Good afternoon.

This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the May 18th, 2026 regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I am Supervisor Mirna Melgar, Chair of the Committee, joined by vice chair supervisor Cheyenne Chen and Supervisor Bilal Mahmoud.

The committee clerk today is Mr.

John Carroll.

I also want to give a special thanks to Jeanette Engelauf at SFGov TV for staffing us during this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices that you've brought with you into the chamber today.

If you have any documents to be included as part of any of today's one file, you can submit it to me.

Public comment will be taken on each item on today's agenda.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak along your right-hand side of this room.

Alternatively, you may submit your public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

First, you may email your comments to me at J-O-H-N-P-C-A-R-R-O-L-L at SFGOV.org.

Or you may send your written comments to our office in City Hall.

That is one, Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place Room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

If you submit your public comment in writing, I will forward your comments to the members of this committee and also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are commenting.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of June 2nd, 2026, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Please call item number one.

Agenda item number one is an ordinance amending the health code to prohibit smoking in the outdoor patios of bars and taverns, eliminate exceptions allowing indoor smoking in bars with no employees, bars with historically compliant semi-enclosed smoking rooms and hotel rooms to conform to provisions of California law and repeal suspended and superseded provisions regulating smoking in certain other locations.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh colleagues, this is uh my uh legislation.

Thank you so much for being willing to hear it.

Um I will be asking for a continuance of this item to uh June 8th.

Um we have gotten a lot of communication from the public uh on both sides of the issue.

Folks who are supportive and folks who are not supportive.

Um but most importantly, I uh have engaged with some of my colleagues and the mayor who has offered to uh help us through this process by bringing people together and seeing if we can come up with a timeline and amendments that um work better for folks, and I am completely open to that.

I welcome the help from both the mayor and my colleagues who uh are seeking to have a path that uh is not as contentious.

So with that, I will be asking uh for your support in continuing this item to uh June 8th.

But since it is agendized today, uh we do have to pick take public comment.

Uh for folks who are here to comment on this issue.

Just keep in mind we will be uh continuing it to June 8th and not taking action today.

So uh I don't see anyone else on the roster wanting to uh provide comment or uh have questions.

So let's go to public comment on this item, please, Mr.

Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Chair, land use and transportation.

We'll now hear public comment related to agenda item number one.

If you have public comment for this item, please feel free to come forward to the lectern at this time.

And if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak on this item, you can line up to speak along that western wall.

Let's get the first speaker, please.

Hi, my name's Sophie Lewis.

I'm a manager at El Rio, which is a D9 legacy business.

I've been an employee there for about 10 years.

I'll just like to express opposition to this, particularly from the perspective of running an independent venue in San Francisco.

Um, I think everyone in this room probably knows that uh it has been a very difficult last decade, honestly, of trying to run an independent venue here.

Um, and more and more of those spaces are closing in San Francisco.

Bottom of the hill, the park side.

It's frankly ridiculous how few truly independent venues there are.

Um, El Rio has mostly for most of our 40 year plus history, allowed smoking on our patio, and that is one of the reasons that people do come there, and it would affect our income significantly to have smoking removed, um, especially quite so suddenly.

And um, yeah, I think that it would be very difficult also from the perspective of our employees to be put in charge of enforcing this, especially in a space where historically smoking has been allowed.

I think once again, everybody in this room knows that it is very difficult to make a living in San Francisco on service industry wages and putting the burden of enforcement on employees who are already struggling to survive right now in San Francisco.

It's one more barrier in the way of people having a successful life in San Francisco.

And yeah, I think that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

To the next speaker, please.

Hello, uh, my name is Sabatino Fusco.

I am a bartender and non-smoker at El Rio Your Dive.

Um, I am opposed to this uh ban, mainly for the reasons that um my co-worker Sophia stated that our one of our main draws is our back patio.

Uh we have daytime parties where people are dancing and having fun in the sunlight, and of course there's smoking back there, and it's a big draw for people to be having their alcoholic drinks and have a cigarette or vapor whatever they do, you know, back there.

And um I just feel as a minimum wage worker to put another policing cap on me on patrons that come in, is just more, you know, oppressiveness of trying to have people have fun, and you know, that's the purpose of our job is to have people come in and be entertained and have a good time, and to have to, you know, like wag my finger at them for saying no and then push them out into the street where they're out on a public sidewalk clogging up and congesting that just seems you know redundant.

Um, so yes, I am opposed to this.

I feel it's not a necessary thing, and that we are adults, we're in an adult space, and we have the choice whether to do what we want in those spaces, whether it be smoking or not smoking.

And as stated, I'm a non-smoker, but I don't care if people are smoking around me, and I'll move if I need to.

We're adults and we can make those decisions.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Supervisors, how are you?

Thank you for taking the time to listen to public comment on this matter today.

Uh my name's Dan Surratt, and I'm one of the proud co-owners of Finnegan's Wake.

Uh, my business partner Tom Frankel started the bar 50 years ago in 1976 in Noe Valley.

And uh he had the privilege in 89 to moving the bar to the old mod space when Ricky Stryker was retiring.

And so we have a beautiful beer garden.

If you've not been there, please come by any time.

Um, since we've been at the Coal Valley location since 89, we have not received one complaint ever about smoking in the backyard.

So if this was an issue, you know, we would make adjustments, and I would think that this matter would be more relevant to our current times, but it's not.

And we have so many important things for this city to be focusing on.

We should not be in the press for this type of legislation.

So I respectfully request that you guys kill this matter at committee, and this does not go on any further.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon.

Uh, my name is Steven Torres.

I'm a nightlife worker, former entertainment commissioner.

Uh I, you know, I am heartened to hear that there are amendments and that there has been help from the mayor's office, although I will ask that you do withdraw this ordinance.

I feel that in terms of what it will do to our industry, the impacts are only negative.

We will be tasked with both being the enforcement and we will also be the targets of penalties if we cannot make that enforcement happen.

The there are lots of ways in which I believe that there could have been outreach done in advance of this, not after the ordinance was already introduced.

So I think it is a little bit of a cart before the horse.

I've heard of a long runway.

I've heard of framing around like we're just creating a conversation.

I think if that was true, we would be having a hearing on the impacts of smoking or the state of the nightlife industry, not an ordinance.

I think that that is the work that we entrust our representatives to do in advance of any legislation.

And frankly, the city has a lot of opportunities in which they can directly enforce against things that create health hazards like smoking.

I was just on the nine on the way here.

There was plenty of smoking of all kinds of substances happening on that bus.

And so that is a way in which the city could be enforcing directly.

So I feel all due respect that the city has lots of opportunities to do their job here instead of making ours more difficult.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Tatiana, and I'm here speaking on behalf of Youth Leadership Institute, a local youth development nonprofit.

Put the mic closer to your mouth.

Just so that we can hear you.

It's not picking up.

Yeah, thank you.

I'd like to express my support of smoking-free bar patios because second-hand smoke and nicotine fumes are harmful to both public health and the environment, though.

The two programs I lead is high school youth in San Francisco.

We work to promote healthier communities and educate young people about the harms of tobacco and nicotine.

Although many of my youth we work with are not yet enough to go uh work at bars.

When the day comes, I want them to be safe from secondhand smoke and nicotine vape fumes on the bar patios.

Bar patios should be welcoming to everyone, including people with asthma and other diseases that make them vulnerable to smoke exposure.

Our youth are working hard for the world uh without nicotine addiction.

They know that smoke-free bar patios can help inspire your friends in their smoke of vape to quit.

Please vote yes today to make San Francisco to become a little safer for the future of our youth.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Justin Dozel.

I own uh two bars in San Francisco.

I'm also the president of Small Business Forward, which represents a number of other bars.

Uh, I'm glad that we are having this conversation.

I've had many conversations about this issue since it came up.

They have been overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly negative.

Uh businesses, patrons, people who believe the city could be doing so much more to help our small business community rather than finding a problem, we can all agree is real, and taking the stick to small businesses to enforce and solve that problem.

This will have real substantial effects on small businesses' bottom line as they are still struggling to come out of the pandemic.

As we've heard, the burden of enforcement will go to small business workers who already have so so much to do, and fines associated will go to the small businesses themselves.

Uh it's an issue that I think we can agree there should be so much more done on all the things that we face as business owners in San Francisco.

Rising rents, for example.

So I urge you, please vote no on this.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hello.

Uh my name is Julian Ensworth.

Uh, good afternoon supervisors.

I run a small bar in the mission district.

Uh I just want to say that I'm aware that there has been a continuance place on this proposal, but I'm here to give public comment as it stands.

Uh I'm here in solidarity with the uh other small business owners to vote no vote no on this uh number.

As I see it, we have more pressing threats to public health in San Francisco, and uh coming after the few smoking patios left in the city will damage small business and do nothing to dissuade smoking at large.

San Francisco Nightlife already faces uh extra obstacles to make it difficult to compete nationally and internationally, and being such a cosmopolitan city, our reputation as a travel destination needs to be considered as a factor in promoting tourism, bringing more people to San Francisco.

I feel this ban is unnecessary and out of touch, out of line with promoting small business, which is the backbone of our city tax revenue.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Zach.

Uh I own the Occidental Cigar Club on Pine Street.

Uh, we are a 32-year business.

We are employee operated.

Um, most of the things I wanted to say have already been echoed.

Uh the beauty of patios in the city is that there are many that do not allow smoking, and not everyone has to go to a patio that allows smoking.

We have choices.

Um, I just personally signed a six-year lease.

I've got another almost quarter of a million dollars in an SBA loan.

I just signed a six-year lease.

I have another quarter of a million in SBA loan that I'm paying off post-pandemic.

The reality is that I don't think you can say that you support small business, and on the other hand, have this thing go through.

It will kill me, it will kill the cigar bar, and it will gut slowly.

Everyone else who's spoken here.

And I can think off the top of my head ten, eleven bars.

I'm not even really trying to think, that will absolutely lose their market share.

So I'm encouraged that there's been a continuance that you're going back to the table.

Um, but the point is is that you you if this thing does go through, we're all screwed.

You know, if you're an owner, if you're an operator, if you're an employee, uh, so I look forward to continued conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Mary Kemp.

I am a resident of San Francisco, and I represent the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

For 10 years, I worked as staff in restaurants.

I have asthma.

I know what it feels like to spend an eight-hour shift breathing air you didn't choose.

This is fundamentally a worker protection issue.

Bar employees cannot opt out.

Customers decide whether to sit on the patio.

Workers don't get that choice, they go where the tables are.

Right now, one in three young adults in San Francisco and Alameda counties are exposed to secondhand smoke at work.

These workers are disproportionately low income and Latino.

They are already doing everything right, showing up, working hard, and we are allowing them to be harmed for it.

The CDC is unambiguous.

There's no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure.

Even brief damage, brief exposure damages blood vessels.

For someone with asthma or a heart condition or pregnancy, brief isn't brief enough.

And unlike customers, workers absorb that exposure every single shift.

In a city as dense as San Francisco, smoke doesn't stay on the patio.

It drifts into the apartments and homes next door.

Children in those homes are breathing at two.

And for children, secondhand smoke means respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma attacks.

When your livelihood depends on your employer, you learn not to complain about the conditions.

That's not consent.

That's economics.

We don't ask our workers to advocate for ventilation standards or slip-resistant floors.

We set a standard because individual workers are rarely in a position to advocate for their own safety.

I ask for the continuation.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Brian Davis, district five voter, co-chair, San Francisco Tobacco Free Coalition.

The so-called choice to smoke is heavily influenced by a powerful addiction to a deadly drug that for nearly everyone who smokes started in their teens when their brains were developing.

Nicotine rewires the brain so it feels like it can't function normally without it, making it extremely difficult to make any other choice but to smoke.

So do we accommodate that addiction or do we work to end it to help people free themselves from the chains nicotine wraps around their minds and the damage smoke and vape chemicals does to their bodies?

We know that increasing smoke-free areas helps people quit.

If smoke-free patios helps just one person get the extra incentive they need, isn't that worth it?

Are we really trading human lives just to calm the fears of financial losses that decades of research show won't happen?

If smoke is nearby, you'll breathe it, and there is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure.

If it's on the sidewalk, you might have to walk through it.

But at least you can get away from it.

On a bar patio, there is no escaping it.

People say if you don't like it, go somewhere else.

But there are other reasons to be on a bar patio than smoking.

What if a band you love is playing there?

What if this is where you find your community, but your health is at risk?

Intersex community leader David Stracken, who couldn't be here, wrote in his letter to you, quote, I often go to my neighborhood bar to socialize and visit with friends and neighbors.

While this has been quite pleasurable and beneficial to my mental health, sitting on its outdoor patio and being exposed to secondhand smoke has not been beneficial to my physical health, as I'm immunocompromised and get bronchitis easily.

If the smoking folks who I want to socialize with are on the patio, I have to endure the smoke in order to connect with them.

Unquote.

And we uh support the continuance.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Liz Williams with Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

We're a nonprofit based in the Bay Area for the last 50 years.

We strongly support the proposal to end smoking and vaping on bar patios, and this will help everyone involved breathe air that is free from the health risks of second-hand smoke exposure.

This ordinance, as written currently proposed, would create a level playing field so that all bars are on the same footing.

Not only will it provide equal health protections, but a simple, strong and fair law makes it easier for everyone to understand, follow, and comply with the law.

San Francisco has been a leader and innovator in tobacco prevention, but this is not a new idea.

More than a hundred and twenty other cities and counties in California, including San Jose and Oakland already implemented smoke-free bar patio laws.

These laws work well in practice, and cities have not rolled their laws back.

The majority of people simply follow the law when there's good signage and awareness.

People just step out to the curb, have a smoke, and come back inside.

That's proven over and over again in cities around the state and around the country.

I also want to highlight that at ANR, we often hear from workers who don't like breathing secondhand smoke, but they feel like they don't have a choice if they want to keep their job and they don't feel comfortable speaking up about it.

They love where they work, they love being part of the dynamic hospitality industry, but breathing smoke night after night, it's harming their health, it's harming their ability to do their job.

And we think that people should not have to choose between their health and their paycheck.

I encourage you to support this reasonable health and safety regulation as written to allow more people to breathe air that's free from toxic secondhand smoke exposure.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Liz Hendricks.

I'm the government relations director for the American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network, or ACS Can.

ACS Can stands in strong support of the smoke-free bar patios ordinance in San Francisco.

We believe that all San Francisco residents deserve to breathe clean air in all indoor and outdoor spaces, and we're concerned about the health of the neighbors and families who are exposed to the dangerous secondhand smoke that drifts from bar patios into their houses.

While bargoers do have the ability to choose which bars they want to attend, many families living next to these bars do not.

This includes many children, seniors, and people who are at an increased risk of respiratory illnesses and decreased lung function.

There's no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure, and even a brief exposure can cause immediate harm.

Secondhand smoke exposure has been shown to cause respiratory infections, ear infections, and asthma attacks in children and in babies, secondhand smoke can cause sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.

While ACS Can understands the economic concerns that many of the bar owners and employees have shared today around this ordinance, evidence has consistently shown that smoke-free air laws do not result in the long-term loss of revenue for businesses or business establishments that adopt these types of policies.

There's a 2005 study of California's statewide 1995 smoke-free restaurant law that found that the law was associated with an increase in restaurant revenue.

Where similarly, the 1998 smoke-free bar law was associated with an increase in bar revenues.

And additional studies have found similar results in other states.

We urge you to support this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Hi there, my name is Brian Sawyer, and I live in San Francisco's 10th district.

I'm here to speak in support of supervisor Melgar's proposed policy.

For 20 of the 30 years that I was a service worker, I lived in states that had no secondhand smoke protections.

I had tried unsuccessfully to stop smoking for many years due to the constant exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace, indoors and out, I couldn't.

Then I moved to San Francisco and was finally able to quit smoking while serving in a restaurant blocks away from here, 22 years ago.

I'd like to share a quote from a former bar worker recently recorded at a San Francisco Pride event.

I worked in bars for years when you could smoke in bars.

When the law changed and you had to smoke outside, it actually resulted in more people quitting and really resulted in a good effect, a more healthy effect.

Also, just as a bar worker, you're really entitled to have health and safety as part of your job.

And having to be in an environment that has smoke, harmful chemicals, and second-hand smoke, even outside has a huge detrimental effect.

I have support forums to give you, signed by 13 patio bar workers and a patio bar co-owner.

Two of them work at bars on the opposition's petition list.

They all signed this statement.

I support a citywide policy in San Francisco that would protect the health of workers and customers by requiring all paid areas of every bar to be free of tobacco and vape smoke, including patios and semi-enclosed rooms.

Some of the workers signed anonymously out of fear for their jobs, including one who works at one of the bars on the opposition's list.

No one should have to fear for their job by speaking out in favor of protecting themselves and other workers from toxic secondhand smoke.

Also, please note on the petition page that the park site is marked as being in district 11 when it's actually in district 10.

Thank you.

Continuation, please.

Thank you for your comments.

You can leave that on the rail, I'll retrieve it in a moment.

I'll keep them until I can hand them.

Okay.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Joseph Hayden, and I'm one of many would be patrons of bars with patios.

If I felt welcome to inhale unpoisoned air there.

We were one of the first cities to protect workers by banning indoor smoking in the 1990s, yet today we have a glaring public health blind spot.

Parks, restaurants, patios, and indoor spaces are rightfully smoke free by law.

The outdoor patios of our bars and taverns are still caught in a toxic blue-gray haze.

It's time to pass an ordinance that finally makes bar patios smoke free, like the other two large cities in the Bay Area have seen fit to do.

Six out of the nine locations registered in the EPA's unhealthy air quality range, with one hitting the hazardous threshold.

Among friends, particularly as we age, the harms of cancer, asthma, HIV, and diabetes are all examples of immunocompromised.

These people should not have to plead for clean air.

To suggest that we stay home if we don't like it, because it's part of our culture is completely concocted and abhorrent.

I feel this, particularly as a gay man myself, and that's tantamount to saying that meth is an inherent part of gay culture.

So I I fully support the ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

So the next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Nicole Burnett, and I am representing Zeitgeist, and we stand in solidarity with the following um establishments and businesses and organizations in opposing this ordinance.

El Rio, Small Business Forward, The Stud, Horsey's Market and Saloon, Casements, Mothership Bar, Mother, The Alembic, Powerhouse Bar, The Park Side, The Laundry Corner, Kilowatt, The Knapper Tandy, 540 Bar, Finnegan's Wake, SF Dyke March, and the National Harm Reduction Coalition.

While we respect the board's concern for public health, we believe the legislation is misguided in its scope, timing, and priorities, and we urge the board to reject it.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Peyton Daniel.

I'm here also representing Zeitgeist, and we are here to um oppose the ordinance for banning smoking in patios.

The outdoor patio smoking bans, strikes at an establishments that have, in many cases, built their entire business model around the legal use of these spaces.

Cigar bars, legacy neighborhood taverns that serve a clientele with well-established preferences.

These are private business businesses, hosts, hosting consenting adults.

The exception that allows smoking in bars with no employees, and in historical compliant, semi-enclosed smoking rooms was not a loophole.

It was a deliberate and reasonable accommodation of real world business diversity.

Limiting eliminating these exceptions will force some establishments to close entirely or to lose a critical portion of their customer base at a time when San Francisco hospitality industry has not fully recovered from the compounding crisis of the pandemic, downtown vacancy retail flight, and public safety concerns.

The city's restaurant and bar sector lost hundreds of businesses of businesses in the past five years.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Next speaker, please.

Hello to the board of supervisors.

I am a co-owner of a small business located in the mission.

And I'm here today to ask that the board vote no on the proposed smoking ban, file number 260361.

While I respect the board's concern for public health, the proposed legislation is misguided in its aim and priorities.

An outdoor smoking ban contributes to the existential threat of many of San Francisco's most beloved locales, some even legacy businesses that serve as lights in the city's already faint nightlife.

By placing yet another barrier upon small businesses that currently face legislative demands far beyond state and federal requirements.

In addition to the threat of losing business, the legislation as it is currently written places enforcement responsibilities on bar staff and management.

Monitoring outdoor spaces and navigating potential conflict that may arise from asking patrons to put out their cigarettes or to move to the streets, bearing risk of citation if patrons refuse to comply, are the last things that we need to be worrying about on top of our regular operational duties.

Additionally, while the proposed legislation is well-intentioned in practice, it will do little to make public health safer because it just displaces the issue.

First, outdoor smoke dissipates within seconds after cigarette smoke is exhaled, and exposure falls sharply with distance.

And second, allowing outdoor patios for smoking, areas where people can choose not to inhabit should they not wish to be around smoke, controls where smoking is allowed.

Instead of pushing smoking patron patrons onto the streets where other businesses like restaurants and retailers might be affected.

Even in a country like Japan where smoking is not allowed on city streets, smoking is permitted in outdoor bar patios.

In a time when the city is still recovering from the economic blow of the COVID pandemic, the Board of Supervisors needs to be focusing its priorities on legislation that actually serves the city and its economy, like creating affordable housing and addressing storefront vacancies.

Our bars are small businesses that are the employers, tax base, and fabric of the city's culture.

If we want to keep San Francisco a city worth living in, please vote no on the proposition.

Thank you for your time.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, supervisors.

Um, my name is Gwen McLaughlin, and I'm here today as an enthusiastic bar patron and also an organizer with Small Business Forward, and I'm here to ask that you withdraw this ban on smoking on our bar patios.

Uh, while I appreciate the intention behind the ordinance, I just can't really wrap my head around why this legislation is a priority in the city.

Um, I hear politicians pay a lot of lip service to their commitment to supporting small businesses in San Francisco, but this is something that will unequivocally hurt our small businesses and their staff who work there.

Um, uh, both of whom will bear the brunt of both the enforcement and the penalization from this legislation, which seems particularly unfair.

Um, I think also people have already addressed the fact around that like if you are someone who likes smoking on bar patios, if that's not allowed, you will certainly be smoking on the streets in front of those bars, which are neighbors to parklets where people are eating their dinners outside.

Um, as of right now, there's no ban on smoking on the streets, and I think that's a really important uh piece of this puzzle, and I think that's a good point.

I also want to add that there are um over 20 bars signed on to the petition right now, along with this petition has been circulating for about a little over two weeks now, and there are two thousand four hundred and ninety-six signatures on that petition.

So, this is clearly something that San Franciscans are following, they're paying attention to, and they are not in support of.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Bob Gordon.

I'm speaking as a gay man as a resident of District 8 in the Castro and as a volunteer with American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, urging you to support this ordinance, this clean air ordinance.

So I moved to San Francisco in 1993, and in 1993, restaurants were still smoke-filled, but it wasn't long before all restaurants had to clean up their air.

I remember it well.

Some restaurants really panicked, saying that clean air would somehow put them out of business.

Didn't happen.

In 1998, smoky bars had to clean up their air.

It wasn't easy, but again, some bar owners panicked, saying that clean air would somehow put them out of business.

Again, didn't happen.

Today we hear some bars panicking.

Some saying that they tried to restrict smoking on their patios, that clean air on their patios would somehow unequivocally hurt our bars as was heard today.

It's actually the opposite, and we know this from decades of smoke-free restaurants and bars.

Clean air attracts more business.

A policy like this one creates a level playing field, no more discrimination.

Smoke-free bar patios mean that everyone can enjoy the vibe, the music, their friends.

And if someone wants to smoke, they head to the curb to smoke, eager to come back to enjoy the vibe, the music, and their friends.

Harmful chemicals have no place in our city.

Discrimination has no place in our city.

There should no longer be toxic exposure on patios, period.

Clean air can be good for business.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, members of the land use committee.

Thank you for your leadership and your time to discuss Supervisor Melgar's ordinance.

My name is John Ma.

I'm a 32-year resident of San Francisco.

I'm a general surgeon at Chinese hospital.

I was the 2018 president of the San Francisco Marine Medical Society and a previous president of the American Heart Association who have both supported this legislation.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the Medical Society, who are one of the sponsors.

I agree with the decision to continue because I believe further education and further conversation will be really helpful to identify ways to help the smokers who are visiting these bars to help them quit.

I'm a surgeon.

I've seen the hidden costs of society from smoking that we often don't discuss.

Wound infections, failed operations, readmissions to the hospital, prolonged ICU stay.

These cost our nation's hundred our nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

It's been estimated by UCSF researchers that the costs of smoking burden our state, burden our city.

$500 per resident and nearly $5,000 per smoker.

Our city has a very long history of leading the way in tobacco control.

We led the efforts to end the use of chewing tobacco at Oracle Park and Major League Baseball Stadiums all across America to support the tobacco tax and to stop the sales of flavored tobacco products and to rain in the e-cigarette industry.

We're here now because in 2014, Supervisor Eric Maher led efforts to end smoking on restaurant patios.

There was an exemption created for bar patios, but afterwards cities all account around us, surrounding us in the Bay Area adopted his model ordinance but eliminated this loophole and exemption.

I fully support closing this.

Thank you for your consideration.

And I hope that we have a very thoughtful conversation moving forward about the ways that we can help San Franciscans quit smoking.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Kristen Nevins from Small Business Word.

I want to thank Dr.

Ma for also thinking about a different approach to how we might approach the challenge of smoking on patios.

At the Small Business Commission last month, the small business commissioners all voiced a concern about how this legislation came about and how there had been a lack of outreach and an outpouring and outcry from uh bar owners that had um just recently become aware of it of the proposed legislation.

A lot of bars have been really innovative on things related to public health, um, providing condoms for HIV prevention, um lids for cups to avoid uh roofes, Narcan distribution to help prevent overdoses.

Um we care about our patrons and we want to see health solutions, um, but I do think this also needs to be balanced with very real business plans.

I don't think it's um fair to discount what these bar owners are telling you that there's a significant amount of clientele that come to their business to use their patio for smoking.

Um there's a also on the same um docket of the Small Business Commission, there was the proposal to add cannabis cafe licenses, and so on one hand the city is saying let's just uh discourage smoking, but on the other hand, is also permitting and licensing smoking in cafes and indoor spaces.

So I do think that there's a balance to be struck, and I appreciate that we might find a path forward that brings uh the businesses along and also does it in a way that won't hurt them financially, so that they'll be forced to close.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Amanda Webb.

I want to express my support for this ban.

Um, I'm a volunteer for American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network, and a resident of District 5.

And I want to reiterate that the CDC states that there's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Um, as a stage four colorectal cancer survivor, and once having been immunocompromised, um, it it takes logistics when determining what's a safe environment for someone in that situation, and I support this ban to um eliminate that barrier and make it an equal playing field for all.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have anyone else who has public comment for this agenda item?

Madam Chair.

Okay, without public comment on this item is now closed.

Um, colleagues, as you could hear from public comment, people feel very differently uh on this issue.

I do think that uh there can be a path forward that negotiates um timing, definitions, enforcement, all of these things.

Um I uh don't want to withdraw this legislation because I think it is a legitimate public health issue.

I understand that um it will affect the business plans of businesses, and I uh definitely don't want to harm uh businesses.

I also think that we live in a seven by seven square mile city that is very dense with uh rent controlled units above many of these patios where people really don't have a choice whether to move, because we are in one of the most expensive cities in uh the country where giving up your rent control department is actually a big deal.

So I think that there's multiple points at which people can have different interests, desires, dreams, hopes.

I totally get that.

And for us in the legislative branch, that's our job is to come up with a path forward that weighs the different uh dreams, hopes, and desires of constituents um in our city.

And uh I want to thank everyone who came uh from the community for the business owners who are worried um about uh your businesses.

Uh, I want to make sure that we support you, but also that we support the public health and the folks who have not given their consent to breathing smoke uh when um they can't get away from it.

So I think both things may be possible.

Um we uh will continue working on it.

So therefore, colleagues, I ask uh that um you support me uh in making this motion to continue this item to the June 8th meeting.

Um, and we and I you know gladly welcome the help from my colleagues who have offered help to try to bring people together and come up with some amendments.

Mr.

Clerk.

A motion offered by the chair that the ordinance be continued to the June 8th, twenty twenty-six meeting of this committee on that motion, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I, Member Machmod, I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar, I, Madam Chair, there are three ayes.

Okay, that motion passes.

Mr.

Clerk, is there anything else on our agenda?

There's no further business.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.