Dear Members of the Land Use & Transportation Committee,

We are writing to express strong concern regarding File No. 250886, the Mayor’s proposed Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings ordinance. While we support the intent of preserving historic structures and revitalizing long-underused spaces, we want to raise a critical issue that appears to have been overlooked: the potential for cannabis retail and cannabis cultivation businesses to enter neighborhood merchant corridors through newly relaxed use rules for Historic Buildings.

Under this legislation, many uses that are currently Not Permitted (NP) in Neighborhood Commercial Districts would become Conditionally Permitted (C) or even Principally Permitted (P) when located in a Historic Building. This change is clearly outlined in Section 202.11(d)(3) of the ordinance, which states that uses not otherwise permitted in an NC District may become permitted in Historic Buildings  (FILE NO. 250886) 

While we understand the economic rationale behind adaptive reuse, it is essential to recognize the unintended consequences of opening a pathway or cannabis uses to re-enter communities that have fought for years to protect themselves from over-concentration.

Our neighborhoods, including the Sunset, Richmond, Outer Mission, Visitacion Valley, Portola, and Bayview, have already endured more than a dozen attempts by cannabis retailers to open storefronts in close proximity to immigrant, monolingual, senior, and youth-serving corridors. These communities organized tirelessly, and in many cases successfully, to prevent further clustering of cannabis businesses in areas where residents overwhelmingly opposed them.

Yet under this ordinance, long-protected corridors such as: Irving, Judah, Noriega, Taraval, Lawton, Clement, Balboa, Geary, Leland, San Bruno Avenue, and 3rd Street (Bayview)
could become newly vulnerable simply because a building happens to carry Historic status.

We are deeply concerned that this bill unintentionally creates a loophole that could allow cannabis retail or cultivation uses that were explicitly rejected by voters and families in these neighborhoods to be “sneaked in” through the Adaptive Reuse process.

Even more concerning is that Chinatown appears to be the only neighborhood exempted, leaving other Asian and immigrant communities without equal protection.

While we support adaptive reuse as a strategy for preserving our historic building stock and improving economic vitality, the City must not allow this legislation to undo years of community work safeguarding vulnerable commercial corridors.

We respectfully request the following:

1. Explicit exclusion of Cannabis Retail and Cannabis Cultivation from any new permissions granted under Section 202.11 for Historic Buildings.
   
   
2. Parallels in protection for all culturally significant immigrant corridors not only Chinatown especially where families have already expressed clear opposition to such uses.
   
   
3. Clarification from the Mayor’s Office as to whether cannabis uses were considered during drafting, and if not, a commitment to amend the legislation before it proceeds to the full Board on Tuesday.
   
   

For nearly a decade, San Francisco’s Chinese and Chinese-American communities have been some of the most consistently vocal opponents of marijuana storefronts in the city. From Chinatown to the Sunset, Richmond, Portola, Visitacion Valley, and the Bayview, families, seniors, parent groups, and small-business owners have repeatedly organized protests, submitted hundreds of letters, and turned out to public hearings to oppose cannabis dispensaries near schools, senior corridors, and immigrant-serving businesses. Their efforts led directly to the Board of Supervisors’ 2018 decision to ban cannabis retail in Chinatown, and more recently to high-profile community actions such as the “Pasta Not Pot” demonstrations in the Sunset. Across these neighborhoods, the message has been consistent: residents do not want cannabis shops concentrated in the cultural and commercial corridors that serve immigrant families, children, and elders.

Neighborhood commercial corridors are the cultural and economic heart of our communities. They must not be placed at risk intentionally or unintentionally by zoning changes that open the door to uses residents have repeatedly opposed.

Thank you for your consideration and for your service to our communities. We urge the Committee to amend the ordinance to ensure that cannabis uses remain prohibited in these sensitive corridors.

- Chinese American Democratic Club