BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                            



           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
          |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE            |                       AB 2130|
          |Office of Senate Floor Analyses   |                              |
          |1020 N Street, Suite 524          |                              |
          |(916) 651-1520         Fax: (916) |                              |
          |327-4478                          |                              |
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
           
                                           
                                    THIRD READING


          Bill No:  AB 2130
          Author:   Pan (D) and Gatto (D), et al.
          Amended:  5/1/14 in Assembly
          Vote:     27 - Urgency


           SENATE HEALTH COMMITTEE  :  9-0, 6/11/14
          AYES:  Hernandez, Morrell, Beall, De León, DeSaulnier, Evans,  
            Monning, Nielsen, Wolk

           SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE  :  Senate Rule 28.8

           ASSEMBLY FLOOR  :  73-0, 5/8/14 - See last page for vote


           SUBJECT  :    Retail food safety

           SOURCE  :     Author


          DIGEST  :    This bill repeals provisions of law enacted in 2013  
          that prohibits retail food employees from contacting exposed  
          ready-to-eat foods with their bare hands, and replaces these  
          provisions with the law that existed prior to the enactment of  
          these provisions, which requires food employees to minimize bare  
          hand contact with ready-to-eat foods.

           ANALYSIS  :    

          Existing law:

          1.Establishes the California Retail Food Code (CRFC) to regulate  
            retail food safety, which is enforced by local environmental  
                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          2

            health officers.

          2.Prohibits food employees from contacting exposed, ready-to-eat  
            food with their bare hands, and requires these employees to  
            use suitable utensils, including deli tissue, spatulas, tongs,  
            single-use gloves, or dispensing equipment.

          3.Defines "ready-to-eat food" as food that is in a form that is  
            edible without additional preparation to achieve food safety.

          4.Permits food employees not serving a highly susceptible  
            population to contact exposed, ready-to-eat food with their  
            bare hands if specified requirements are met.

          5.Requires food handlers to obtain a food handler card every  
            three years from an accredited provider, as specified.   
            Requires food handler cards to be issued only upon successful  
            completion of a training course that meets specified  
            requirements.

          This bill:

          1.Repeals provisions of law that prohibit food employees in  
            retail food facilities from contacting exposed, ready-to-eat  
            food with their bare hands, and requires these employees to  
            use suitable utensils, including deli tissue, spatulas, tongs,  
            single-use gloves, or dispensing equipment, including  
            provisions that permitted food employees to contact  
            ready-to-eat food under specified circumstances.

          2.Requires food employees to minimize bare hand and arm contact  
            with non-prepackaged food that is in a ready-to-eat form.

          3.Requires food employees to use utensils, including scoops,  
            forks, tongs, paper wrappers, gloves, or other implements, to  
            assemble ready-to-eat food or to place ready-to-eat food on  
            tableware or in other containers, but permits food employees  
            to assemble or place on tableware or in other containers  
            ready-to-eat food in an approved food preparation area without  
            using utensils if hands are cleaned in accordance with  
            specified required procedures.

          4.Requires food that has been served to the consumer and then  
            wrapped or prepackaged at the direction of the consumer to be  

                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          3

            handled only with utensils, which are required to be properly  
            sanitized before reuse.

          5.Contains an urgency clause requiring it to go into immediate  
            effect in order to protect public health and safety by  
            developing better food safety procedures for ready-to-eat food  
            and by avoiding confusion among local health agencies and  
            small businesses at the earliest time possible.

           Background 

          Foodborne illness.   According to the Centers for Disease Control  
          and Prevention (CDC), each year roughly one in six Americans  
          gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 people die of  
          foodborne diseases.  The spread of germs from the hands of food  
          workers to food is an important cause of foodborne illness  
          outbreaks in restaurants.  One of the most important steps to  
          preventing transmission of these pathogens is ensuring that food  
          employees do no work when they are ill.  Proper hand washing  
          reduces the spread of fecal-oral pathogens from the hands of a  
          food employee to foods, and effective hand washing includes  
          scrubbing, rinsing, and complete drying of hands.  However, the  
          CDC notes that hand washing alone might not always successfully  
          remove pathogens from heavily contaminated hands, and infected  
          food employees may not always be identified and removed from  
          food preparation activities, which leads to the recommendations  
          to minimize or prohibit bare hand contact of ready-to-eat foods.

           Minimizing vs. prohibiting bare hand contact  .  Although the U.S.  
          Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Model Food Code includes a  
          prohibition on food workers touching ready-to-eat foods with  
          bare hands, the U.S. FDA later requested that the National  
          Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods  
          (NACMCF), within the United States Department of Agriculture's  
          Food Safety and Inspection Service, examine the scientific data  
          on the risk associated with this practice.  Among the specific  
          questions the US FDA posed to NACMCF was: if it is possible to  
          interrupt transmission of foodborne illnesses via bare hand  
          contact, which of the following interventions will provide  
          maximum public health benefit:  (1) prohibition against ill or  
          infected workers from preparing food; (2) hand washing/personal  
          sanitation regimens; or (3) a blanket prohibition against bare  
          hand contact with ready-to-eat foods?  The NACMCF issued  
          recommendations in 1999, concluding that "minimizing bare hand  

                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          4

          contact with ready-to-eat food provides an additional means or  
          interrupting disease transmission, when used in combination with  
          the exclusion/restriction of ill food workers and proper hand  
          washing.  However, most members of the Committee deemed the  
          available scientific data insufficient to support a blanket  
          prohibition of bare hand contact with ready-to-eat foods."

           Gloves may reduce hand washing frequency  .  In a study published  
          in 2007, in the Journal of Food Protection, entitled "Factors  
          Related to Food Worker Hand Hygiene Practices" researchers  
          collected observational data on 321 food workers and their hand  
          washing practices.  Results indicated that workers only made an  
          attempt at washing their hands (ran their hands under water) 32%  
          of the time when hand washing would be recommended, and only  
          appropriately washed their hands (using soap and drying their  
          hands) 27% of the time washing was recommended. Interestingly,  
          however, the attempted and appropriate hand washing rates were  
          significantly lower when gloves were worn (18% and 16 %,  
          respectively) than when gloves were not worn (37% and 30%).  The  
          authors of this study stated that these findings "suggest that  
          the hand washing practices of food workers need to be improved,  
          glove use may reduce hand washing, and restaurants should  
          consider reorganizing their food preparation activities to  
          reduce the frequency with which hand washing is needed."

           Comments
           
          According to the author, the Legislature passed a bill, AB 1252  
          (Committee on Health, Chapter 556, Statutes of 2013) that made  
          many, mostly minor, changes to the CRFC.  Like all Assembly  
          Health Committee-authored bills, AB 1252 was intended to be a  
          consensus bill.  It had no opposition, and it was agreed that if  
          opposition to any of the bill's provisions arose at any point in  
          the process, those provisions would be immediately removed from  
          the bill.  Since the enactment of AB 1252 on January 1, 2014,  
          many small restaurants and bars have raised serious concerns  
          about a provision in the new law that prohibits bare hand  
          contact with ready-to-eat food.  Given these businesses'  
          concerns about the cost and public health value of this  
          prohibition, it is clear that the Committee bill process was not  
          appropriate for this provision, which should have been fully  
          vetted and debated before being enacted.  Environmental health  
          directors statewide have agreed to a "soft roll-out," where they  
          are not penalizing facilities for failure to comply with the  

                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          5

          bare hand contact prohibition until July 1, 2014.  Therefore, it  
          is important for this bill, which contains an urgency clause, to  
          be enacted before that date.

           Prior Legislation
           
          AB 1252 (Committee on Health) made numerous technical,  
          clarifying, and non-controversial changes to the CRFC, and  
          prohibits bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food without prior  
          authorization from the local environmental health department.

          SB 602 (Padilla, Chapter 309, Statutes of 2010) requires a food  
          handler to obtain a food handler card within 30 days after  
          employment at a food facility by successfully completing a  
          training course, and every three years thereafter.

          SB 241 (George Runner, Chapter 571, Statutes of 2009) enacted a  
          number of clean-up changes to the CRFC and provided for the  
          regulation of temporary and mobile food facilities under the  
          CRFC.

          SB 744 (George Runner, Chapter 96, Statutes of 2007) enacted  
          numerous technical, clarifying, and non-substantive changes to  
          the CRFC.

          SB 144 (George Runner, Chapter 23, Statutes of 2006) repealed  
          and reenacted the California Uniform Retail Food Facilities Law  
          as the CRFC.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :    Appropriation:  No   Fiscal Com.:  Yes    
          Local:  Yes

           SUPPORT  :   (Verified  6/20/14)

          Ambrosia Catering and Cafes, Sacramento
          American Bao Bar, San Francisco
          Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar, Berkeley
          Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy
          Bits, Bites, and Boxes, Loomis
          Caffe 817, Oakland
          Californians Against Waste
          Citizen Hotel, Sacramento
          Coffee, Tea, and Tulips, Mission Viejo
          Culinary Edge, San Francisco

                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          6

          de Vere's Irish Pub, Sacramento
          Der Biergarten, Sacramento
          Dish It Up Catering and Diggers Deli, Vacaville
          Dos Coyotes Border Café
          Eden Vale Inn, Placerville
          Ella Dining Room and Bar, Sacramento
          Fox & Goose Public House, Sacramento 
          Freeport Bakery, Sacramento
          Georges at the Cove, La Jolla
          Golden Gate Restaurant Association
          Grange Restaurant and Bar, Sacramento
          Harlow's Restaurant and Night Club, Sacramento
          Haven Gastropub, Orange & Pasadena
          Jules Thin Crust, Oakland & Danville
          Marrow, Oakland
          Mikuni Restaurant Group
          Mulvaney's B&L, Sacramento
          Noe Valley Bakery and Bread Company, San Francisco
          Paragary's Restaurant Group, Sacramento
          Potato Shack Café, Encinitas
          Provisions Market, Orange
          Relish Culinary Adventures, Vacaville
          Rice Paper Scissors, San Francisco
          Rick's Tavern on Main, Santa Monica
          River City Brewing Company, Sacramento
          River City Saloon, Sacramento
          Saucy Restaurant, Ukiah
          Selland Family Restaurants, Sacramento
          Selland's Market Cafe, Sacramento
          Sous Beurre Kitchen, San Francisco
          Taco Asylum, Costa Mesa
          Venissimo Cheese, San Diego

           ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT  :    A number of restaurants have written in  
          support of this bill, including Biba Restaurant, Der Biergarten,  
          de Vere's Irish Pub, Dos Coyotes Border Café, Ella Dining Room  
          and Bar, Fox & Goose Public House, Freeport Bakery, and others.   
          These restaurants state that the prohibition on bare hand  
          contact will require bars and restaurants to buy and discard  
          thousands of disposable gloves, imposing a significant financial  
          burden and environmental impact.  Mikuni Restaurant Group states  
          that many professionals in their industry agree that cooks  
          wearing gloves tend not to change their gloves between tasks. In  
          addition, Mikuni states that for the sushi industry, gloves pose  

                                                                CONTINUED





                                                                    AB 2130
                                                                     Page  
          7

          a significant physical risk due to the intricate knife work  
          involved in sushi.  Mikuni states that gloves do have their  
          place in the kitchen, and they do wear them for many tasks, but  
          a blanket law requiring everyone to wear gloves for all  
          ready-to-eat foods does not provide their customers with a safer  
          product.

          Californians Against Waste also supports this bill, stating that  
          because wearing gloves tends to give people a false sense of  
          cleanliness, restaurant employees may not wash hands prior to  
          gloves, increasing the risk of contamination.  Californians  
          Against Waste also notes that when employees have to wear  
          single-use gloves at all times, it puts a strain on resources  
          and generates an unnecessary amount of waste in single-use  
          plastic gloves.
          
           ASSEMBLY FLOOR  :  73-0, 5/8/14
          AYES:  Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom,  
            Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian  
            Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley,  
            Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Donnelly, Fong, Fox,  
            Frazier, Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon,  
            Grove, Hagman, Harkey, Roger Hernández, Holden, Jones,  
            Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein,  
            Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nestande,  
            Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon,  
            Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner,  
            Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, Yamada, John A.  
            Pérez
          NO VOTE RECORDED:  Eggman, Gorell, Gray, Hall, Mansoor, V.  
            Manuel Pérez, Vacancy


          JL:e  6/23/14   Senate Floor Analyses 

                           SUPPORT/OPPOSITION:  SEE ABOVE

                                   ****  END  ****







                                                                CONTINUED