left hand side indicates that fentanyl or fentanyl analog has been detected in your drugs. If you receive a positive result, it is much safer to discard the batch. Otherwise, the results could be deadly. Illicitly manufactured fentanyl is extremely potent and can be deadly. Negative results. Two pink lines indicate that fentanyl or fentanyl analog has not been detected in your drugs. Remember that no test is 100 accurate and your drugs may still contain fentanyl or fentanyl analogs, even if you receive a negative result. You should still take caution as Fentanyl Test trips might not detect stronger fentanyl like drugs like car. Fentanyl and fentanyl might not be everywhere in your drugs, and your test might miss it. They call this the Chocolate Chip Cookie effect. Invalid results. Again make sure to hold the test up horizontally with the blue end on the left. A single pink line on the right hand side or no lines at all indicates an invalid test. Do not be confused with a positive result, which appears on the left as shown here. The invalid result will appear on the right hand side. If you get an invalid result, test your drugs again using a new test strip. As we have shown Fentanyl Test strips have a number of benefits for people who use drugs that said, its important to talk to people about their limitations, too. Fentanyl test strips. Dont tell you how much fentanyl is present only whether theres fentanyl present or not. And false positives, maybe common with mdma or methamphetamine. Now im going to tell you how to recognize the signs of an overdose. Not responding and wont wake up. Shallow breathing or not breathing. Blue or gray skin, lips or fingernails. Next im going to show you how to reverse an overdose using naloxone or narcan. If you do not have narcan, call 911 immediately or have a friend called 911 for you. Give the dispatcher your location and tell them someone is not responding or not breathing. The first thing you want to do is provide verbal stimulation. Try to wake the person up. Hello. Ah ah ah if that doesnt work, provide physical stimulation. Rub your knuckles up and down on the center of the chest to stimulate pain. I promise this really hurts. If they still dont wake up. Its time to administer narcan. You want to remove the narcan from its packaging . Insert the nozzle into the nostril. And press the plunger firmly. You may administer a second dose after two minutes if somebody has not yet called 911 do so now. Give the dispatcher your location and tell them someone is not responding or not breathing. Now im going to show you how to give them life, baby. Or perform rescue breathing. You want to pinch their nose, tilt their head back. Provide two breaths to start. Then one breath every five seconds. 1234. If youve ever made out with a stranger at a bar. You can do this. Give me life, baby. The persons chest should begin to rise and fall. Continue this step until they start breathing or until 911 arrives. And guess what, baby . You. Reverse an overdose with narcan. Congratulations. After the person wakes up, stay with them until paramedics arrive. Kindly inform them that they overdosed. Hey, baby, how you doing . We had to narcan. You you overdosed. You okay . Do you want some water . Remember this could be a traumatic event for everyone involved. Be nice to them and be nice to yourself. Thank you for watching this training video. We hope this video empowers you with the information you need in case you need to make a critical decision someday. You may be the one to save someones life. Share this video with your coworkers, patrons and the community. Lets keep our communities safe and protected so we can continue to celebrate our world class entertainment and nightlife scene. Okay . All right. That was awesome. Seeing that on the big screen. Um so that is available on you. Tvs channel. Its also going to be within the Entertainment Commission, social Media Channels and our newsletter. Please feel free to share that with everybody that you work with. I hope it was, um , illustrative of the process, and i hope you dont have to do that. But you now know how, um so with that we are going to take a break. I believe until 3 15. So you have about 18 minutes until we come back for our first panel. We hope you enjoy the end of our resource fair and come say hi. Alright everyone. Were going to get started here and just a minute so take your seat. Um all right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Um and welcome to whats ahead for San Franciscos Small Business and downtown Recovery Panel today. My name is joaquin torres, and im the assessor recorder here in San Francisco, um and the former director of the office of economic and Workforce Development, and these issues are near and dear to my heart. Which is why i left the opportunity to be with his esteemed group of both city leaders, as well as entrepreneurs and visionaries who have personal stories to share with all of you about how we can move forward as a community and as a city, um, and ensure that the cultural and Economic Vitality of San Francisco can continue and move forward. Um im gonna be asking my panelists if you would just share a few, um, brief, uh, sharing of who you are to introduce yourself to this group, and then well begin with the questions first. Im gonna hand it over to katie tang. Mr. Thank you very much. Hi everyone. Good to be here with you all today. Im kate eating with the office of Small Business and our office helps entrepreneurs start state and grow here in San Francisco, and we are here as a resource to connect you to anything. You need any questions related to Small Businesses, and ill pass it on to my colleague here, cat. Hi i am cat daniel and the director of economic recovery initiatives for the office of economic and Workforce Development. Uh, my team is really focused on understanding how the citys economic recovery is progressing and then working on initiatives coordinating the City Departments around initiatives to support economic recovery and taking on special projects that dont really live in another. Apartment within the city. Hi my name is andy chun. I have four businesses all downtown, so im the happiest guy in this room right now. Ah schroeders with celebrating 130th anniversary this year. Um, so weve seen a lot at that place. Uh tomorrow . No. This week this friday. Were throwing our parties. If anyones around , we have a brass mafia, which, thanks to you, its coming on, dj coming down. Be great to see you guys. We have press club and then with my partner, kevin, we have pacific cocktail haven and kona Street Market. Just a quick thing. Isnt there something specific . Thats happened recently with pch. Oh we did win number number 28 on 50th 50 best bars in north america. The only bar in San Francisco this year in one of three on the west coast. So if you havent checked out, we burned down a few years ago and that, you know, great run. Im lucky guy, but we rebuilt and its great. We have outdoor space now. So come by and have a cocktail. Thatd be awesome. Thanks josh lieberman, general manager of august hall venue and concert space downtown on the backside of union square. Since may of 2018 formally ruby skye, which is where most of you probably recognize it from, but happy to be here. Fantastic well, um, why dont we set the table with the first question . Um uh. And what do we start with you, josh . Or you . Andy was one of the two. Why is nightlife very broad question, but i think its good to start there because not many people often think about it, despite those of us who are in this room, but why is nightlife important and essential for San Francisco . So. For us, i think you know nightlife is incredibly essential because when you really kind of look at what draws someone into an area, um you know, i like to think that we play a very special role in that. Um and its not to say that people dont go out to bars or restaurants or kind of come into the area for that reason, but its typically usually for you know, an anniversary or a party or your friends are kind of getting together. Um what . What we find you know in our venue is that were bringing in, you know anywhere from a sold out show, too. When we do conferences, you know, in our full venue was utilized up to 1200 people at night. Um that are coming in from outside of the city. Theyre coming in from sacramento that are coming in from napa. We have folks that are coming in from canada. L a kind of all over the place and then are looking for somewhere to go afterwards. Um so you know , we like to think of ourselves as an anchor, tenant, or at least kind of performing that service to, you know to our area in our community because we are one of the reasons that people are still coming into the city or kind of coming to the destination of downtown. Even while its going through the troubles that its currently experiencing. Thanks and just to build on that, uh, andy. Why should we care about restaurants , bars, music, entertainment and theater in San Francisco. What i think its one of the more interesting thing and you and i were talking about this in one of our other sessions. San francisco has a reputation for being a world class city four nightlife Music Entertainment. And weve kind of been resting on our laurels. To be honest with you. Um we do a lot of great things for sure. But if youre going to open up a new concept, a new idea. Do something cutting edge are you doing in San Francisco right now in our business . And the answer is probably not. Youre going to miami. Youre going to nashville. Youre going to austin. And what are those locations have in common . South beach. Sixth street, rainy street, broadway. Those are all downtown in their economic core. And the reason why you locate those businesses there. Is because you dont necessarily have neighbors like we do in the hate or you do in the mission. When you combine nightlife with people who have been there for generations. You have conflict right . Because people want to sleep. People want to party. We in San Francisco have kind of coexisted and we have all of these regulations. We have commission. Basically created to mediate between those two opposing forces. Well, you know where people dont live right now. Downtown. Right . So to me, theres an opportunity when we have 15 to 20 million visitors coming every year to San Francisco, and we dont have our version of any of those neighborhoods that miami nashville, austin have. And so i think if we are going to turn the page on to whatever downtown is going to become we, the people in heroin, hospitality, restaurants, bars, nightlife are the ones who gonna have to do it. Because these housing you know, converting offices into housing is not happening in the next five years. Its a 5 10 15. Its a generational project. Um so we have a bunch of empty buildings. We have a bunch of empty spaces and we have a bunch of people coming into town with no place to go so lets do the math, you know, lets lets lets create something. We can be the engine, but thats gonna require a lot of assistance and a lot of people pulling in the same direction. Fortunately we have the mayor here we have the office of workplace twd. Here we have a small bit like theres people who are available to help remove obstacles, but we have to come to the table with. What do we want . What do we need . Rather than just saying, hey, life sucks, because if we just come with that attitude, at least none of us downtown are gonna be here in five years to actually see that page turn. And so were kind of fighting for our lives at this point, but i think there is opportunity. Great for cat and katie the same question. I mean, why from your perspectives is nightlife important . And why do you believe the city should care about the Diverse Industries that make entertainment and nightlife of reality in San Francisco . So i mean, i think that josh and andy are are exactly right. Like well , one. I come from the office of economic and Workforce Development and we are really interested in in economic activity. And in jobs and nightlife is really, really essential to both of those things because we need a diverse economy. We need a lot of Different Things happening in San Francisco there, providing a lot of different types of jobs and nightlife is critical to that. Um so that is one just as like, in terms of the citys economic health. And then i think that like joshua sort of alluding to like quality of life is what causes people to want to come to cities and the and the citys culture and cultural experience, which includes a nightlife is sort of an anchor of is really, really important to San Franciscos brand and identity as a city and it is important to what causes people to want to come here, which is what feeds like the again. The health of our economy, um and then and then last in which andy was talking about is that our economic recovery like this point in time, the city really needs to evolve and to pivot in order to respond to what has happened as a result of covid, and that is going to depend a lot on giving people new reasons to come into downtown to think about coming to San Francisco. And i think that night life is going to be a huge part of that. So all three of those things really Work Together. Well for me. Im just going to keep it really basic and simple. Um, its what brings us joy and makes it makes us all come alive. I mean, i think about the first date with my then boyfriend who now became a husband was at a bar downtown or the first time i saw lady gaga perform is actually here in San Francisco at mezzanine at that time, you know all those things bring a smile to her. Face it. Its all those memories that we think back to. They happen at our venues that are bars that are restaurants and so just on a personal level. Theyre so important their anchors in our in our lives, and so, um, ill keep it at that because i think everyone knows the obviously the value of all the people you employ and the economic generation that occurs as a result of our nightlife. Great. Um and, um, ill ask this question of you. I mean, where where and how would you describe the state of your businesses right now . And those of your peers at this moment in time you alluded to it a little bit in terms of whats happening downtown, but generally across the city. What do you hearing . What are people feeling right now . Both about the immediate issues that were facing, um and also the ones that they see coming up for them in the future. Ill keep my response. Basically two people i talked to downtown, um because im sure there are other people in the city are doing very well. Very well. Uh but downtown, we live and die the close yard of the Convention Center by whatever is going on at the Convention Center. So press club my wine bar, for example, um, is actually doing okay . Because when the Convention Center comes in it kind of pays for the quarter. Right 11 nice week will pay for the quarter. But we used to do big numbers on friday and saturday nights, and now we are 1 10 1 15th. Um yeah, there just arent people going downtown. In the ways that they used to. And i hear that pretty uniformly like you look at mina, right . Mina used to be a place of wheat. Remember thursday nights a minute. It was great. Theyre an event venue at this point, right . Um ive got the beer hall. Schroeders we are tuesday, wednesday thursday active grade fridays used to be our busiest day. Now they look like mondays, and we dont even think about opening on saturdays anymore. So you know that . Thats not a recipe for success and we know were doing things the right way because on wednesday when you come into schroeders people having a great time so the product is fine. Theyre just not people around. Um and so when you you sort of look at the next 345 years, right . Well the Convention Center. You can look at it. It is getting better, and the conventions that have been pulled off this year have done well. So is that business increases so its like, okay, theres a little bit of a baseline. Um but were sort of just waiting out the clock to see if things get better. And so far, i think weve kind of had a plateau since basically followed 2022. Um i know a lot of you guys have venues in this area to you. You know, you may be doing better. Id love to hear and see what youre doing. But um you know it. It cant be. Bright days, i will say pch does remarkably well, regardless of whatever is in town, but thats because of its its sort of place in the cocktail bar hierarchy, and also its kind of in a neighborhood to it. Borders that union square, its and mason and sutter. Um so you get up to bush street and theres a bunch of really cool places key club and like your venue and we can feed off a little bit more of that, but, um, if we were just relying on downtown traffic that wouldnt that wouldnt work for us. Yeah please, josh, if you can speak to that, and just and just also, i think its interesting to pick up on where you see yourselves into related as as varying industries. How do you support each other . Um at this moment in time . Well you know, i think its pretty clear how we support each other. Um and i think one of the interesting things is that we really havent seen. Um a lot of the kind of turnover of bars and restaurants that we used to pre covid or at least you know, kind of the consistency. We had a bar that was next door to was Benjamin Cooper that you know, closed down during the pandemic has not reopened. Theres currently nothing in that space. Um and we used to direct people that were just looking to pop in for a drink, coming to a show or just kind of walking down the block all the time. I mean, we still do that. We just now have to send them a couple of blocks down the street as opposed to right next door to us. Um but i like to think that that you know we are doing our best to try and bring people to the city that dont necessarily have a reason to come to the city other than theyre going to see a performer that they love or music that they enjoy. And they are looking for Something Else to do and you know, its really, um environmental just in terms of being able to spill that business over from, you know, from from us to andy or the other bars kind of in the area to other restaurants that is becoming harder to do with the you know, kind of connotations around downtown right now, as well as just that the lack of a community that exists independent of tourism or independent of, you know, um conferences coming through. So sorry, did you so for the both of you . I mean, what do you what are you finding the ways . Um towards success in this moment in time . How are you navigating to deal with those challenges right now . What are you seeing that are just little glimmers of opportunity for you. I wouldnt necessarily call it glimmers of opportunities. So much is just that things are less bad than they were. Um into that, like theres a limit for what we can really do aside from trying to, you know, to change our programming, which we do anyway. Regardless of what the you know. The situation is in the neighborhood were largely dependent on conferences were largely dependent upon you know the kinds of events that come through those concerts for us are not very profitable. We still put them on because theres you know, a need to do so. And we love putting on concerts. Um, but if we were just relying on that to stay afloat we would go under um and you know, i think that that we have certainly seen a change in in what the neighborhood has looked like over the last year and a half, comparatively to what it was, you know, deep in the depths of covid, but its still not what it was before. I dont think its ever going to get back to what it was before, at least in terms of the same kind of dynamics that were creating that environment. Um and were. Were still wrestling with a lot of the problems, if not more problems that put us you know, 11 bad news story or one bad incident away from all of that kind of going away entirely. Yeah i think just to dig into them. Maybe if you want to talk about something additional challenges that might, um you might also be compounding this for you. Whether its around labor shortages, the increasing cost of doing business, the Public Safety issues on the street. I think its just good to share and get those out here. Yes yes, yes. Yes i mean, you guys all run your own venue, so im i dont think i need to tell you how hard it is and difficult it is to operate a business in San Francisco nationally, whatever right, its a horrible, horrible business that we do that we only are in because were crazy, crazy people who enjoy making people happy. But if you took the amount of time effort and capital it takes to do what we do, and applied it to any other business with this type of return. Yeah. It just doesnt pencil right there. Theres no reason there should be this many restaurants and bars. But for the fact that we love what we do , unfortunately, is becoming increasingly difficult. To sort of make that bottom line work even in the best of times and pre pandemic. Were seeing that right . We all know, uh, minimum wage is going to 17 an hour on july 1st 17 an hour. 18 07. Were at 17 right now. Sorry. A. Um so. We live in. We live in a place where everyone deserves it. A living wage. Um but if you open a bar in texas guess what . The tip credit minimum wages. Roughly right, um. Californias never getting a tip credit, so we just have to accept that. The cost of living adjustments are necessary. Like we all want our workers to be able to live in the city. Nobody can afford to do that. Rents dont seem to be coming down in a way. That makes that new world a new vision. Sustainable. Um but we somehow still have people coming in and wanting to work from places that might take him 45 minutes to get here. How long can that continue . When we cant generate the top line revenue to give him the tips and Everything Else to go through . I dont know. Right were all were all this kinda so previous endemic right . The secret sauce was for me being downtown, so we had a very consistent office crowd coming in, and it was private events. In private events are still the thing today that are paying for everything. Um if youre one of those places that just relies on yeah. Traditional service and people coming in and having a drink like god bless um, i cant make that business work. So its yeah. How much can you charge for buffalo wings, right. 18. 21 dollars a week because were going to find out thats thats basically how much can a burden if you have a burger for under 20 like, how long can you do that for . I dont know. I dont know. So, um i want to get to the part of the conversation where we get two more hopeful things, but you guys know its it doesnt everythings broken. Everything is broken. So for, um. You know, for the city leaders here. Um, i who have graciously given their time to be on this panel. Um does anything here resonate with you include of why do you do this work at this moment in time, but also, but also is this is this an alignment with what everyone is hearing right now is their momentum that you feel being built in the city right now to respond to these challenges. And how are you part of that solution . Im really tempted to hand it to katie. But, um. No. I mean, i think that this we hear this. We absolutely hear this every day. Um everybody is really hurting, and i think like as a city leader who is focused on this one of the hardest parts is trying to figure out what are the resources that the city can can put towards this . Knowing . As we saw in covid. Theyre like the citys resources. If it acts alone is just its not even going to be a drop in the bucket. And what is the time lag in which these resources are going to hit the streets and versus like what the businesses desperately need and so i dont think i think that everybody at this stage is very, very cognizant and in agreement about all of the of the need and the pain behind that need and i think that what, like what . I hope out of conversations like this is that we can really start to focus because when everything is broken everybodys trying to do everything at once and that and that is difficult, and its difficult to figure out like what needs to take priority. And i think really candid feedback is helpful from from this group and from all of the other sort of representatives and stakeholders. Around like what is going to be most impactful. So that we can start running in one direction at once with agreement and input from from you all who are on the ground. Well ill just say my takeaways are we all need to drink more, and we all need to go to more shows and health. These great venues and businesses. Um, no, but i think that you know when, when we say that everything is broken. It is such a great opportunity to push for the changes that were difficult when times were good, and so our office has really been trying to work hard with people like ben. Um, you know, who have heard from many of you about the challenges, right . Even pre covid. And what are those things that we can now have that chance to get through whether its legislation or other changes local or state that again . Were not possible before, so i find that to be an exciting opportunity and why this is a very interesting time. And we will continue to pursue those changes. So we definitely want to hear from you your suggestions, but just building on what we heard in terms of downtown recovery and how important that is just to the realities that people are facing right now. On a day to day basis during the season, one would expect more people to be coming into the city. How do you respond to some of the short and long term issues that were just raised in terms of what andy was saying around . Yes of course, reimagining downtown is something thats essential to us. Were happy to see the city moving that direction. But what is this . Mean for today. What are we seeing today . Um as quickly as possible to support our industries. So i think like, just in terms of context setting , i think that what were seeing from the data right . Is that downtown. It is. Like in in terms of fundamentals from economic fundamentals. Downtown is still really strong and a lot of ways right like our jobs in office industries are growing. Our Unemployment Rate citywide is ridiculously low, like i think, the Second Lowest in the state of california and california has a very low Unemployment Rate. Um theres a huge amount of investment that is going into San Francisco. What we dont have is people. On the streets in downtown San Francisco. And that is a that is a structural problem because a lot of that is created by remote work and, you know, hybrid work policies. I brought my little stats for you all. But like prior to the pandemic, we had 470,000 people coming into San Francisco from outside San Francisco every day. To commute for a job. And thats not something that is going to have a short term solution. Ah you know, in a world of hybrid work it is it and then it has the ripple out effects that you all are experiencing. Right so we have a huge Office Commercial vacancy rate is offices or contracting. That means that some those those people are not coming in, and thats leading to like the deficit of people on the street, and that is most concentrated in downtown, but its rippling out to all of our neighborhoods. Because when you have that many people coming in they go they go places beyond downtown, and its and its felt in our neighborhoods as well. Our Tourism Industry is doing better, but it is not there yet. Um and all of that leads to lack of eyes on the street. It leads to perception problems that are snowballing. The, um. The issue and sort of the hesitation of people to come back. So i think that like what came to your question. We have a long term problem to solve. I dont think that there are going to be a lot of short term fixes. But there is a tremendous amount of headway that i do think that we can make in the short term. And i think that the things that we are focused on in order to make that headway is first and foremost and i you hear it on the news every day. Um is street conditions. And making sure that our streets are comfortable and welcoming for people to come. Ah so that they are and then the perception which has blown up beyond anything. I think that we you know, can can put back the genius out of the bottle. Right like we have this National Narrative about San Francisco, which i think focuses very, very specifically on our biggest challenge. To an extent that. If you are not living in San Francisco, you think that is the only thing about San Francisco . And that is something that we need to change. And i think that there is a lot that we can do in the short term to address the situation and that is contributing to really challenging street conditions, and theres a lot that we can do to work on the on the perception problem, which is part of but separate and then i think that the other thing that that that i my team is really focused on in that i think the city is really focused on is then. Also like how do you support the businesses that are going to proactively draw . People into the city and invite them to come in because there are really interesting and exciting things that are happening. Ah because that is the only way that were going to get people to come back in to see for themselves that that like were really turning a corner. What he was talking what is. For so for each of those things. So weve got. For clean and safe the city has created you. Probably weve created 12 different kinds of Response Teams because theres a really, really complicated situation in our streets. And we dont have enough police force to respond, nor should the police be responding to every single situation themselves. And so we have different street Response Teams to respond to different kinds of problems that are happening on the street. And then we are trying now to really coordinate those so that there are a lot more effective. Theyre working together and theyre able to cover a lot more ground. We are also similarly working to make our cleaning a lot more efficient and Work Together with like public and private agencies that are responsible for cleaning again to coordinate and make this efficient because what we have in San Francisco is a wealth of resources. And we need to coordinate those better so that they can really they can really accomplish as much as they are supposed to, instead of working in silos, so that is a lot of what were doing on the clean and safety issue in terms of the perception problem. Uh we were working very hard. That is a really, really difficult problem that to get our arms around. Hmm. And it is something that City Government City Government is not particularly strong in terms of pr and marketing campaigns. And so we are. Thanks for the laugh. Um and so and so we are trying to. We have set forward a couple of different campaigns one launched a few days ago. Maybe you have seen it. But the always San Francisco never the same always San Francisco that is to bring tourists and that is mostly plain and outside markets, but its bring tourists back into San Francisco to remind them of how interesting and exciting San Francisco is. Similarly we have created a heart of sf campaign that is focused specifically on downtown and trying to show people that interesting and new things that are happening in downtown, not just the doom and gloom stories. We want to do more. Weve got to make the few make San Francisco your future, which is really aimed at businesses and trying to bring businesses back into downtown because we do need those offices. We need to bring offices back into San Francisco so that we can we can have their workers coming back in and patronizing the establishments and in the bay area. And then lastly, im sorry that im talking so long, but i just really do want to respond to your question with specifics like the we have put forward a couple of other things like, um the last year weve done i think on order of like 25 different activations, and we have tried to focus those activations on being reoccurring so that they can so that they can build momentum and those activations have been largely focused in downtown and you maybe you have seen like the lets glow the like light projections on the big buildings to bring people into the city to see the lights and then go to the restaurants and go to the bars while you were out there and the bangor and beats that happened last month, which again brought a lot of people and vendors into the city to have a huge dance party on battery street and then with the intent afterwards that they would go to the restaurants and go to the bars, and so were trying to do Creative Things like that. Um in order to bring to bring people and change this perception idea , i think the last thing that i would leave you with because, um we want to do in the future, and so i think we put forward the mayor put forward her roadmap to recovery and one of the things listed in. That is sort of this. This idea of really reimagining downtown is a destination and what we can do in working with industry in order to create like an arts and culture identity for downtown. Working with the working with the businesses to put together a package of like, how could they amplify their footprint, the interest and the foot traffic coming to them that you know through. Ah cooperative programming, shutting down streets waving fees like i mean , were were open to anything, but i think that that is what we really want to explore in the year going forward. Thank you. Yeah absolutely. And then just, you know, on on a hopeful note, i know we hear a lot of conversations around tourists who say that the government to come back to San Francisco. They dont want to come to San Francisco. I just had a conversation with folks from the Ambassador Theater Group who talked about the moment we get our clients our audience members to come in and see a show. The hell hole they were expecting, surprisingly, from their point of view does not exist, and they were glad that they came in contrast with whats being shared in the media, which is why the perception issue is so important to address collectively, secondarily conservative republican couple that i met two weekends ago who happened to be coming to San Francisco shared the same story. We were reading all the stories on the news by this hellhole. What was going to be and we walked outside our hotel, and it was a bunch of bullshit, right . I love San Francisco. I always want to come back there walking the streets, um, throughout their time here, day and night, they were going downtown into north beach. They were so excited to be spending their time with themselves as a couple. And supporting San Francisco and couldnt wait to come back. Those are the types of stories and energy that is out there that we can also capitalize on as well. In addition to creating these experiences that i know both of you have been working on together with so many in industry. Um and also i think something that you didnt mention. You talked about some of the soma activations but also some of the forthcoming investments being made in union square to facilitate that arts, entertainment and cultural identity to draw more people in to have that experience and take the quote, risk to come back to San Francisco and experience something different. Um just in terms of, uh, anything else around this brand identity, um, that the city is investing in right now in these ways, are there other ideas that you wish the city was pursuing, or their ideas that you think thats the right . Um catalyst for what will get us moving forward in the immediate and short term, so what id love to see is the formation of Entertainment District downtown. And what that would mean it could mean a lot of things. Um from a regulatory perspective, this would be a state issue. Well actually, this is a city issue. If youre going to buy a 48 license and move it into a new location right now, what do you have to do . Youve got a petition all you gotta post anyone can protest. You have to sign a lease before you do this, by the way, right . You have to raise all the money sign a lease. Youre just sitting on their you have to put a posting in the window. Anyone can protest somebody will. Then you have to go meet your supervisor, which is great and always nice to meet your supervisor. Get their support. They tell you you need to go talk to these x y z groups. Because these x y z groups have a political whatever with the supervisor. So you go talk to those. And they say okay , yeah, you can do this, but can you build a mural . Can you do this . Can you do that . And youre like great. Okay, well do that. And then you go in front of the board of supervisors. Somebodys going to protest. Theyll talk. You got to bring 30 or 40 people up there to say, hey, were good citizens, and then you may or may not get your Liquor License. You dont get it. You have to go before judge and thats it right. So who wants to open a bar downtown . When theres no one living downtown. So this this this process exists right to allow the neighbors who live there have a say. In you know, theres a new bar opening up down and we didnt have a bar here before and like, we should have a say in that i agree with that. That makes sense. Does it make sense downtown . When theres no one there . Like literally no one there, so i think in this, you know, number one removing that obstacle in this Entertainment District. Be great. It would be great to make these car free zones you block off the streets. You have the Horse Mounted Police like you do in new orleans and austin on the weekends and people are walking around. Maybe its an open containers own. I dont know. Get crazy, right live music playing on the streets. But we need a concentration bars, restaurants, nightclubs, venues. In a given area to promote that kind of and so you get one block of that going on. And then the next block if we want to do that, and then the next block and then youll have four or five blocks. So if we could just designate this area downtown pick a few blocks, and then maybe if that goes well increase ea increase. I guarantee you if a bunch of bars and restaurants and nightclubs open up together people will want to come visit there. And as soon as people start when they come to visit there. People are gonna want to build condos on top of that. Because where do you want people want to live . When youre 20 something you want to live . Where theres fun, right . You dont want to. You want to be where the action is. And thats just kind of how the story goes everywhere in every other place in the country. But you come downtown San Francisco at eight pm and like where are we gonna have a bar on a Street Market on third market. We have don club we have local edition. We have lark. And we have cordial and we have what else do we get . Uh, novella. So were all like, five or six, but not a place to eat. I guess you know theres a couple of restaurants over here, but theres not a place to eat around. It was like we need not just bars, not just restaurants, not just we need it all. We need it all right there, and we need to you know, promote the hell out of it and say, hey, this is this is this is whats coming and within that zone, right . We can take some chances and maybe not worry about the worst thing happened and maybe we kind of address problems as they come along, and instead we take a chance to try and do something new that we havent seen. And not worry about, you know . All of the all of the bad things that that everybody is always trying to. You know . Make fun from happening. Sorry. Josh thank you, andy josh. In addition to that, you know, just to share for the group. Um uh, and ill let you read the group on this one. But in terms of the best ways that you have found to engage the city around these ideas, um order provide ideas for the city to hear, incorporate, marinate on and then actually pursue. Well, thats a thats a doozy. Um okay. Different questions. Thats fine. I mean, this is certainly one of them. And you know, i think one of the things that has come of you know the last couple of years. Is that a lot of us that do not have any interest in sitting at tables and having these kinds of conversations have found ourselves sitting at tables and having these kinds of conversations. Um because not only is our experience valuable and communicating that to people that are making decisions is valuable. But if we dont then nothing happens and nothing changes and there is no fundamental understanding of what we are going through or how bad it is for anyone. Um so you know, through our work with the Venue Coalition through work with a california through our work with ben through our work with maggie, you know, im sure there have been times where theyve gotten tired of hearing from us, but, um, we have spent a lot more focus on trying to figure those solutions out and trying to communicate those to the people that really want to help. They just dont always necessarily have the information to do so. So i would kind of encourage anybody to do that. Um just to just to kind of go back to what andy was saying, and also, you know, a brief anecdote about the Public Safety component. Um its harder for me to have these kinds of brainstorming sessions these days because the deeper that we go into the rabbit hole about policy changes that could make a difference. It becomes more and more as though we are trying to slap a band aid on a severed arm. And um, you know, i understand that that that we cant solve everything with the with the you know, with the stroke of a pen, or theres not necessarily and panacea thats going to solve all the problems that San Francisco is facing. But i think we need to be honest about you know how much the lack of affordability is playing into a lot of our difficulties. How much the lack of Affordable Housing is playing into a lot of our difficulties or the lack of availability of Affordable Housing . Um i know that there is certainly you know, a negative narrative when it comes to Public Safety, and as someone who you know, grew up in philadelphia when it was being compared to baghdad in terms of the murder rate. Um i am certainly sympathetic to that claim, but along the same lines , and i was driving away from an event at our venue last tuesday at around nine pm um, weve got you know, small client 300 private equity folks that are in town. We had ali wong performing, so it was kind of a nice little experience. Um and i am sitting at a light at ellis and mason about to make a turn to go to bart, and about 25 shots rang out. Just on the street. People are diving for cover. You know all that kind of fun stuff. Um, and that wasnt even a blip. On on paper, not a news article. Not a headline. Not anything and, you know, i certainly am sympathetic to the fact that um, we dont want to let a narrative that is outrageous apply to the city, but we also need to be realistic about solving the issues that exist as they are now and creating an environment that is safe. For any of these foundational conversations to occur because you know, that is an event of 300 private equity clients that it now has to shelter in place before theyre leaving their their event that they had a great time at that is a lost to San Francisco that is difficult to calculate just by looking at the numbers and, um you know, i know that its not going to be a lot of kind of easy decision making, but i think that for anybody that is having these kinds of experiences or having any kind of experience that is affecting your ability to do business reach out. As much as you can talk to people that are willing to listen and are happy to have that conversation and move the conversation forward as best you can, because if you dont do it for yourself, no ones gonna do it for you. Thank you, josh. And then just from from cat or katie. Just kind of close this out now, um, just. As advocates for as both of you are for chipping away to bureaucracy, um, together with ben, together with maggie together with so many of you, um what are you seeing right now . Thats hopeful. Um uh , what are you seeing right now, in terms of movement that you can legitimately share with a group like were with today around where youre seeing opportunity to be hopeful and for movement. Sure i mean, ill just say that every day in our office it it still continues to impress me. How many people coming through our doors seeking assistance to start a new business or to expand the business here in San Francisco, and it shows us that people still have dreams to create a business, no matter how challenging it might be, um, and so that gives us hope. Every single day, every Single Person were able to help. Ive also been really encouraged when im going out there in the community on these merchant walks, and im seeing all the creativity around these new businesses forming and all the different ideas that they have and that they want to mention to one single place that maybe was not possible before, but theyre pushing the boundaries and in turn pushing us to think differently. About what . You know how we regulate and how we should maybe not regulate so much. So i really think everyone who has taken that risk here in San Francisco and shown us really what we can do here collectively, so that gives me hope every single day and just want to thank you all who are in this line of business, and, um, just really slogging through it every day by bringing us so much joy. Um i think that what katie alluded to at the beginning like i think that we have political will around some things that San Francisco has not had political will around in decades. And it is allowing us to move things forward. That would have been like a complete conversation stopper. Prior to the pandemic. Weve made some tremendous headway around like Housing Production and bringing new tools into how we can create housing that nobody would have would have contemplated prior to the pandemic. And i think that were i think that that is true around permitting as well and some of the some of the business permitting. Profit h past and um and then the Small Business recovery act. Which really set a foundation that we need to build on, but to allow business permitting to move so much faster. Um and so i think that there is a lot of potential there and then i think, also covid. Maybe or maybe it is this the situation were in now, but showed us as a city like how to coordinate and cooperate better. And that is leading to so many more efficiency that departments are talking to each other that never talked to each other before. And from a layperson from, you know, from an outsider perspective. I think the only thing that i can tell you is that like were coming out of our silos. So that we can connect dots that that to date have been completely separate from one another and cause things to break. And so i think that like as um a city official. Uh, who is trying to chip away at bureaucracy. I mean, those two things have been tremendously hopeful for me in this great. Well, i want to thank um you, josh, you nd cat and katie for contributing to this this panel right now, um uh and thank all of you for spending the time to be with us, just just to acknowledge some of the themes here acknowledging whats really happening on the streets, so we know what were dealing with reality. Ensuring that were aware of the investments that are being made and centering arts, entertainment and culture in a real way and taking advantage of the momentum today and pushing on that collectively to ensure that these industries that are essential for the soul of our city and its future, i believe can can you continue to move forward and grow . So i want to thank um and also not just chipping but taking a sledgehammer to some of the um, baroque policies and programs that really need to be re thunk. Uh thats a word, i think, uh so that we can really, really make the change that we want to see. So i just want to thank all of you again for the time and thank you for all of your work and supporting San Francisco. Thank you so much to our panelists and wonderful moderator. If you all need to get up and use the restroom feel free, but were going to jump right into our next panel in about two minutes , so had right on back. And im gonna pass the mic to my boss. Um he is president benjamin blind man. Here you are, ben. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Appreciate it. Everyone um my name is ben bly. Hman uh, i am currently the president of the Entertainment Commission. But i do a lot of other stuff. So just quick background. Ive had 11 bars in the city currently, thankfully, only have two. Um i ran out events business we did about 500 events a year, mostly in the city. Um and currently on the director of one of the Community Benefit districts. So, uh, the middle polk area, which is called discover polk Community Benefit district. Um outside of those things. I also have spent the last decade or so organizing the Nightlife Community the best i can we have a group called the San Francisco Bar Owner Alliance , which is about 503 bar owners in the city. Its primarily done in a private facebook group. But for anybody who has a Liquor License doesnt matter what kind. Youre welcome to join. As long as you have equity in a bar. Um and recently, um and this is worth noting, um, with some others. We founded a statewide nightlife at the cassie Organization Called california nightlife cal night and you can find that, uh, cal night dot com. Were doing a lot of work on the state level on unplug some issues that affect us down here. Um so having a panel on the Public Safety situation right now in the city of San Francisco. Visibly nightlife is something that i didnt think we could avoid. As a group. I think we have to acknowledge it, and we have to talk about it. Um i think not having this conversation at this, uh time and place would be not just a disservice, but it would be kind of fall on it would it would come out as pretty tone deaf . I think, given what the situation that many of us are facing in our venues and on the streets in San Francisco are so first i just want to lay some ground rules for everybody, um, for the audience, and for these so this is what i am we what . We are hoping it will not be right. So this is not meant to be a bit session where we compare stories of the latest person on fire covered in their own poop running through the streets. Weve all been to meetings like that. Weve all heard those stories. We dont need to try to outdo ourselves with those things. Um this is not an opportunity for us to give into hopelessness to, um, the city is clearly going through a rough time right now around Public Safety and cleanliness. That does not mean that this is going to last forever. And it does not mean that theres nothing we can do as a community to help fix it. Were working with our city hall and our law enforcement, etcetera. So what i do hope and what we hope comes out of this is that we will give them kind of a new, more nuanced and fuller understanding of whats going on right now on the streets. Um and that we can help to understand just how both how complicated these issues are, but also steps that we can take to actually solve them. I talked to a lot of people in my various capacities, and i think there is a pervasive attitude that the government needs to fix all of this for us. And i think first of all, um its not gonna happen so we can just give up on that on them just riding in and saving the day for us, but i also think thats not actually how it works. I think its kind of a simplistic understanding of our role in a democracy of its not a spectator sport. It is not something where you can pay your taxes and expect things to be given to you and democracy has never been about that. Its about people getting together, organizing and pretty much forcing. The leaders to do what they need to do not just asking them and crying at them and pleading with them because you think its the right thing to do. Um and so weve had success in this. In the years weve gotten a number of pieces of legislation passed the primary on prop h which has done great great things. Weve done zoning changes. Weve done Liquor License lot changes. All these things that have helped us in a net positive and i hope we come out of this conversation. With a little bit of hope in a little bit of, uh, they called it pulling in the same direction in the Previous Panel, and thats what im hoping we can do. Um the other thing to just on that note is, um, i believe that we are going through an incredibly hard time right here in the city of San Francisco, but ive been here in the city for 20 years, and this is a once in a Generation Opportunity to rethink this city, and i dont think that we have done anything like this in the city, especially around nightlife since probably after the earthquake. Um there but whether its the dot. Com crash or the 2008 the flexibility and the room for vision and rebuilding in a new way right now, ive never seen anything like this. So for a smart, motivated individual, we might find ourselves with just incredible, incredible opportunities going forward. Um so with that i want to introduce, um our panelists and we have one microphone, and i think im going to run it the same way joaquin did, which is to have everyone just spend a minute or two just introducing themselves and talking a little bit about what your interest is here and how we might, uh what you bring to the table, lets put it that way. Start with sin. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me now . In wang . I am i serve as the urban planning representative on the Entertainment Commission. You may wonder why . Since im in the insurance business, my background is im a former assistant City Attorney so intimately familiar with all these zoning permitting land use issues. Um i also used to manage Public Policy for airbnb so very involved in hospitality. And today i have the honor of working with my family business, which ensures more than 1000. Entertainment nightlife in hospitality businesses here in the bay area, so i am someone that speaks to small Business Owners in this industry every day. Um i know all the pain points. I try to be really involved in local politics because, as ben said, government isnt going to come in and solve our problems. We have to be out there, organizing and advocating. And um i truly believe Small Business and what nightlife brings are the cornerstone. Ah of our community and our city. And so, um, i try to be very, very involved in that and one of the things that i think are barriers to rebuilding nightlife here in San Francisco is rising costs and especially in the insurance and Risk Management space. Much of that is, of course, connected to Public Safety issues. So thats why im here today to speak to those and hope to expand on that a little more as we delve into the discussion. Good afternoon, folks. My name is dave paulsen. Uh my interest in this i am on the Entertainment Commission. I was also spent a decade plus managing all the Liquor Licenses for the Police Department. And just really quick. I know we are a fun target. If anyone watches the Entertainment Commission, i get ribbed a lot being the Police Department representative, but i did want to point out ben may not even been born when this took place. But some of you that have been around. I saw mark rennie back there. There was a time in the in San Francisco. When if you wanted to get a Liquor License, you had to go to the district station captain. So that meant we have 10 districts, 10, different narratives, 10 different ways of doing it in 49 square miles. We significantly changed that, and thats when i came along, and we actually created like it or not. What we now call the al you the abc liaison unit. That works directly with the abc. But what it did accomplish was it gave us one central voice so it gave people a place to take their story. Take their Business Model and actually get an answer because it was brought up earlier and i completely sympathize with the people are signing leases or putting money upfront. Theyre making big investments. Well, not that long ago now. Over about 15 years ago. You were shopping that and you never knew what answer you were going to get now. I like to think the Police Department still doing a solid job. I believe we are, although im not involved with it anymore, but the goal is to share the experiences that we see in the trends that we see and help to make your Business Model move forward or, frankly, if you have a great Business Model, but in a very tough spot to give you a heads up. This could be very daunting. Its your problem to move forward. But anyway, thats was my background for almost 15 years with the Police Department now i do a totally different task. But i am on the Entertainment Commission. Thank you. Born ben 15 years. Yeah you thought that the blue army tear no worries. Hi my name is dave, also known as dj. Midnight um San Francisco born and raised been deejaying for 20 years in the nightclub game for 10 years. Um i want providence on polk street as well as d m p d. M p is my company where we manage djs, promoters, venues, staffing events. Um, yeah, so thats pretty much what i do. Hi my name is ray bob. But im a partner with city nights weve been in business for 38 years. Same location. Um, i have seen the city. Change a lot. Um but weve certainly been involved in the evolution of the nightclub business. When we started. We were and ive been there for 34 years. Um we were in a basically a Warehouse District myself and stephen and others were it was just warehouses. Um and that evolved and all of a sudden we found ourselves surrounded by neighbors, so we played a pretty Critical Role in making sure that there was a alignment between residents, um, and nightclub venues, especially ones that have large capacities. So and weve played significant roles in just kind of helping the nightlife safety process develop my part of the Community Police Advisory Board for southern station im also on the chief of police is African American advisory committee. Um and so we work in alignment with the Police Department with respect to nightlife, safety myself and michelle and you know, barry and glad and others have have i have worked and to develop a south of market nightclub coalition where we would meet with our captain prior to the pandemic. Where we would work on solutions for safety. And so im really excited to sort of bring that that experience here. Uh and, you know, offer that you know, whatever direction and pathways we can to get through this time. Were in now, uh, us being here for 38 years. Weve seen it all. And we can tell you one thing, then mentioned the earthquake. We were here when that occurred. And it really created a situation in which we had to market our product and market ourselves out of that. And so, um the Previous Panel talked about baby City Government not being that great at promoting, but the best group of people ive ever met that promoting and doing, prs us. So its a great opportunity for us to bring nightlife back and happy to be a part of the panel. Dont you keep that microphone down there, and well do like a snake draft. Here. Um itll keep going back and forth like a fantasy. That was a fantasy reference. Sorry. Um football, fantasy football. Not my personal fantasies. Um okay, so the first question and well start with the with the venue operators is just specifically around safety and security. Um um. Yeah on the streets inside your venues nearby. In your general area. What what are the biggest things that have changed since covid that seemed to be still going on now. Well, i think that we have a venue that is a large capacity venues. So when we let out we have a lot of people. On the streets. Um but i have to say that we are doing probably better than we did pre pandemic so i know weve heard a lot about the struggles in the city and one of the reasons why we believe were doing well is because were promoting. And were talking and speaking to our customers. And more importantly, were creating a pretty safe environment for them from our standpoint. Um so the thing that is really changed for us as weve had to extend our perimeter further. Meaning that before we were really focused on the areas within the best practices of, you know, 100 yards, whatnot. But now its important for us to go further. And so what weve done is weve hired private security. Weve you know, encouraged our customers to park in in in certain areas. Weve distributed information to our customers with respect to car break ins and how you can prevent that from occurring. Weve distributed that same information to them with respect to cell phones, so weve really spoken to our customers, and we really made sure that we have done a good job at communicating with them very clearly where they should and shouldnt park where they . You know how they should behave. They should we say be like, you know, bananas and stay in bunches state. Close to each other, um, make sure you come in groups and so weve been doing that and we did that before the pandemic, and were doing it now. I think the other thing that we do is we work closely with the with the Police Department. If were having an event where we have an expectation of larger numbers, we do a pre Operations Plan and we send it to the precinct captain for the tournament officer. And so we make sure that they are aware of what were doing. So if theres any confusion or anything happens, they can be aware and at least if theres not enough resources to come immediately, they can set up passing calls. And so thats something that we have been very proactive. And weve always been proactive, but weve had to just extend our perimeter further. Weve had to go out further to make sure that our customers understand that. These are the dues and they dont say if youre going to be in the city. A lot of our customers are coming from the suburbs. And so theyre not used to not putting their laptop or their purse on their front seat. So theyre inviting a break in so because weve been doing that weve had less and less, um, you know, break ins and less and less, um , incidents, so thats the difference. Men from the perspective of what changed is we really feel like we have to go out further. And so in order for our customer, its a cost we have to incur. But in order for our customers to have a good experience, weve sort of taken on the responsibility as a private business to do that. Yeah i think to add to that. Um you know, they dont call us beep city for nothing right . All the cars out here getting broken into you see in the daylight nighttime, you know, its just a reality. I think that you know, sanchez goes in right now. And, um i think a few years ago. It wasnt such a big thing. In my opinion, um, nightlife where you had to worry about. If your car your customers cars were going to get broken into and stuff like that. But i think the most important piece here is, you know, um, awareness and talking to your your staff about being aware about whats going on outside. You know, youre talking about extending your perimeter, but also being outside trying to prevent things from happening and being aware of like, you know, you see a car passed by a few times. Maybe you should Pay Attention to that. Maybe um, would you let your customers know like, hey, if you had anything in the car, make sure you you know you dont leave it invisible. Um, and stuff like that, um yeah, yeah, back to, um, being in touch with pd and stuff like that. I think that thats absolutely very important. You know, when i when i got in this this club game, i felt like everybody was worried about like, okay, you have to deal with the cops or entertainment like its gonna be a problem, but really, actually, its not. Its the opposite. Its like theyre here to help you. And then as you start to work with them, you realize that, um and i think you know when we have these big events with artists or athletes coming by and stuff like that. You know, ill shoot a quick email or a text message and say, hey, can we . Can we get a passing call . I know 10 b is not very realistic. But you know if we can get a passing, called out that would help and just get that extra presence on the street to deter any other problems. Um another thing that, um we started doing after their, um the pandemic was escorting customers to their car. So if we saw you know a group of girls or you know you know somebody whos got a lot of jewelry on or not even just that. But anybody who looked like they meet need an escort to their car. The dj with their backpack the photographer would say, hey, where are you parked at . Okay can we can you wait right here while we get another group of people and well walk you guys all together as one to your vehicles. Um and i feel like that thats actually made a really big difference for us. Well, i think both ray and dave summed it up. Well i think something and that this is evolved. This was even before the pandemic, i think people serious about their business do recognize the Police Department as an asset as an authentic partner, and i think i like to think the days of theyre out to get us, um are in the rear view mirror. But there are realities right now, and that is we have to do more with less and i gotta be honest. That was a narrative. We started 15 years ago, and were now down 600 cops. So it has pivoted. Uh um. But with that said, i think communicating with your district station, giving them the heads up about events that are coming up. I think if you have the communication, or you set up the communication with the district station knows that maybe you are going to have a v i p or even when you see that car loop in the block that just isnt looking quite right. You can always call the non emergency 5530123 and request a passing call. If were available, we will respond. Any time. We put a marked unit out in front of a business. If thats what were being asked to do, well do our best to be there. And um, that alone can get that bad actor to pivot to somewhere else. And thats the first big step. But i think the quick takeaway here is building an authentic relationship with the Police Department. Take the time out. Go to your district station. You can just walk in the captain may not be available were always we are 24 7. Still god willing, isnt going to change anytime soon. I dont see it happening. But make a visit in there making appointments for the captain, if you can, or the permit officer or the administrative sergeant and Start Building that relationship, because a lot of us still live in town. A lot of us have our kids going to your venues. Were going to your venues. We wanted to be a positive experience. From kind of like high level of you. What we were seeing during the pandemic is a lot of property claims. This room knows very well lot of glass claims. Um and we are still seeing that, but its all about what folks were saying earlier, which is about foot traffic so downtown. Im seeing that a lot more but in other areas like hayes valley west side of the city. Mission or seeing that foot traffic coming back and some of my clients payroll and sales are higher than ever. A lot of it, i think has to do with park lets and extra seating that they didnt have before. So thats giving me a lot of hope going forward, and i think the path to recovery downtown is paved with culture, nightlife and entertainment. I really excited and invigorated by some of the ideas. That were discussed today about the entertainment zone and some of the changes were seeing there. Um but it what is kind of a dark signal for me on the insurance side is costs are soaring. Carriers dont even want to write nightlife anymore. If you own a bar or a club in the city, you know you have, like one or two options and even that might be really limited on the admitted market, you might have to go into access and surplus lines. Folks are paying like 50 k 100 k for insurance, so there are a couple ways to bring down those costs. And there are people that specialize in this, but that to me is kind of a looming, um, barrier as were trying to rebuild this industry. Since you have the microphone, and were on the subject of insurance. So i think a lot of us here have seen our insurance costs mind doubled at a small bar. So were at 50,000 a year. I think for a tiny, tiny little bar, which is insane. Um what can you give everybody here . Just an idea of like. If there is any recourse towards the cost of insurance, how one might strategically go about finding maybe different options. And then a follow up to that is on the policy side when you actually file a claim, um, weve seen claims denied. Um uh, in my cannabis dispensaries on little technicalities that theyre trying to do, and im sure thats happening. Um and mass on anything they can. What . What . What choices do you have when you see a claim denied and how do you go about fighting that or going about it . So start with the cost of insurance questions. There we have you here, you might as well this is this is real stuff. Absolutely i think everyones seen the papers. State farm isnt even writing new homeowners here anymore. A i g less stopped, uh, last year. Progressive mercury have come into my office and said, if you want to keep being appointed with us, you wont write anything. New. Carriers are not making money in california. They want to leave the state. Um so the ones that are staying there. Rates are going up. Um and already nightlife, of course, has the stigma of being very high risk when it comes to underwriters, so when it comes to bars, there are still a couple of admitted carriers riding it, but the more entertainment you have the questions on underwriting or like is there a dance floor . Is there dj . Do they have security . All the things they had up here is, um, things that im really excited about is an Entertainment Commissioner. And as someone who wants to help rebuild this city are things that insurance carriers hate like to go alcohol and entertainment zones. So, um. Its really unfortunate that this is a very conservative industry. The goal right now for most large carriers, is to diversify outside of the state and not to write new business here, so there are two things within the Insurance Industry. There is the admitted marketplace thats regulated by the department of insurance. It has more set rates. Its known for better service. It doesnt have weird. Exclusions so when youre in the non admitted marketplace, which is where cannabis is, which is where theres a lot of theres live music dance floor that youre most likely going to have to go to the excess surplus lines marketplace which is not regulated by d, o i. They can write up whatever exclusions they want, and youre more likely to get your claims excluded. My recommendations are to work with an agent who specializes in hospitality. Their relationships with underwriters really are going to matter. Their volume with underwriters are really gonna matter. Theyre going to have to go out and negotiate. Exceptions for you. And when you get a claim, denied someone who really understands the ins and outs legally, who can be there to be an advocate for you as well . Not someone whos just like well. Too bad. Im sorry. Um but of course, the more you can have strong contracts in place with vendors. Um with anyone with security with anyone that you can. Whos youre partnering with to protect yourself and have them add you as an additional insurance if theyre smaller claims that you can cover yourself without filing them all the time. That gives them a reason to non renew your cancel you the following year, and your costs are going to go way higher anyway. If you can install Central Station burglar alarm, Central Station fire alarm. Um that all helps to bring down your rates. And if you can, um, really, just cater your scope of operations to what they will allow you to do. So its like, if you want to have live entertainment, you can have live entertainment, but its gonna result in much higher insurance premiums, so definitely like look into those costs and what that means for your overhead as youre looking at your scope of operations. Um, what else . Let me see here. I took some notes and check your online presence, especially have been having trouble. Um im a queer woman i love writing queer bars and having a lot of trouble right now with underwriters who are looking up social media content of different bars and clubs and saying like this is Adult Entertainment because theres scantily clad drag queens on here and declining them, and in some cases, there are no markets. Willing to write them, so make sure your social media content and your digital presence is as clean as it can be when youre up for renewal because thats the first thing theyre looking for. Wow. Um scantily clad drag queens, the scourge of the Insurance Industry can speak to that one is like like, i dont know. Um uh, lieutenant falls on, so i have some questions for you. So given the reality were in right now. Yes that, um there are break ins of bars and restaurants and clubs and, um, so the first question is this is a technical term that i dont love. But how do you how do you kind of what . What are some tricks that or some proven methods that operators can use to dissuade. Uh bad actors as you describe them from targeting them specifically. So. The first area always start in, and its actually a trend that started in americans actually gone all all over the world, and its called Crime Prevention through environmental design, and what its really talking about is if were just talking about the front of the premises. Look at your space. And if youve got hedges that are completely overgrown if theyre infringing upon the front doors, anything that creates concealment points where it gives that bad actor if thats where were going to use the opportunity to play with your doors to punch the door open to whatever. So the basic stuff is things like lighting. Controlling landscaping, um, making sure you have a door that actually is secure. You know a lot of these older doors. It doesnt take much to boot him open. Um and then where its appropriate. How much glass youre actually going to have exposed and whats going to protect that glass or youre going to put some metal over it or youre gonna you know a lot of times, theres opportunities to make it artistically pleasing and actually do work with an artist and create something that actually hardened your facility. Um but also, um, makes it more protected so i would start with that. And i think the other part is you just dont want to go dark at night. If you can avoid it, so you know the obvious stuff. Motion detectors. I mean, sin talked about burglar alarms , all that kind of stuff that all helps, but but i think its important to take that moment of pause across the street every once a while and look at the front or back of your business or the sides. All these vulnerability points. And just make sure everythings operational are their life. You have a side alley, our lights working and you got to seek that balance. Because this is dense San Francisco you put in spotlights. Youre going to be blowing up. Your phone has been ringing off that the next day that none of your neighbors can sleep because every time a cat goes by the whole alley lights up, so you got to seek that balance. Can you talk a little bit about Security Cameras, too . And so thats an interesting conversation. When i first started presenting to the Entertainment Commission, this is almost two decades ago, they were deaf on Security Cameras. Um and then what weve seen a progression of is they are a real asset. Um and i think the Police Departments working very hard and this isnt something we did in great length in the past , but what were trying to do now is if a crime occurs, we want to canvass the neighborhood for all cameras. If its on private businesses or anything else to get that evidence, so i personally am a huge advocate of cameras. I think its great to put up signage to let people know theres cameras. I think its important to make sure their operational. I dont think decoy cameras are very effective. Frankly i think people are smarter than that. Um but theres a tricky component now, covid added a whole new element because now you can safely walk down the street with a mask on. I wouldnt want to be a bank teller these days. But that changed things because we do see a lot of footage now where you cant really discern the person because theyre wearing a hoodie. Theyre wearing a mask, and nobodys thinking much of it because of you know, the kind of post covid world were in. Just on the Security Camera notes. So ive actually found Security Cameras have been effective when crimes occur, but even more effective when insurance claims have well exculpatory, and we are able to just download insurance, uh, video of what the person said happening did not happen. Not happen to them. And those those those random claims just go away. For sure. Excellent so this is for dj midnight. So at providence, when you were in operation there are inspectors were summoned there just lots of times for, uh unknown reasons, and they routinely described your security as some of the best theyve ever seen in the city of San Francisco. So can you describe a little bit about what you did with your security and why . It was so effective . You think yes, well, one thing i want to circle back on the masks thing. Um one thing that we started doing was no ski masks. Um and the guys are worried about covid. Its not a ski mask thats going to protect you. Really so its just a no. If they come up, its not put it in your car and come back. Its just youre done for tonight. Youre not coming in try another day. Um and that that has really helped us because we found that when we allow people to come in and say, oh, take it off. They go to the bathroom, and here it is again and then its a whole another problem of trying to get them out of the club now with the ski mask were telling to take it off. Rather just not let them in with it. Um speaking about security guards. Um i think its really just being in tune and aware of everything thats going on every night. We have meetings with the security guards, the bartenders, the waitresses, the managers, um, sometimes together, sometimes separately, and well ask him. Hey, how was tonight . Anything come up, you know it was. Did anybody get kicked out . Why did they get kicked out . Did you see anything suspicious . Anybody pull up outside . Um anything even down to is a customer unhappy . Can you tell me a bit about why that was so and so got kicked out for being drunk. Like well, how did you guys handle it . Um and that really just opens up the dialogue where um we can have a conversation on how they handled it. Maybe its not the way that you know, wanted as he handled and so that gives us an opportunity to talk about. Okay well, next time if this happens can you try to do it like this . Or did you absolutely have no other way except to do it this way . Why was that and also giving us an opportunity to get the full story . Why its fresh and um, and we can write an incident report on it and keep notes on everything that happened. Um i think a part of that. Thats a big part of it. Um is the meetings at the end of the night. Also the meetings before night starts. So you know, right before were about to open the doors. Hey this is what tonights looking like these guys are at this table. Those guys are at that table. We have a birthday here. Heres what you can expect. I know this group. I dont know this group. Hey this is coming in tonight. Looking like a busy night for general Mission Today is not um, just kind of giving them you know, all of the information needed to really gauge on what kind of night its going to be, um, i even talked to them. Sometimes about hey, tonights one of those kind of parties where i think people are gonna try to sneak in through the side door. Make sure you have a guard there tonight, and theyre really diligent about staying there and they dont ever leave their post. Um so i think its really just about being in tune with whats going on with your business. Um and not being afraid to have the conversation with your staff. About what to look out for. Fantastic um, so we have about less than five minutes here, so i wanted to, um, just have, um, so it sounds like your your business is thriving, right . Or or maybe not thriving, but your your numbers are doing well and just from other than increasing the perimeter, which seems sounds like a um, its worked really well for you. How. What what other things do you do similar to today . That where you with your security to make sure that they are as effective as possible on any given night. Yeah i think that doing regular reoccurring training is really critical was security. We have a monthly mandatory training. One of the things that Insurance Companies look for whenever theres a claim because they want to see your training records. They want to see your agenda. They want to see what you train on. How you train. Um oftentimes you have to provide a, um, a training manual and we have people that we provide a training manual. We focus on certain very specific things. Um we also the Entertainment Commission has been great because we know now that we can call for Services Anytime its not. But before um, when you you could be a disorderly house if they looked at your cab report, you had too many calls for services. But somewhere along the line, the Entertainment Commissions that actually if you call for services if something is going if you feel like somethings going to happen, call for service and then you can you know it wont go against you, you know, and so a lot of times, nightclubs and rest, you know places have been concerned about calling the ambulance for somebody who might be struggling or calling the police if they feel like theres going to be an altercation or somebody is going to happen, so calling for services immediately is something that we know that there is no restriction on that. Um and we also feel like cameras are critical. I mean, we feel like we live in a damn age, where everybody with a cell phone is a journalist, and we feel like people who want to do bad things dont like cameras, and they dont like being on camera. And so we felt like that was critical for us to do so. Those things with the training piece for us and just like, literally role playing, identifying people who are coming out of the venue who may look intoxicated, um, setting up, you know, rides for them just going to taking an extra step because those are the people who typically can become victims. And so if we can be proactive with respect to who becomes a victim we feel like from a security standpoint, overall, thats going to be super helpful. And then finally just, you know, i want to know we talked a lot about, um, downtown, but i have to say that places like 11th street. Places like the marina. Poke. We want to invest in places that we do when people come to town, and they say, hey, where should we go . We say these places and so we want to also not just invest in downtown, but we want to invest in our current, um, places where we have high concentration of entertainment. So yeah. Alright. So while you have the mic 30 seconds each what are you hopeful for . Same question as before. Im hopeful for us to focus on the bay area. We have moved away from trying to, uh, focus on getting people back to our business from around the world which weve had over the years, but the bay area we have one of the largest populations of people, so if we focus on the bay area, thats gonna be something thats critical. The other thing is. I started out talking about the perimeter. We have a lot of hot dog vendors and people who are unauthorized that are sort of in the space in our perimeter. So were looking at legislation where we can have certain zoning rights for entertainment, where we can actually manage things a little easier from that perspective, but we gotta keep marketing. I think were in a healthy position in San Francisco with respect to entertainment and nightlife, but we have to market and were probably better at it than anybody. Fantastic. Im hopeful that nightlife is starting to make its way back. Um, i think the first you know to beginning of what it was 2020 or end of 2021. I think a lot of people were still kind of iffy about going to the club because of covid and stuff. And then i see omicron in 2022 hit and everybodys like, oh, shoot covids back now i feel like people are ready to go partying. We just need to give him a good reason to, um, come back out. Awesome. You know, um the first thing i think of, and this is so grossly overused but world class city but from the mouth of the native who stayed here who raised his kids here who still lives here. Who does a lot of travel. The world is fascinated with San Francisco. We have such momentum behind us. And whats amazing about San Francisco and so few places in the world can say this. You dont say. San francisco, california when you travel you dont say San Francisco usa, you say San Francisco and everyones heard of it. So we have tremendous momentum. I think ray made a great point early on him, and ben said this, too. If were going to rely on San Francisco, and this is coming from a guy with 30 years with the city to market this town. Theyre going to do what were gonna do a we can do, but but you folks are the ones that create these stories. I mean, the mayor alluded to some early on about the fun things that can happen in this city. And you know the old line which stays in vegas. What happens in vegas stays in vegas. We were doing that long before vegas even was on the earth. Get to that same man. San francisco has been through much , many more, many darker days before this, and we have rebuilt ourselves stronger and better every time and i truly believe that we are that city who can survive anything, and we are the most innovative creative city out there. Ive lived all over the world. Ive traveled all over the world. I will always come back here and call it home. I also believe were at this very unique Inflection Point of Political Leadership and political will from the community to focus on safe and clean streets, Small Business and creating a new downtown for us. Um i dont think remote work is going away. Maybe well see some changes and it will be mitigated, but we do need to create an arts and Entertainment District. We do need to revitalized tourism and bring folks back. I think the rest of San Francisco is well on its way, and we just need to bring downtown with us. Awesome. Yes so thank you so much. Ill just close with some thoughts of my own. Um so ive been at the table for these conversations about bringing the city back and what its going to take, and theres all these ideas out there. Housing and all these things. I dont think that night life is going to be a part of the recovery. I think its going to be the cause of the cranberry and i actually truly believe that, so i think everybody in this room in our greater community. If this city is going to recover, its actually going to come from us and not from anybody else. And if you look at the issues that are facing the city right now that we need to fix up entertainment is the cure for almost every single one of them from work from home. You dont want to work from home. If theres something cool going on on friday afternoons that you you absolutely want to go back to the office for tourism. Obviously nightlife is the main driver of tourism and hospitality, clean and safe streets. Nothing makes the streets safer and cleaner than a 24 hour life and bodies outside , and thats what we bring to the table, even some of our issues with the police, where they have been demoralized and public sentiment against the police went in a in a in a direction that led us to have a lot fewer Police Officers in the city that we need if we as a community or clamoring for them. Weve we have created. And we can be the ones who who tell the city leaders that this is what we actually need back. And then, of course, downtown, which weve heard about, so i actually think were the cure for this and it is a once in a Generation Opportunity. If anybody has a couple Million Dollars you can buy like a Office Building downtown. Right now. Its just basically free so with that said , i want to thank all of our panelists. I hope this was an interesting conversation, and i hope it was helpful for everybody. And i do believe in the future of the city. So thank you. All right. Thank you again to all of our panelists. If you could just go outside, follow Deputy Director azevedo here for a quick picture. Um and now i would like to pass the microphone to our final speaker of the day to give closing remarks. The fabulous Vice President dory camino. Welcome dory. Thank you. Um can can you guys fun . Police people . Just kidding. Im just kidding. You guys know that president blind man has a podcast called the fun police. Are you part of the 20 subscribers . Im just kidding. Its a really good podcast is one of my favorites. It really is. Um you dont get to hate it unless you love it. Those lines are from the last black man in San Francisco. And those words ring true when it comes to our beloved city. San francisco is more than a place. Its more than a feeling its more than a home. And you dont get to hate it unless you love it, and i can see that love shining brightly in all of you gathered here today. So thank you, each of you for being here and joining us at the 13th annual entertainment of it. Together were forced to be reckoned with, driven by our passion for nightlife, entertainment, arts culture and the people that make our city vibrant. And theres a special thank you that i just want to give out to all the madams that were here today. Madam mayor breed madam laureate darcy and madam director weiland. And all the city and Community Leaders that were here today and leading these conversations around strategies support solutions that are facing our Nightlife Community. As we bring today to a close, i want to leave you with a challenge a challenge to tell your stories. San francisco nightlife is not a dying flame. Its alive and pulsating with energy. It is not dead. We are not on a defibrillator. We are not in hospice care. It is time to say no to the negative narratives that surround our city. Despite all the complexities and challenges we face, there are countless bold and Beautiful Moments that occur every minute. And leave a Lasting Impact in our lives, so its our duty to share these stories. So tell your stories. Thats the call to action that i want to leave here with you guys today. The press may not tell these stories, but we can and storytelling is not marketing. Its not metrics. Its not content curation. It is not facebook, instagram and just those things. It really is our culture, our tradition and our survival. So let us rise above the noise and tell our citys nightlife stories. As mayor, breed said. When we come together, we make great things happen. This is the story of our nightlife. The story that needs to be told San Francisco offers endless opportunities for fun and excitement. So lets carry the spirit of celebration into our entertainment summit happy hour at a non permitted establishment called gambit. I know that. Okay . I was told that was my talking 0. 5 81 hey street , so we hope to see you all there. And lastly, i want to emphasis emphasize that we are not just mission driven. We are data driven and there is a survey we need you to take so that we can tell your story is better. The qr code street, so please help us and take this survey. Its anonymous, and i think it was written by. Its a Simple Survey by the beard and maggie, okay . Yeah not the bearded maggie. But the beard and maggie so thank you. And in the words of sylvester. The other legendary madam of disco. You make me feel mighty real and indeed it is each and every one of you who make the magic of our city come alive. So thank you. And lets continue to build a future where our stories will shine brightly. So thank you. Yeah right