BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 256 (Lieu) - Trampoline Courts: Safety Inspection
Amended: April 30, 2013 Policy Vote: L&IR 4-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 23, 2013 Consultant: Robert Ingenito
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: SB 256 would create a safety program for the
inspection of trampoline parks.
Fiscal Impact: The Department of Industrial Relations (DIR)
estimates that it would incur costs of $640,000 (special funds)
for additional staff to implement the provisions of the bill.
This amount includes about $40,000 in one-time start-up costs.
The on-going new staff would include (1) two permanent full-year
Associate Safety Engineers to perform inspections, conduct
accident investigations, and issue the annual permits to for
trampoline parks to operate, and (2) the following partial-year
positions:
A Senior Safety Engineer to assist in drafting and
developing initial regulatory language and oversee advisory
committee process and preparation of CalOSHA regulatory
documents on safe operation to the Occupational Safety and
Health Standards Board;
An Office Technician to provide office support during
rulemaking for annual permit inspection program;
A District Manager to supervise staff in Amusement Ride
Unit on this project;
A Industrial Relations Counsel III to assist in drafting
and developing initial regulatory language for assessing
inspection and permit fees to enable the CalOSHA to recover
its costs for this part of the program
The bill provides DIR with fee authority to cover the reasonable
costs of administration.
SB 256 (Lieu)
Page 1
Background: Trampoline parks are a series of trampolines
connected together in a large enclosed space. Currently, roughly
25 trampoline parks operate throughout the state. The Permanent
Amusement Ride Safety Inspection Program was implemented in
1999; trampoline parks were relatively uncommon at the time, and
were exempted from the program. Available data indicate,
however, that trampoline parks generally have a higher injury
rate relative to other unregulated amusement options.
Proposed Law: This bill would create an inspection program for
trampoline parks. Specifically, this bill would, among other
things, do the following:
Require the DIR's Division of Occupational Safety and
Health (DOSH) to formulate and propose rules and
regulations for adoption by the Occupational Safety and
Health Standards Board (OSHSB) for the safe installation,
repair, maintenance, use, operation, and inspection of all
permanent amusement rides;
An annual submission by the owner of a trampoline park
that includes, among other things, a written declaration,
executed by a qualified safety inspector, stating that,
within the preceding 12-month period, the trampoline court,
as defined, was inspected by the qualified safety inspector
and that the trampoline court is in material conformance
with the requirements DOSH and OSHSB.
Prohibit the operation of a trampoline court that has
been inspected by a qualified safety inspector or division
inspector and found to be unsafe, unless all necessary
repairs or modifications have been completed and certified
as completed by a qualified safety inspector.
Require that all qualified safety inspectors be approved
by DOSH and meet the following requirements:
o Holds a valid professional engineer license
issued by this state or issued by an equivalent
licensing body in another state, and who has been
approved by DOSH; or has a minimum of five years'
experience in the amusement ride field, at least two
years of which was involved in actual amusement ride
inspection with a manufacturer, government agency,
SB 256 (Lieu)
Page 2
amusement park, carnival, or insurance underwriter and
meets certain educational requirements.
Require the owner of a trampoline court to maintain
all of the records necessary to demonstrate that the
bill's requirements have been met, including, but not
limited to, employee training records, inspection records
for each trampoline court, and records of accidents
requiring medical service other than ordinary first aid,
and shall make them available to a DOSH inspector upon
request;
Require DOSH to conduct an annual inspection of the
trampoline court;
Requires that if a death or serious injury results
from the failure, malfunction, or operation of a
trampoline court, the equipment or conditions that caused
the accident shall be preserved for the purpose of an
investigation by the division.
Require the owner of a trampoline court to provide
training for its employees in the safe operation and
maintenance of amusement rides, as required by the
standards adopted by the American Society for Testing and
Materials;
Create the Trampoline Courts Safety Fund and allows
DOSH to fix and collect all fees necessary to cover the
reasonable costs of administration;
Provides that any operator of a trampoline court who
has willfully or intentionally violated the bill's
standards, and that violation results in a death or
serious injury, DOSH must impose on that owner or operator
a civil penalty of not less than twenty-five thousand
dollars ($25,000) and not more than seventy thousand
dollars ($70,000).
Staff Comments: As currently written, the bill would require DIR
to develop an entirely new article in regulatory language to
address safe operation of trampoline parks and to describe an
inspection and permit fee system sufficient to support the
SB 256 (Lieu)
Page 3
related costs in regulating this form of permanent amusement.
Although the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
has a working draft standard for Trampoline Courts, it is not
clear that the existing draft is sufficient to address the full
range of safety issues that must be addressed in regulation.
While the draft standard addresses many technical issues of
concern to manufacturers, park operators, and those who would be
required to perform maintenance and modifications on equipment,
it offers less guidance on training staff to direct and train
patrons about safe and unsafe practices.
Author Amendments would (1) remove the requirement that the
owner of a trampoline court provides a bond in an amount not
less than one million dollars ($1,000,000), and (2) make
specifications regarding the insurers that trampoline owners may
use.