Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tobacco Permit topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board of Appeals overturns denial and grants tobacco-permit relocation for Save More Mart
Summary
The San Francisco Board of Appeals on June 20 voted to overturn the Department of Public Health’s denial and grant an exemption allowing a tobacco-sales permit to be relocated to 4522 Third Street, finding the planned work at 4500 Third Street includes seismic upgrades that qualify under Health Code Article 19H.
The San Francisco Board of Appeals voted June 20 to grant an appeal by Abdullah Joseph (doing business as Save More Mart), overturning the Department of Public Health’s denial of a tobacco-sales permit relocation.
Julie Rosenberg, the board’s executive director, opened the matter and the board heard three-minute presentations from Jeremy Paul, agent for the Joseph family, and Pat Buskovich, a structural engineer who described the permit application for 4500 Third Street as including shear walls, hold-downs and other structural work. Paul and Buskovich told the board that the planned work is consistent with the seismic retrofit language in San Francisco Health Code Article 19H, which allows a new tobacco-sales permit when a relocation is required by Chapter 34B of the building code.
Joe Duffy, a Department of Building Inspection (DBI) inspector, told the board that DBI had not yet had full access to the applicant’s drawings but that DBI records and a contemporaneous note from DBI’s structural reviewer, Robert Chun, showed the file application included shear walls and hold-downs and listed Title 24 special inspections for reinforcing steel, shear walls and diaphragms. Duffy said DBI had not made a definitive, written determination but acknowledged the permit application’s scope reflects structural work that could be associated with a seismic upgrade.
Patrick Fosdell, assistant director of Environmental Health for the Department of Public Health, said that DPH’s policy is to grant an exemption under Article 19H if DBI determines the relocation was required by Chapter 34B seismic work; Fosdell said DPH needed DBI’s written determination to apply the exemption.
After questions and public comment, a motion to overrule DPH and grant the exemption carried. The board’s recorded voice votes show Commissioner Anne Lazarus and Commissioner Adele Honda voting Aye, and Commissioner Bobby Wilson recorded as Aye; the presiding officer announced the appeal was granted.
What happens next: the board’s action directs that the relocation be treated as qualifying for the Article 19H exemption if the permitted structural scope is considered a Chapter 34B seismic relocation; DBI retained responsibility for reviewing plans when they are filed and for any formal written determinations that DPH requires to implement the exemption.
Sources: San Francisco Board of Appeals hearing transcript, June 20, 2018; testimony of Jeremy Paul, Pat Buskovich, Joe Duffy and Patrick Fosdell.
