San Francisco Hits Pause on Moving Forward
with Indoor Dining Capacity Increases 

Background: Two weeks ago, the State of California moved San Francisco City & County into the Yellow (Least Restrictive) Tier. This was based on San Francisco’s success with holding down the Positivity Rates and on keeping high levels of testing. The move to Yellow was based on the accelerated health equity tier criteria.  

Once the State moved San Francisco County to Yellow, then San Francisco and its Department of Public Health team agreed to announce a tentative reopening schedule for allowing more activities, and at greater capacity numbers. 

What now? Unfortunately, in the past several days, our hospitals in San Francisco have seen an alarming increase in hospitalizations. While we still have good bed capacity in our ICUs and acute care units, our health care professionals are concerned with the increasing trend.

Therefore, in an effort to keep San Francisco’s situation under control, SF has announced that restaurants will NOT be allowed to increase their indoor capacity to 50% on November 3rd as hoped.  

It is important to note that we are NOT GOING backward. San Francisco will continue to allow restaurants to operate as to Dept of Health Guidelines at 25% of their capacity (using posted occupancy numbers), and will continue to allow outdoor dining as per what has been allowed. You can find the Mayor’s press release here.

Shared Spaces Program Extended until June 30, 2021 -
Permit Application Renewal Notices Have Been Emailed

We want to remind everyone that the Shared Spaces Program has recently been allowed to continue to June 30th, 2021 and that everyone who has applied and received a permit should have received an email with renewal instructions.  

If you have not gotten renewal instructions, reach out to SharedSpaces@sfgov.org.

Learn more about the program extension here.

Gross Receipt Tax/Payroll Tax 3rd Quarter
Estimated Payments Update

The Q3 installment of the SF annual business tax (gross receipts/payroll tax) is due November 2nd.  Normally, the prepayment would be 25% of the prior year (2019) tax due.

However, a contact from the SF Tax Collector's office has indicated that there will be no penalties assessed for late/missed payments as long as the final balance owed for 2020 is paid by March 1, 2021. 

Your options are:

1) Pay the installment amount based on 2019 per the city and potentially have a lower amount to owe or a refund due when the actual return is filed by March 1, 2021

2) Pay a reduced amount based on 25% of your expected 2020 sales and payroll. Be sure by March 1, 2021 to make sure that this and any other payments you have made YTD meet what you would owe off your 2020 actual numbers.  

3) Pay nothing for this quarter and wait to pay off any balance due or receive a refund on March 1, 2021.