Bill a boost for business

Assemblyman Phil Ting

Living in the west side has its upsides – more house for the

money, quieter streets and Golden Gate Park as your backyard.

However, one downside is a lack of restaurants where we can have a cocktail with

our meal. Traveling downtown to go to a full-service restaurant not only takes up our

time but takes foot traffic away from our neighborhood-commercial areas. Many of

our outlying neighborhoods struggle to fill vacant storefronts and need vibrant

restaurants as anchors.

To address this problem, I partnered with San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Work –

force Development and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association to author Assembly

Bill (AB) 471. If signed by Governor Jerry Brown, my bill will grant five new liquor

licenses per year, for five years, to San Francisco. However, these differ from regular

liquor licenses in three key ways.

First, the licenses are restricted to restaurants located along underserved commercial

corridors that were chosen in collaboration with the city’s Invest in Neighborhoods

initiative. Restaurants along Noriega and Taraval streets in the Sunset, as well as

Ocean Avenue, Mission Street in the Excelsior, Leland Street and Bayshore Avenue in

Visitacion Valley, San Bruno Avenue in the Portola and Third Street in the Bayview, are

eligible for the new liquor licenses.

Second, the licenses will cost about $13,800 instead of the nearly $300,000 that

conventional liquor licenses cost on the secondary market. Restaurants in

outer neighborhoods typically lack the revenue to recoup such a large investment,

placing them at a competitive disadvantage.

Third, the licenses cannot be sold to a restaurant in another neighborhood. When a

license holder sells or closes his or her business, the license returns to the state’s

Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to be sold to a similarly-eligible restaurant.

However, licenses issued under AB-471 will still require the community to be consulted

before one is granted. Those applying for a license must hold a pre-application

meeting with neighbors in the surrounding area.

This bill builds on the work of former state Sen. Mark Leno, who authored a new law last

year that created five of the neighborhood-restricted liquor licenses for San Francisco’s

outer neighborhoods. When issued later this fall, the licenses will be the first new liquor

licenses available to San Francisco in more than 70 years.

If my bill is signed, San Francisco will see a total of 30 new neighborhood-restricted

liquor licenses for local restaurants. This will provide opportunities for a new generation

of restaurateurs who previously couldn’t afford a license.

Brown has until Oct. 15 to sign AB-471. Please make your voice heard and urge him to do

so by contacting him through his webpage at http://www.gov.ca.gov. Take a moment today to

help make our neighborhoods thrive.

Assemblyman Phil Ting represents the 19th Assembly District, which includes the west

side of San Francisco.