And report on the final regulations and permitting for adultuse cannabis, the office of Small Business and Small Business assistance center, Department Programs policy and legislative matters announcements from the mayor and announcements regarding Small Business activities. I will have a lengthy directors report since we have a short meeting tonight. To start with the legacy business program, so, ria algonado, our new staff person is handling communications for legacy businesses so we have now started producing press releases after the businesses come on to the registry. And as a result, we are now generating more press for these businesses and wanted to highlight that tomassos received front page of the business section on december 7th above the fold, so it was a really nice article. I was there last night. First stop, off the plane, dropped my bags, went there, and they are so delighted they got that mention in the paper. It will be framed and placed along the other mentions they have had. Many decades of history. That is fantastic. And the more of that we could do the better. Right. And hood line is very dedicated to really doing articles featuring the legacy businesses. But now we are making it easier for them to be up to speed on whose being added to the registry for them to do articles. So im very pleased about that. We started the logo and branding project. I made a list of whose on the committee. We had our first meeting last tuesday. And the first part of this project, which is the logo and brand identity, were we are estimating including for a business to be on the registry, is it a requirement to be open and operating. Thats one question that we should ask ourselves. Since interruption is allowed for two years, then potentially a business that got on the registry could, during those two years open and continue operating. So shutting down, if that is not a finality, it is not a condition, not a reason for removal. Being dormant. I think if you get on the registry and you cant interrupt your business for two years that question is premature. That person has two years to come back and operate. The question is how do we indicate it or not. In other words, i have not seen anywhere in our regs that says if you are a legacy business, for some reason you have an interruption, you will have to justify your existence on that legacy. So you have two years to recover. Am i right, or wrong . This is good for us to explore because there could be a situation where i business has to temporarily shut down and relocate. I think it goes back to the intention. If they intend to keep their Business Registration current. But we will bring that back for you. Because i do think it merits some discussion or procedural way in which staff and the commission handle the situation. Okay, good. Today there was a press conference at teds market. And ill let commissioner zouzounis talk about this during directors report. With senator wiener, mayor lee and director rafael from department of environment for sb458, which senator wiener sponsored. And it allows cal recycle to approve up to five local jurisdictions to develop a Pilot Program that would allow for new and innovative redemption and collection systems. So right now the way the law is written, [coughing] its written as though, when there is an entity that triggers a convenience, there needs to be stationary recycling center. As San Francisco, we have been moving away from stationary recycling centers and using our land use in that way. But whats happened, i think, and you all are very familiar with this, our Small Businesses have become the de facto recycling centers. So this will allow the city to develop a program, hopefully we will work with cal recycle, department of environment to make sure its something they will approve and in doing something that will meet the requirements of the number of recycling centers that the state deems the city needs to have, so our Small Businesses are no longer having to act as our recycling centers. I also want to, i didnt make a note of this but i also want to bring to your attention, there is office of tourism. And its been fairly quiet, but it recently came to our attention because of a letter they received saying they owed 300,000 to the office. As a business that was associated with tourism. Which was not quite accurate but we are still trying to flush out sort of exactly the criteria and the notification process meeting with that particular office. But i wanted to bring it to your attention because there could be businesses receiving a letter from the office, from the office of tourism saying you owe a fee to the office because your business has some nexus to tourism. I received one. You did . Yeah. Quite out of the blue. So we will be putting an announcement in the newsletter because we do want to hear from businesses who are receiving this to try to really understand sort of what is their nexus. Around associating businesses with tourism. Theoretically San Francisco is one of the number one tourist destinations. So could they say every business in San Francisco has a nexus to tourism . There is an exception at 1 million and or if you have less than 1 of your revenue goes to tourism. It will be interesting to hear, commissioner dwight, what your communication is with them. But its pretty much nearly every single type of business. It has the potential for a nexus in terms of their list. We were under the thresholds but i thought it was outrageous to receive the letter, frankly. It would come as a great surprise to any Small Business. And this idea that because be have chosen to be, to stay in this city because it is the city and have the city turn around and tax us because we want to call ourselves sf made or San Franciscobased businesses is really when we are paying all the other taxes we are paying, really seemed to be pretty crazy. Right. And its the state and so, we are taking a look at it. There is a group, there are several of us, including o. E. W. D. Having some discussion and trying to develop a little more information to figure out what the, i think the plan of action the city wants to take around this because i dont think that we are concerned. The biggest thing it was a complete surprise. In ten years of being in business had never seen anything about this. And then to get it out of the blue, especially during these difficult times, seemed just like, really . Cut me again. Are we aware of any other state that has the same kind of fee . We havent looked at it. I know this was, the bit of information i do have, this was a bill that was passed in the late 90s, perhaps when schwarzenegger was governor. I think it was pete wilson. Pete wilson. We looked at it. We arent sure, we had one meeting with sf travel. We arent sure how aware they are, this seemed a little bit of a surprise to them as well. This is supposed to be an office promoting tourism for the state of california, so you would think our sf travel, our local organization would be aware of, sort of, how this works. I assumed it came from the city. I didnt know it was from the state. Oh, interesting, okay. Do we have any idea what kind of fee they are charging . Its based on a percentage of your sales that goes to tourism. I dont know the exact percentages. I can get that information for you. I can bring my notice in next time, just for fun. And maybe this isnt appropriate but is there any advice we could give our businesses . Are they going to get a fine if they dont pay it . I think we are doing some research to figure it out. We are doing some research. I do know what has been told to us from the office of tourism is they arent doing any sort of back retroactive. They are looking at now moving forward. Okay. Ill go into it a little more later but the mayor did sign the cannabis legislation on 12 6, on wednesday. December 6th. So it goes into effect friday january 5th. And i will talk a little more about that later. There are some local ordinances that have been referred to the Small Business commission. And we will work on scheduling these for january. One is supervisor peskin has introduced legislation amending the planning code to spell out some more specific definitions around retail sales and services for formula retail. Then there is a planning Code Amendment to regulate restaurants and bar uses in the Jackson Square special use district. We will be hearing an administrative code process for establishing cultural districts. Its in the works and its being amended. But the idea when cultural districts are being established and there are legacy businesses, they are proposing a process where the Commission Weighs in and provides some feedback in relationship to the legacy business section of the cultural districts. And that one you are definitely hearing on january 8th, we will be getting some information out on that. And then supervisor ronan has introduced controls for Mission Neighborhood commercial district around lot mergers. Which i think she also introduced some interim zoning controls, which is further down the page, which i think those two things are related. The interim zoning controls will immediately go in effect while she works on the longterm controls. And then i want to highlight that supervisor peskin has introduced an initiative ordinance. This would be for the ballot. Dealing with business tax regulations and administrative code dealing, adding an additional gross receipt tax on commercial rent. I will send out links to those so you can start reading the legislation. And then we did i wanted to bring to your attention, occasionally there are pieces of legislation that are referred. Such as on page 3, the geary masonic special use district, these are when specific parcels are going through redesignation at zoning, the planning code for development purposes. So this is where the lucky penny diner was next to trader joes. If thats the parcel. Development is happening here. So what i am now doing is responding that the commission will not hear it but that we encourage the Planning Department to have the developers do adequate outreach with the surrounding businesses. While theres not a lot of surrounding Small Businesses but across the street, the corner across from target and they are heading down geary toward the ocean, there are a few Small Businesses in that area. Its a busy intersection. So i can imagine with the construction it could get very congested and sort of interrupt. It could have impact for those immediate businesses surrounding it. And then there was a sugary beverage tax ordinance that was really clean up ordinance referred to the commission but it was an administrative cleanup ordinance. So for the cannabis legislation, just a very quick run down of the 12 sets of recommendations that the commission that you recommended and what was included. So the board of supervisors adopted your recommendation to allow a 2step process for what we are now calling the preexisting nonconforming businesses. They will have to cease operation to be able to stay in the queue. And will have to sign a declaration they are ceasing operations until they find a zonecompliant place. But at least, this is a process to allow them to be able to be in the queue for permits, article 16 permits, come january. Allowing cannabis to share spaces. Supervisor cohen actually introduced the ability for small retailers to share space. Each retailer has no more than 350 square feet of retail space and we are still determining the colocation regarding manufacturing. The state regulations, there may be an ability on the manufacturing side making a determination on that. But even if the state allows it, i dont know that we need to legislate it because we have similar processes in place already for manufactures who colocate space and its not legislated. Then onsite consumption. So there will be the ability for existing operators and some, existing operators who are now article 33 going into article 16, who will be able to do onsite consumption and smoking. There are some very specific criteria, so it will be interesting to see how this will work because some of the retailers do not have the space. You are required, if you are going to do smoking, you are required to have a separate room. So i think some of these details are still to be determined as to how they will be flushed out. The board of supervisors did create a pipeline for applicants who had registered with the department of Public Health but had not had their planning hearing. Theres some nuances with that and i will explain that a little bit more at a followup. Okay. And then, i think probably the most important thing is, to your point, item 6, commissioner toursarkissian is allowing for the transition from nonprofit to forprofit business structures during the application and transition from article 33 to article 16, or the preexisting nonconforming as they transition their business. So that process is being worked out on an administrative end. And then item number 10, which is the 600foot radius. The 600foot radius was maintained from a school. They very clearly specifically put in the land use regulations there is no minimum radius for Cannabis Retail use to existing daycare center. There was a lot of discussion about whether to include that at the board. But it was made very clear that this was to be kept at the school level. For public and private schools. But then in addition a Retail Cannabis use, in addition to the 600foot radius from a school, the second measurement is 600foot radius from another Cannabis Retailer, or medical Cannabis Retailer. The exemption to that is if a small retailer, thats going to be occupying 350 square feet within an existing retailer, they arent subject to that 600foot criteria. Could i ask a question about that . Uhhuh. What if its a nonRetail Cannabis license . The nonRetail Cannabis license is not subject to that 600 feet . Yeah. Its still to be determined are you talking about . If theres a distributor and a retailer, does that still apply, that 600 foot . Im not sure that distribution. We would have to go back to the zoning whether distribution is allowed. I dont have this memorized, allowed where Cannabis Retail would be. It may not. It may not. Slightly different for delivery entities but for distributors. And then lastly, to this commission, which was also very important is the local hire percentage. So for those that currently have a permit under article 33, they are required to do a 35 local hire. And those that come on under article 16, new permits that are issued, they are going to be required to have 50 local hire. I forwarded to you the Research Paper assessing the enforceability of local hire preference programs. I want to get on this. I want the City Attorney to be notified. Im hopeful that the local hire requirements applied selectively to private enterprise and unrelated to government contracts and involving public funds are unlawful. And so, maybe we will be that base case. But this is going to be, this is going to strangle this business, this industry, having to hire local like this, its ridiculous. We need to get the City Attorney on this one right away. It should be top priority for us. The request has been put in. When they do an official recommendation, it does it isnt like an immediate sort of email back. It has to be vetted through a process through the City Attorneys office. Im waiting to hear back from our City Attorney on the estimated time line. We should definitely dog this. I cant believe this hasnt gotten press, or the industry hasnt screamed about this. This is a landmine for them. Even if they get approved, theres a nonstarter if they dont hire. I would like to read the last sentence of this paragraph. Says director of office of cannabis may approve time limited reduction waiver by showing of the cannabis business in general it was unable to locate, for that cannabis business specifically, was unable to locate a sufficient number of qualified local residents. Its such a high burden of proof, that is very difficult for a business to come up with evidence that it tried and could not. So this is important, including this aspect of what passed. Submitted to the City Attorney. And then the last thing, yes. Also for the office to itself establish criteria, it took us a while even with the legacy Business Assistant grant in terms of verifying the number of f. T. E. s and it takes at least an hour per application for rick and ria to go through and see how they are doing verification and thats a Pretty Simple verification. The amount of staff time it will take to verify this. What are we verifying . On the citys end to be verifying what a business, you know, like to create established criteria what businesses need. You are talking about, what you mentioned commissioner toursarkissian is how a business is going to prove the efforts. But also the city needs to sort of establish some criteria to say this is the steps we need to see you have taken, to see if you arent qualified for the waiver. I think its fundamentally unlawful. We should start with the City Attorneys office. The last thing i wanted to, just make sure the commission is aware of. The first set of processes that we are working with in getting ready for the january 5th is to work with article 33 businesses, those that have article 33 permits so they can file for their temporary license and then be working them into article 16. And then the next criteria is working with those that do not have article 33 permits. What we are calling preexisting conforming and are in a properly zoned place and getting them through the process and inspection so we could issue a temporary permit for them to b