list that was provided to us by the planning commission to reach out to local neighbors
he personally did the walk around with the petition to talk to neighbors and get their
feedback and as the board can see we have an extensive support petition attached with this
We understand that the purpose of the 2019 change is to separate the bad actors from the good actors.
The smoke lounge as an operation has often been looked at.
Some operate quietly without issues and some allow alcohol and other things to get involved and become essentially like speakeasies that causes problems for the neighbors.
My client actually does not permit alcohol at all at his location.
this is for religious reasons his own religious background he does he has no interest in alcohol
or alcohol service and does not permit alcohol on his property the actual service of the
lounge i think it's best that we look at some pictures before we discuss specifically the
services within so it's not a large space this is a smaller gathering space within a strip mall
that actually contains a large restaurant on the corner that's open 24 hours the lounge is one of
the middle spaces and it sits between what was an account is still an accounting office and i believe
another empty space at the moment the lounge itself is a rectangular shape as you can see
from the photos it's an open space so people are served the hookah when they enter the lounge
they're not allowed to bring outside tobacco products it's to one to control what is consumed
there to make sure that it is legal and safe and two for health reasons and health code reasons he
doesn't want to have people sharing stuff that he has no control over so they provide that as far as
the activities during the hookah lounge experience majority of it as you can see there are
sit-down spaces with a tv playstation 5 so a lot of the people that do come they watch
shows or they come and play video games it's not a club there's no music heavy music being
played inside there's no dancing there's no singing the service is limited to the hookah
and also some snacks that he can bring over from the restaurant next door when the
and also some snacks that he can bring over from the restaurant next door when the customers ask
for it they have a small snack menu that they bring the snacks over from the restaurant
so the entire operation is he on the restaurant no okay um they have an agreement to sure yeah uh so
the as you can see from the plans i'll zoom in uh so the board can better see it
this is the entire space laid out as you saw in the photograph there's a foyer
area when you first enter they do check at the door the IDs and make sure
they're of age to smoke once they get past the entire area is basically an
open area with one small party room in the back the bathroom is in the rear
corner and that service station is also in the rear because they don't do full
food service no cooking nothing like that the main thing is they bring out the hookah uh i don't know
what that exact item is called but they would clean it each time someone uses it there's a
mouthpiece that gets thrown out and replaced so it's a one use these are all for health reasons
the second picture you see these individual vents that are shown are part of a carbonized
ventilation system so there's a carbon filter built into it it is an expensive system that
he installed to make sure smoke gets removed from the room but not blown out into the atmosphere so
it's actually a carbon night there are carbon filters within the system that filters out the
smoke so we understand the neighborhood's general concern with these kind of operation why they
tend to oppose them my client has operated the location and in fact has a pretty detailed plan
that of how he wants to run everything and not only that recently business rate actually
considered their operation based on the feedback from google as one of the top three operations
in philadelphia as far as the hookah lounge is concerned so we are not here to ask the board to
allow this um you know fly by night shady operation we're asking the board to consider allowing an
ongoing tenant with a business and this is he's a young man that this is his first entrepreneurial
attempt into a business and he really wishes to be allowed to at least continue through his lease to
operate this particular hookah lounge and he has put substantial investment into this is it open
now it's well it was shut down by oh and i is it open now i don't think it's open now no it's not
open now okay so again it um the lease is also attached for the board review there it started in
2024, I believe, and it's a seven-year lease that currently he is still
liable for under the lease agreement. So, as you can see, it's a seven-year lease
that was originally entered into in September of 2025.
You want to bring your client on? Yes. Can you state your name?
Why don't you get close to the mic?
good morning hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer uh my first name
is sammy my last name is moradov could you spell that for them s-a-m-m-y uh last name is m-u-r-o-d-o-v
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth yes counsel i swear
thank you um so sammy did you hear you you heard and saw my presentation before the zoning board
uh can you verify all the representations i made to be true and correct and adopted as your own
testimony yes it is true thank you all right um questions from the board yes i have a quick
question so just for clarification you and you intended to use it as a hookah lounge yes right
so but you open it and didn't realize you weren't supposed to open it without the proper permits
so they they did ask me to uh get the tobacco license and then uh restaurant license in order
to open up a lounge but unfortunately uh when the inspectors came they did tell me the few rules
have been changed now that i have to get the smoking lounge because it's my place right now
considered as the restaurant not a smoking lunch although i do have a tobacco license also to to
sell it and so so when you as you were open before they shut you down you didn't sell food or
anything like that right no okay so you never operated as a restaurant no okay all right thank
you and he operates as a restaurant now no no he has again the restaurant next door is a legal
No, he has, again, the restaurant next door is a legal restaurant operation.
restaurant operation
and he
And he brings the food from there?
Yeah, just snacks, not full meals.
Other questions from the board?
How are you handling, since you're going to have food coming over, how are you handling trash?
So we made an agreement with the restaurant.
When we bring the food, we take it right back at them with the trash and everything.
they have they we also bought a big trash can ourself it's not from the plaza it's separated
and we do throw over there it's like separate i paid myself we've made an agreement with the
restaurant so we don't have uh stock up or anything like that no and then are you serving
other drinks like tea or soda uh drinks yes uh teas drinks but no alcohol are you making any of
that on site or is it all pre-bottled uh so the cold drinks are pre-bottled like can of uh sodas
all of that but the teas we do make it ourself we have like fruit teas lemon teas uh and i also have
like a like big hot pot and uh like i have a little kitchen in the back as you guys could see
it in the picture yeah and we just do a tease trying to understand what's the extent of what's
being done in that kitchen so so they they have a hot pot to cook hot tea for hot tea service
okay and then they have cold teas mixed teas but no food cooking there's actually no there's no
heating there's a microwave i believe but there's no heating unit no stove none of that in that
space so any actual hot food it's are actually off of the menu from the restaurant and it was
it's per customer order when they say look can we get some snacks hot food from next door his
worker would actually take the order go to the restaurant get the order bring it back to the
location too because they're they're within steps of each other what's what's the capacity
what's your total capacity there uh it's around 30 people okay and then is there
And that was just, I see that there's a parking lot.
So I imagine that services with the parking,
the entire shopping center has parking both front and back.
Now the business that operates during the day,
he actually opens relatively late around five and opens with the restaurant
until early morning to about 2 AM.
The accounting offices and the business offices that also run in the area
in that exact shopping center,
actually they close around 5 so they've been working it this way to kind of offset some of
the parking issues they anticipate when people so there's so there's okay so the restaurant closes
at 2 a.m awesome i believe it's 24 hours it's 24 hours oh it's 24 hour restaurant okay
and then anything with amplified sound like are you playing music is there live music uh so there
is no loud music we play jazz uh piano like background uh smaller to not uh so this place
is more like to connect each other like have a conversation have a tea or have a meeting we have
also sometimes our clients come for business uh purposes for to talk to each other or they have
classes or uh sometimes they don't even even get uh hookah they get like just uh desserts and do
their homeworks and stuff but i we do check id it's 21 and over we have a whole sign in front
of door 21 and over even though you don't have alcohol on site because tobacco is 21 21 now
yeah um so my last question is so um one why did you choose this location and two um are most of
your clientele local or are people coming from different areas of the city to uh to the establishment
before you got shut down so basically uh where we where we live in northeast uh it's most of our
community people that they like they know what is that and they're familiar with uh what i sell it's
like uh tobacco's hookah as of hookah and they know that uh it's not loud plays they they like
the vibe they just like to come sit down chit chat play we also have a card games dominoes
uh chess games they also play playstations just have they basically it's a relaxed place just
like for a few hours to relax have a talk with a friend and that's it is there outdoor seating
no no okay all right um could you have a question all right um questions from our attorney
um is this sorry give me one second
Is this in a particular part of the, like a suite or something like that?
units within the shopping center overall i believe on the lease it actually cites the specific uh
let me go back to the lease i'm sorry
because i believe at the end of the lease there's actually a layout of the entire shopping center
which marks the exact unit that my client is leasing up right here so he's leasing that
space that is darkened on that particular image okay can we see what number that is
let me see if the least site okay you know what unit number you are in the shopping center
Number 14, number 40. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, questions or comments from the virtual audience could could you please.
But someone said there, but yeah, right.
good morning chairman members of the board alice udovich from councilman brian o'neill's office
and just for the record everybody knows but could you spell your name for those sure it's a-l-i-c-e
u-d-o-v-i-c-a do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do
please proceed the councilman supports somerton community in their opposition of this unfortunately
these operators are opening without permission and there's very little oversight with these
operations you can say now that you're not bringing in alcohol but it's open till 2 a.m
so i'm sure that that's an activity that people are going to partake in at this location
um you know we've just seen because the northeast has um still has some tobacco licenses available
where other parts of the city do not we're seeing these operators find the uh the northeast a
desirable location right um council do you have any questions for house um so mr uh has the
councilman could you get a little closer to the mic oh sure yeah has the councilman's office
received any direct complaints about my client's location for alcohol use
no thank you all right questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any hands with the chair planning commission
michael gall with the philadelphia city planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends
a change in zoning at this location from ca1 commercial auto oriented to cmx2 commercial
mixed use the city rezoned this neighborhood in 1977 in a council supported map change
there is no unique physical condition or circumstance of the property that would
prevent it from being used in strict conformity with the zoning code city planning commission
therefore recommends the board deny the proposed use variants for a smoking lounge um
obviously we've had opposing views of this i'd like to really sit and talk to the board and uh
we will vote on this next uh wednesday at 9 30. thank you thank you thank you thank you right
and eight you can go okay council could you please stay right yes so um
so MI 2025 006 767 1209 south broad street um council could you please just state your name
yes then Jen Z H E N J I N and um just for a point of information we have um a letter of
unanimous strong opposition against the property all right um and um could you identify your client
relationship to the property yes my client is uh 168 brother investment lc the property owner um
and mr uh john new should be here with us on zoom okay our vice chair has a few questions
um good morning again um have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of
this hearing yes and do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy
i do thank you you can share your screen and proceed with this case thank you how many
questions on this it's do you think this is appropriate the classification so so we did have
So, so we did have just looking at the layout of the property. Um, it seems that it was more akin to group living rather than visitor accommodations where it was, you know, 6 rooms with with private bathrooms plus and then there's like 1 kitchen in the whole thing.
so it's more like communal living as opposed to visitor accommodations um i don't know if group
living generally i have to verify with l and i if it book includes both short and long-term um
rentals um so i need to check on that but we weren't weren't sure that the the use that was
applied for actually fit what was happening in the space so i just want to make that note for the
record so once again yep why don't you start thank you good morning uh this is an application
for 1209 south broad street uh for visitor accommodation so this property uh is zoned
rc5 it is a large brownstone on south broad street uh when it was purchased in 2022 uh it
already contained six bedrooms my clients did make renovation changes for visitor accommodation
purposes which is what they at the time intended we understand that in 2023 of course visitor
accommodation rules kicked in when they did the renovations with and they were done with permits
at the time uh the visitor accommodation was kind of a vague situation once they did the renovation
they started operations. They have been operating the space as visitor accommodations since that
time. We went to the meeting with South Broad Street Neighborhood Association and was met with
strong opposition and that is as anticipated due to the location and the type of building.
We understand the opposition's position that they do not like to see buildings renovated from
single family to this particular proposed use at the time that the renovations were done again
visitor accommodation was kind of a unknown factor for many of the owners to also understand why they
felt this particular building was okay for that the immediate building to one side is a four unit
building that's rented the immediate building to the right of this building was also a rental
building although it is still a single family zoning the entire across the street of that part
of broad street is commercial buildings yes they're single family uh used buildings not far
from this one i think two or three units down there is a existing single family that is owned
by an owner but at this particular spot with the number of bedrooms that it came with originally
my clients felt that this would be the best use they are they did follow all the requirements at
the time to get registered for airbnb use and that's really the the way that it is used is
airbnb we again we we totally understand why the community is against our proposal however
the way this building would operate um if if they were to be uh required to go back to single
family uh i'm not sure how they would be able to accommodate it back completely to single family
they would have to still look for some uh alternative ways to make sure it's legally used
limited lodging was discussed with my clients but they originally did not intend to actually
live in the space but again visitor accommodation has been what they started with this purchase for
what they did from the beginning and it was never hidden from the neighbors uh it was just done
because at the time they thought it would be permitted to be done in the way it was uh renovated
I want to show the board the current conditions of the property. As you can see, they did renovate it basically into individual small hotel room setups, their TVs for each room, each bedroom. They made a bathroom available for each unit as well. So it is essentially set up as a hotel, small hotel setup.
and visitor accommodation would fit that particular design and that is the intent