His proposed ordinance—filed after a dozen small business owners reached out to explain they were being harangued by regulations—would remove the "prior use" requirement, as well as those preventing businesses from uniting storefronts and moving into adjacent, empty spaces.

The story began as CBS news found it, in the hills of southern India, of all places.

Himanshu Bhaisare and his wife Milana Ram sell coffee beans from her family farm in a lovely hilly area of Karnataka ten thousand miles away in the farmer's markets of San Francisco.

They rent time at a roastery in Berkeley, but their passion for the coffee of India saw them locate an old dry cleaners on Lombard Street near to their home, and plan to convert it into a roastery and cafe.

Just as they arrived on the last dot of the dotted line of a lease agreement, there was a problem. The property contained a "prior use" requirement, which necessitates future owners to use the building as it was already permitted.

"I went to two or three more offices in the same department asking 'Is this really true?' Because it made no sense to me," Bhaisare told CBS Bay Area.

"It's things like that that are really frustrating, especially when we have someone who wants to bring their business to San Francisco and we have all these barriers that are preventing them from opening up," said Danny Sauter, SF's District 3 supervisor, and author of a bill that will be up for consideration early in October that would remove the prior use requirement and other stifling regulations.