Good luck, SF is awful. I lived in a suburb of SF for the first 18 years of my life and I remember my parents admonishing my sisters and I never tell anyone that they owned guns (well, a gun), because they'd quickly be ostracized from the community. I'm not joking.
The real secret to getting a CCW in California is to give them NO REASON at all to not give you one, and lots of good reasons. Have your father dress professionally, shave, appear as professional as possible, speak softly, and basically be a *perfect* citizen and just beyond polite. Google for some examples of good cause statements, add in anything that might help. Find some statistics on people being robbed of large sums of cash and include those. Include police report info if he or anyone he works with has even been attacked. Your dad has about the best good cause you can have in CA, he just lives in about the worst county. The SFPD and the county sheriff are going to keep bouncing you around as far as who can actually issue. Try to use certified mail with a delivery confirmation/signature required for all correspondence so they cannot backpedal. It's easy to change history on a two person face to face conversation, pretty hard to make a signed letter say anything other than what it says. Send your good cause statement to team Billy Jack to look over. Be prepared to spend a lot of time and money (>6 months and $1000) pursuing this. Your dad has as good a chance as anyone in SF County of getting one...but that's not saying much, being in the top 1% of applicants when they accept .0[lots more zeroes]01%...
