San Francisco (kgo) – These days, the word “simplifying” seems to be the word “in” in the city hall. As you may have heard, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to make it easier for small businesses to go through the permit process.
On the day of his inauguration, Lurie mentioned some changes coming to San Francisco – including this.
“The era of a new restaurant that exceeds 40 inspections and getting 50 different answers is over,” he promised in the steps of the city hall.
If anyone had a reason to complain about the government’s bureaucracy, is Jose Castillo, owner of Cielito Lindo Taqueria in the Richmond Foreign neighborhood of San Francisco.
There was nothing “Lindo” or beautiful about the process of allowing the restaurant, which lasted nearly four years and thousands of dollars in tariffs while trying to fill in the required construction and planning codes.
“They put obstacles and obstacles and make your life impossible,” Castillo complained.
When he came to improve the electrical system, he was forced to add two meters, one for his business and another for the whole building.
Whenever he had to modify the plans, he cost him more money. All the time, he continued to rent while he was still closed.
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Mayor Lurie wants residents and business owners to navigate the permit process more easily by having most of it accessible online.
Katy Tang of the small business office is part of the permit reform team.
“We want to have that kind of kind process for anyone who is applying for any kind of permission to be able to see that trip, status and also have deadlines,” Tang insisted.
But there is another reason why the process is so complicated. The planning code consists of three 2,500 -page connectors. There are layers, layers, and layers of codes added over the years mainly by San Francisco supervisors.
So let’s get someone who is currently going through the permit process just to get a license to “serve” wine in the store where the wine bottles are already sold.
How can it be complicated?
“There is a place of nuclear waste. It’s a wine bar!” Said Bastian Schoell, who owns the Spanish table.
He told us where in the store he would like to serve a little wine. “So we are thinking of sharing here, the movement of retail items in the front of the store, maybe moving some of the summer here and what you see is being occupied by different things, would become a small bistro,” he explained.
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Schoell thought it would be an easy process, due to the H proposal which aims to simplify the process of approval for small business permits. Some taking only 30 days.
“We went through an application process allowed with the city thinking we could do it quickly and then hit this wall like, it will last six months and I can’t understand these forms. I think we’ll have to hire someone,” he added.
OK, it was received with 11 steps only to apply for a conditional use permit, including providing architectural plans, presenting plans, reviewing plans and a public hearing where one can weigh. Then there are these next steps.
He already has a type 20 license to sell wines in his store, but to serve a glass of wine with him, let’s say, a little cheese on the side, he needs a 42 -state -mandated license.
But there are more.
“When it is granted that conditional use permit, the issuance of alcohol license is then subject to the Board of Supervisors and the mayor’s sign, as get for a minute,” Schoell said.
Six months have passed already and Schoell has decided to hire a consultant who knows the process of permit inside and outside.
“I think it will cost us, between the consultant and the architect, it will surely go around $ 10,000,” he discovered.
Meanwhile, remember Castillo, the owner of Cielino Lindo? He is still paying his debt. But now that he has a business to run, Castillo admits he is a much happier man.
“I did it! That’s what I felt that time. I said to the city, you know, I did it, no matter what!” Castillo said.
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