BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 300
Page 1
Date of Hearing: March 22, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
William W. Monning, Chair
AB 300 (Ma) - As Amended: March 10, 2011
SUBJECT : Safe Body Art Act.
SUMMARY : Imposes minimum statewide standards for the
regulation of practitioners engaged in the business of
tattooing, body piercing, and the application of permanent
cosmetics in California. Specifically, this bill :
1)Repeals existing law governing the development of body art
standards for persons engaged in the business of tattooing,
body piercing, or permanent cosmetics.
2)Prohibits a person from performing body art if he or she is
not registered with the local enforcement agency (LEA).
3)Requires the applicant to provide specified information as a
condition of registration including, among other things, the
following: evidence of current Hepatitis B vaccination;
evidence of completion of training in bloodborne pathogens,
first aid, and CPR; proof that he or she is 18 years or older;
self-certification of knowledge and commitment to state law
and relevant local regulations; and, payment of a registration
fee, to be determined by the LEA in an amount sufficient to
cover actual administrative costs.
4)Requires a practitioner to display the registration
certificate in a readily visible place at the facility where
the practitioner is performing body art and makes a valid and
current registration issued by a LEA valid in any other
jurisdiction for no more than five consecutive days, or 15
days total, in any one calendar year. Requires a
practitioner's registration to be renewed annually.
5)Prescribes a number of hygiene and sanitation procedures for a
practitioner to follow before performing body art and at the
completion of the procedure. Directs the practitioner to
maintain a clean and sanitary environment, as specified.
6)Prescribes various requirements for commercially manufactured
inks, dyes, pigments, soaps, trays, single-use needles, needle
AB 300
Page 2
bars, grommets, razors, machines, and tools used in the
performance of body art.
7)Imposes various restrictions on the performance of body art
including informed consent and client disclosure requirements,
as specified.
8)Requires sites that only perform mechanical stud and clasp ear
piercing to meet separate notification, sanitation, training,
and equipment requirements.
9)Prohibits a body art facility from conducting business without
a valid health permit issued by a LEA and requires the
application for a health permit to include a copy of the
facility's Infection Prevention and Control Plan and a
specified fee as determined by the LEA.
10)Specifies that the health permit is valid only for the
location of the facility and the time period indicated on the
permit and is non-transferable. Requires the health permit
and certificates of registration for all practitioners
performing body art in the facility to be posted prominently
at the body art facility.
11)Requires a person who proposes to construct a practice site
or mobile practice site, other than a temporary body art event
booth, to submit plans and a specified fee to the LEA for
review. Requires the plans to be reviewed before any
building, plumbing, or electric permits are issued and
requires any corrective action to be taken and the site
approved to open before any body art can be performed.
12)Specifies that, if a practitioner performs body art in a
vehicle in a jurisdiction for more than seven days in a
consecutive 90-day period, the practitioner is required to
obtain a health permit from the LEA in that jurisdiction.
Requires a vehicle that will be operating in the jurisdiction
for less than seven days in a consecutive 90-day period to be
treated as a temporary demonstration booth, as specified.
13)Allows a practitioner to operate in a temporary demonstration
booth for a maximum of seven days in a 90-day period in the
local jurisdiction of registration provided that the booth
meets certain specified requirements.
AB 300
Page 3
14)Permits a LEA officer to enter a body art facility during the
facility's hours of operation and other reasonable times to
conduct specified inspection and compliance activities.
Requires the LEA officer to make a written report and furnish
a copy to the owner or practitioner upon completion of an
inspection or investigation.
15)Makes it a violation of this bill for the owner or any person
working in a body art facility to conceal or withhold records
or evidence, interfere with the performance of a LEA officer,
or knowingly falsify or misrepresent information required to
be submitted or maintained by this bill. Allows a LEA to
suspend a certificate of registration or health permit for a
violation of this bill.
16)Provides for specified due process whenever a LEA officer
finds that a practitioner or body art facility is not in
compliance with the requirements of this bill.
17)Requires practitioners, body art facility owners, and
sponsors of temporary body art events to obtain and pay for
necessary registration and permits, as specified.
18)Makes it a misdemeanor to perform body art without being
registered; operate a body art facility or operate a temporary
body art event without a health permit. Authorizes the LEA to
assess an administrative penalty of $25 to $1,000 for a
violation of any provision of this bill.
19)Allows a city, county, or city and county to adopt
regulations or ordinances that do not conflict with, or are
more stringent than, the provisions of this bill.
20)Defines various terms for purposes of this bill.
21)Makes the provisions of this bill operative on July 1, 2012.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Makes it a misdemeanor to tattoo or offer to tattoo a person
under the age of 18.
2)Requires the California Conference of Local Health Officers
(CCLHO) to establish sterilization, sanitation, and safety
standards for persons engaged in the business of tattooing,
body piercing, or permanent cosmetics.
AB 300
Page 4
3)Requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) to provide the
necessary resources to support the development of these
standards and requires the standards to be directed at
establishing and maintaining sterile conditions and safe
disposal of instruments.
4)Allows the standards to be modified as appropriate to protect
consumers from transmission of contagious diseases through
cross-contamination of instruments and supplies.
5)Requires the standards to be submitted to DPH for review and
consultation by July 1, 1998, and directs DPH to distribute
those standards in written form to all LEAs within 30 days
after they are adopted by DPH.
6)Requires persons engaged in the business of tattooing, body
piercing, or permanent cosmetics to register with the LEA by
December 31, 1998, as specified.
7)Requires a registrant to obtain a copy of DPH's standards from
the LEA, provide the LEA with his or her business address, and
pay a one-time $25 registration fee and an annual $105
inspection fee to the LEA. States that the county is not
precluded from charging an additional amount if necessary to
cover the cost of registration and inspection.
8)Requires each LEA to conduct annual inspections of the
locations at which registrants conduct regulated activities.
9)Authorizes a county to adopt any regulations that do not
conflict with, or are more comprehensive than, current law or
with the standards adopted by DPH.
10)States that current law does not limit a county's ability to
require a registrant to obtain any business license or permit
that the county finds appropriate.
11)Subjects a person who fails to register or violates the
sterilization, sanitation, and safety standards after December
31, 1998, to a $500 civil penalty per violation, as specified.
12)Requires any person seeking to engage in the business of
tattooing, body piercing, or permanent cosmetics to comply
with the requirements in current law by January 1, 1999.
AB 300
Page 5
13)Requires a task force consisting of specified members to be
convened to make recommendations to the Legislature with
regard to licensing, training, sanitation, and other related
issues in order to protect the health and welfare of persons
seeking the services of body art practitioners.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill has not yet been analyzed by a fiscal
committee.
COMMENTS :
1)PURPOSE OF THIS BILL . According to the author, the state
lacks enforceable and sufficiently detailed statewide
standards regulating body art despite requirements in existing
law and repeated efforts from both health practitioners and
established body art professional trade associations. This
bill is jointly sponsored by the California Association of
Environmental Health Administrators, the Health Officers
Association of California, the Association of Professional
Piercers, and the Alliance of Professional Tattooists to
establish a uniform body of law to promote safer body art
practices and assist these small businesses by streamlining
the patchwork of local regulations.
2)BACKGROUND . The Pew Research Center reported in 2007 that 36%
of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 had a tattoo and
30% had a body piercing somewhere other than their ear, while
40% of those age 26 to 40 had a tattoo and 22% had a body
piercing somewhere other than their ear.
Serious health risks are associated with unsafe tattooing and
piercing practices, including allergic skin reactions from
tattoo dye, local bacterial infections, nerve damage from
piercing, complications during diagnostic imaging, and a host
of blood-borne infections including hepatitis B, hepatitis C,
tetanus, and HIV. Tattoo inks are classified as cosmetics and
therefore are not regulated by the federal Food and Drug
Administration. Long-term effects of these inks are unknown.
Branding is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or
ornamental pattern, is burned into human skin tissue with a
hot iron or other instrument, with the intention that the
resulting scar makes it permanent. It is often used as a form
of initiation in fraternities, gangs, and prison groups, but
AB 300
Page 6
can also be a strictly decorative procedure when performed at
a body art facility. While it is not as popular or as common
as other forms of body art, it nonetheless carries distinct
health risks because of the burning of human tissue.
3)DPH REGULATIONS . AB 186 (Brown), Chapter 742, Statutes of
1997, establishes a statutory scheme to regulate body art
practitioners. The sponsors note that they have been working
for over 10 years to draft sanitation and safety guidelines
and urge DPH to adopt them as standards. However, in January
2008, DPH issued a memo concluding that regulations are not
necessary as current law does not explicitly require DPH to
adopt these standards. DPH contends in the memo that while
current law makes reference to the adoption of these standards
by DPH, these references do not reflect the intent by the
Legislature for DPH to adopt regulations. Rather, DPH
maintains that it was the intent of the Legislature that,
after reviewing the standards, DPH would distribute them to
each LEA.
A 2008 opinion of the Office of Legislative Counsel opined that
the Legislature did not intend to require DPH to adopt the
standards based on an examination of the legislative history
of AB 186, which changed the entity required to establish the
standards from DPH to the CCLHO. Consequently, Legislative
Counsel concluded that DPH is not required to adopt the
standards as regulations in order for them to be enforceable.
4)PRIOR LEGISLATION .
a) AB 223 (Ma) of 2010, and AB 517 (Ma) of 2009, both of
which were substantively identical to this bill, were
vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. In his veto messages
the Governor stated that he did not see a compelling need
for additional legislation, given that body art guidelines
were developed several years ago, local jurisdictions have
the option to establish these requirements in their own
county, and many have chosen to do so, and, if the sponsors
wanted a bill that addressed the purported problem, a
simple statutory authorization for DPH to promulgate
standardized regulations would have been acceptable.
AB 300
Page 7
b) AB 186 requires the CCLHO to establish safety and
sterilization standards for body art practitioners;
requires practitioners to register with and pay a fee to
the LEA in their jurisdiction; requires LEAs to conduct
annual inspections; and, establishes a task force to
recommend legislation to address the health of persons
seeking tattooing, body piercing, and permanent cosmetics.
5)SUPPORT . The sponsors of this bill state that it represents
an extensive multi-year collaborative effort between public
health and environmental health representatives, individual
practitioners, and body art trade associations to ensure that
the statewide standards developed in this bill are not only
protective of public health, but fair and reasonably
enforceable. Supporters add that these standards are
long-overdue and will, among other things, establish clear
scope of local authority, provide clear requirements for
practitioner registration, establish consistent enforcement of
mobile and fixed body art sides, protect clients through
informed consent requirements, and enhance practitioners'
knowledge of bloodborne pathogen exposure control.
6)TECHNICAL AMENDMENT . On page 17, line 30, change
"decontaminted" to "decontaminated".
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Alliance of Professional Tattooists (sponsor)
Association of Professional Piercers (sponsor)
California Association of Environmental Health Administrators
(sponsor)
Health Officers Association of California (sponsor)
Alpine County Public Health Department
Blood Centers of California
Body Manipulations
California Alliance for the Promotion of Safe Body Art
California Chapters of the American Red Cross
California Environmental Health Association
City of Vernon
County of San Bernardino
County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors
Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services
Lake County Health Services Department
AB 300
Page 8
Madera County Public Health Department
Marin County Environmental Health Services
Mariposa County Public Health Department
National Environmental Health Association
San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Cassie Royce / HEALTH / (916) 319-2097