Cannabis office gets supes’ OK, marching orders
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval Tuesday to a new Office of Cannabis and created two big assignments for its yet-to-behired director.
The director will work with the city’s controller and Human Rights Commission to prepare two reports by Nov. 1 — one that analyzes social disparities that may cause some groups to be left out of the cannabis industry, and another to make recommendations on how to keep medical marijuana affordable.
The board laid out those instructions in two amendments to the ordinance sponsored by Supervisors Jeff Sheehy and Malia Cohen, which set up the office.
Board President London Breed suggested San Francisco take a cue from Oakland, where lawmakers set up an equity program that sets aside cannabis business permits for former inmates and people living in neighborhoods with historically high numbers of marijuana arrests.
Given all the supervisors’ concerns over fairness in an industry that’s expected to boom, Cohen pushed for a temporary moratorium on new cannabis dispensary permits, beginning as early as September. The supervisors also voted 9-2 to approve Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s request to limit the number of dispensaries to three in the Excelsior district he represents. Supervisors Jane Kim and Sandra Lee Fewer dissented, saying it set a bad precedent because it allows the supervisors to do the work of the Planning Department.
The board also rejected a property owner’s attempt to build a hotel on Lower Nob Hill at the site of an apartment building destroyed by fire in 2010.
The developer 824 Hyde Street Investments, which purchased the property in 2015, received approvals in 2016 for 14 units of housing on the site, but reversed course and decided a small hotel would be preferable. The Planning Commission approved the hotel in June on a 4-3 vote, but Lower Polk Neighbors appealed to the Board of Supervisors, arguing that housing was a more pressing need than hotel rooms.
Allowing the property to switch from residential to hospitality would make a “policy statement that we don’t believe in a tenant’s right to return,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the area.
“This would be tantamount to saying it’s OK to have a fire and change use,” he said. “It undermines rent control. It undermines so many policies.”
Also, Kim introduced a law that would let voters know who is pouring money into local candidates and ballot measures.
Kim, a progressive, said in a separate interview that she became more acutely aware of the influence that money has over politics when she lost last year’s state Senate race to moderate former Supervisor Scott Wiener. He had a financial advantage of more than 2 to 1 from campaign donors and from people who invested money to defeat Kim.
She said she believes that San Francisco voters are canny and generally mistrustful of deep-pocketed contributors, but it’s not easy for the average person to slog through a tangle of campaign filings to find all the funding sources.
Her law calls on the city’s Ethics Commission to send pamphlets to all registered San Francisco voters, saying which outside committees supported each candidate and ballot measure, and where those committees got their money. It would also require the Department of Election’s Voter Information Pamphlet to clearly state which candidates accepted the state’s voluntary expenditure ceilings. And it would require radio and television campaign ads to disclose donors at the beginning, rather than at the end.
Other supervisors introduced proposals on a wide range of issues. Hillary Ronen pitched an ordinance to name the airport’s domestic terminal after slain supervisor and famed gay activist Harvey Milk. Sheehy, who is the only gay supervisor currently on the board, co-sponsored the proposal.
Mark Farrell pushed for a citywide ban on flame-retardant chemicals in furniture and children’s products. Peskin proposed creating an “impact zone” for businesses affected by delays in the Central Subway project, and to offer them financial assistance.