At 4. 00, the burden of that additional cost to the individual that is coming from a low Income Community. The other is, while i may be very interested in sustainable practices, does not mean my coworkers are as well. I am concerned that while we are going to put a burden on the businesses to charge 25 cents, i am concerned there will be a counter act of not going after not compostables that are more expensive because they will be charging the people for them until they would just find a cheaper method of charging, because it is no longer seen as a positive thing that we are offering a compostable as an alternative. Thank you. Thank you. My name is moses. I am the ice cream business. I believe you all know that i volunteer. The only thing i have a problem is that, how can i tell the tourists to bring your own cup . It is ice cream. How are we going to give them a reusable cup . If we want to charge them 25 cents because it is a tourist area. This is a tourist trap. Trap. Trap. I dont think that is right. I think whoever uh suggested, they have to come up with a solution. I think it is totally ridiculous. That is all i can say. Thank you. Any other members of the public . Anybody else want to speak on this . Okay. Public comment is closed. Commissioners . Commissioner ortizcartagena . Thank you everybody for speaking today and coming out here. I think everybody in the room once to go to the actual same place. I think we just have different opinions on how to get there. If youve seen recently in the news, very successful restaurants have been closing down and dropping like flies here in the city. As a Small Business owner i know how hard it is. Although the legislation is well intended, i know it is, its just further onslaught of those things that Small Businesses have to bear. I recommend instead of mandating things like this, they should incentivize it. Small businesses should do this voluntarily, and the city should put some skin in the game and say hey, if you do this, and you comply with Something Like this, we will offer some tax at the end of the year. Small business should not bear the responsibility for a cleaner San Francisco in the future. Its all of our responsibilities. Commissioner dwight gulf i agree we all have the same goal in the mind commissioner dwight . I agree we all have the same goal, the devil is in the details. To try and minimize the Financial Impact on Small Business which it could be considerable. Just the logistics. Were talking about a radical change in our culture. I think, you know, we would all love to be able to say were going to write legislation and we are going to enact that radical change in our culture. I dont think its going to work that way. Theres going to be a lot of pain and fallout in the process if we go about that approach. We may have some a recoverable damage. When businesses go out of business, they dont wake up the next day and think theyll start their business again because things are better. When they are gone, they are gone. We are seeing that at an increasing rate in the city. I dont want to push it over the edge with a piece of legislation that while well intended, it is one that is such a radical change in behavior that while i would love to see his take a leadership position, i do not want to do it at the expense of the Business Community here in San Francisco. Commissioner laguana . One thing i have been relieved to hear from all parties is there seems to be a general recognition that we have to move this direction. Weve got to make changes in society, we have to make changes in culture. We have to do something aggressively about making things better for the environment. I think even among the folks, that we have heard from today, that are in opposition to the legislation, it was encouraging, refreshing to hear that they have made efforts to reduce their waste and by the same token, it was encouraging and refreshing to hear for example the lady from surfrider, and openness from the people proposing the legislation to Work Together with the Business Community and try to make things better. One thing that seems, uh, one point of clarity that i noticed among some of the speakers there is confusion about who bears the cost of the legislation, the 25cent fee is kept by the business owner. However, one thing i think the people proposing the legislation should consider. In my industry we get a lot of fees, sometimes by law we can keep these fees. That is still, to an extent, a distillation among consumers when they have a variety of different choices against choosing our business. I think it is a fair concern for them to bring up. The challenging aspect for the position we are in, is that we are the ones i have to somehow bring all of this information together and then make a meaningful proposal to help improve the legislation, help make it work better for business , its extraordinarily challenging. I just want to say for myself, i dont run a restaurant. I really appreciate those of you who do who came down and spoke about the impact on your business and the folks advocating legislation. I hope youre listening as well. A couple of items that seem relevant concern to me. One is the gentleman spoke about the impact on the disabled, certainly in my neighborhood, theres a lot of shutins, elderly people, they might not necessarily qualify for sbi. I think even folks that are on sbi, i was once homeless. I didnt necessarily whip out my food stamp card every time i went to go buy something. I think there could be more nuance in the legislation about how we deal with folks in lower income. There should maybe be more conversations about that. The labor cost and the general pool labor, i can tell you for myself, as a Small Business person, there are folks i want to hire, unfortunately, those folks are not available to be hired. So, that is an ongoing challenge that we are facing in which we are understaffed relative to where we want to be. San francisco has historically low unemployment pool. So for businesses that would have to hire an additional staff person such as a dishwasher, or somebody to deal with this, i think that is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed. I dont know if it is possible to address it within the legislation. I think it is a reasonable concern. You know, one thing im still sort of struggling with is we heard a lot of testimony about folks that have been working with businesses and it has resulted in a lot of cost savings. There seems to be some tension between whether there is actual cost savings or its more expensive. We are hearing from Business Owners that presumably want to save that money. From my position, its a little hard to ascertain. I imagine there is a broad cohort of businesses, and for some there will be big savings and for others to be its an increased expense. I tend to agree that there needs to be more consideration of where the delineations are for these different businesses. Maybe that is outside the scope of how legislation is drafted. It would be certainly wise, i think, if we could do our best to figure out where those delineations are. The gentleman who makes the candy bars, he indicated he would love to go with a more environmentally sustainable practice. He cant, because his competitors have a cheaper option available to them. Clearly, foz will that case, reusable is more expensive for him. So, i feel like i need to understand more about where these delineations are. Making sure, as we move in this direction that i think we absolutely have to move forward. It is imperative for our society that we make these changes. We also have to understand that there are people, with the children, and families, and businesses, and they are struggling. If they are a Small Business operator it is why we are here on this commission. We hear about this constantly what a struggle and challenge it is for them. I would just encourage those of you that are in favor of the legislation to take as much time as possible to hear what is going on for them. I strongly support commissioner zouzounis comments, and commissioner ortizcartagena. If you are going to put yet another aloneness on Small Business to be the leader of these changes that we want to see there should likewise be a reduction, or some other mitigation, or uh some form, and i think it should be within this legislation so that it is clear. Some form of tradeoff. Whether it is lower litter abatement fee. That is one example. Right. It has to be a tradeoff here. These businesses, uh, i dont know any Small Businesses that are not under severe stress and challenge. So uh, i think uh we need to make more of an effort to support them through this transition that we all want to see. It cannot all be on the back of them. Thank you. Commissioner yee riley . Yes, after listening to all of the speakers i think it is clear we all support doing the right thing for the environment. It is loud and clear that we need to give more thought to the tourist business, as well as the to go business to come up with solutions so they can comply with this legislation. Thank you. Commissioner 1028 . Thank you everybody for your input, public and fellow commissioners. I think equity is paramount in the environmental movement. While i appreciate a lot of opinions, and case studies presented today. If you havent worked behind the counter, or register, or if you are not that low income person who buys a 1. 25 cup of coffee at the corner store, you cannot dismiss other case studies presented today, or potential concerns that people have. I think these line items, they really do add up. It is really important to understand which items that would fall into this. I alluded earlier that both purchases of nuts, or candy that are prepackaged, on premise, and sold, that is a concern. Someone could buy for different items in one purchase that would fall under this ordinance. That is when clarifying question i have. This is a bigger conversation prayed i would love to see San Francisco take it up in that form. Some of the most vulnerable in businesses that are going to be impacted are to go businesses at convenience stores. Actually, demographically, people in trade and military which are some of the biggest polluters and sources of waste. I would like to see, instead of penalizing communities that are on the other end of this, we really look into the Bigger Picture here and talk about it in a global context like it deserves. 1020 thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Would the spirit of this, i think we are all behind it, 110 . Would you, on this legislation, be open to test programs or pilot programs . Thank you for the question. Actually, i want to turn it over to jack macy from the department of the environment. This is in district seven and being piloted right now. Can i let . That was one of the concerns and the general public. That is something i would like. Good afternoon, commissioners. Jack macy with the department of the environment. You heard about the rethink program, that was quite a success, a few years ago. It expanded around, based on the epa ended expanded around the bay area, a varied every single one we saw was saving money. We were really impressed with that. We appreciate that supervisor yee riley did a budget add back to implement assistance in his district. We are about to launch in district seven, a rethink program to help businesses there switch to reusables. We are looking for sources of funds to continue that beyond the city. We basically have spent many years providing assistance to businesses. Creating a structure that saved businesses a lot of money. Our average restaurant by composting and recycling more. So, we are encouraged by the results we have seen. We are working with them to make sure this ordinance can work, be reasonable, be fair, be effective. It is very helpful for us to hear all of the comments today,. Anyway, i am here if you have any questions. Thank you. Commissioner laguana . I have a couple of questions. You mentioned add back at the supervisors office. What he used the funds for . This will be used to provide direct assistance to businesses. Kind of this rethink disposable model. What do you imagine that direct assistance it looks like what do you anticipate . The rethink disposable, which you heard two speakers from, they have resigned this model over several years. They meet with the business. They look at what they are using in terms of non reusables. They kind of look at how they can switch to them. Dealing with physical needs, in terms of storage and how that will blend in with the operations. Looking at that cost. They actually have calculators, spreadsheets and ways to walk business through. They will actually have a supply of reusables that they can often provide to get a business going. Talk to me about that part, the supply reusables. The end result appears to be cheaper. Yet, there seems to be resistance. It seems like these organizations are helping to bridge that gap. Im trying to understand how that gap is bridge, and whether that is something that can be scaled citywide . They are really the experts, they have been doing for many years. They have a great website and have done many case studies. A lot of Business Owners assume that buying single use, and disposables may be cheaper than buying reusables. When they account for those reusables and the cost of washing and they save money. The return invest within a few months. Theyre getting annual savings every year. These are calculations that the business makes and reports back. This program that you are doing in district seven, which is my district by the way. Im looking forward to washing dishes, what am i going to be doing . [laughter] when will the results be . We are about to launch it. In a month or so we will be launching it. It hasnt started. You know, based on the experience of the hundreds of businesses we have worked with we are confident there will be benefits to that. You know, whether a business goes through them, or not, you know, we have seen that there has been savings. Our approach and implementing ordinances is to provide outreach and assistance as much as possible and help businesses along. We are doing that with everything. We also do that with whatever shape this ordinance ends up as. My next question. Would you be willing to hold off pursuing this ordinance until we see what those results are . I mean, the only reason im asking that is enlisting the Public Comment. People that had issues with it, there big thing was the implementation right away. You know, we just want to make sure everything is in order. You know, them my other concern on this is the tourist area. That is the tough one right now. How do you address that. You know, what is your timeline with the legislation . I mean, a quick tally of Public Comment, there were a halfdozen people who were concerned, there were a halfdozen Business Owners who were supportive, then there were about 1. 5 folks that were from the Community Helping folks along with this process. I can certainly take that question back to the supervisor. I dont think we are inclined to wait for the results of the district seven pilot, provided we arty know what the result is going to be. I dont want to dismiss the fact that one of the advocates put up a list of just 15. Different types that show different cost savings. It wasnt all one type of business. Some were saving a few hundred dollars per month. What i would rather do is focus on how we are going to mitigate the potential for impact. How we are going to provide assistance to existing buckets of money that the city has to help businesses come into compliance with this. Otherwise, i think we know what has been demonstrated by the advocates across the bay area since 2013, if we want to say lets are doing outreach. Outreach has been going on for about six years, if not longer than that. I dont think that we have a whole lot of time to delay. We are in a horrible situation in this town with restaurants closing. Two tv stations down in los angeles were saying how restaurants are closing in San Francisco and a lot of them are moving down there. Its a lot friendlier environment. San francisco, i mean, we were there restaurant capital of the united states. When you lose that, you lose tourist business. This has a huge effect now. Like i said, i like the spirit of this. I just want to be so sure that when we implement this, it is something that is given back. I live in the castro. Half of the restaurants in the castro have now closed in the last two years. I just want to make sure that there is either a giveback, or something. I tell you. I nervous as hell right now especially with restaurants, and the small coffee shops and stuff, i love going to my local places and they are all going away. I would like to come up with something that is a winwin on both sides. What that is . I dont know. Im trying to get feedback. I like what william said here, you know, maybe if there is something we can get back, or something you said, like low hanging fruit with fees. I will point to the ordinance that was presented, item number three was a recalculation of fees that brought fees down that makes a placket system easier to comply with. Lets not look at this as a stick, it also does not exist in a vacuum. We are at the fate of the restaurant hearing just two weeks ago. If there is an right now for carrots for Small Business, it is right now. I do not think that this ordinance is going to kill restaurants. Im sorry, i dont think so. I look at an email sent out by the California Restaurant Association that disparages this as a tax, which says this is making changes to the bussing requirement that its not making. It says we are changing the straw bam which we are not changing. I look at this and the broader picture and see that a lot of the outreach and fear is being induced right now by other forces and other variables. People that would be happy to see us deregulate all of the Public Health and safety regulation we have in San Francisco under the banner of making a visit easier for businesses to survive. We can do other things to make it easier for businesses to survive. I think the imperative is behind this. If we all see this and get scared ab