BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 143
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 14, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
Bonta, Chair
AB
143 (Wood) - As Amended April 6, 2015
SUBJECT: Food facilities.
SUMMARY: Expands an exemption in the California Retail Food
Code (CRFC) to allow wine tasting rooms to serve pretzels or
prepackaged non-potentially hazardous foods. Specifically, this
bill:
1) Expands the exemption from the definition of a food
facility a premises set aside by a wine manufacturer for
the purposes of wine tasting that currently serves crackers
only, to also offer pretzels or prepackaged food that is
not potentially hazardous for onsite consumption, provided
the food display is no more the 25 square feet.
2) Makes wine tasting facilities that serve prepackaged,
non-potentially hazardous food subject to general
provisions of the CRFC relating to proper storage of food,
inspection, and enforcement provisions, penalties, and
owner/operator responsibilities.
3) Specifies that a community event may run for a period of
time not to exceed 25 consecutive or nonconsecutive days in
any 90-day period.
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4) Makes technical changes and clarifies that a food
facility built prior to, and in continuous operation since,
January 1, 2004, is exempt from the requirement for on-site
bathroom facilities.
EXISTING
LAW:1)
1)Establishes the CRFC, which establishes health and sanitation
standards for retail food facilities, as defined. Makes the
Department of Public Health responsible for the adoption of
regulations to implement and administer CRFC, and vests local
enforcement agencies with primary responsibility for
enforcement of CRFC.
2)Defines a food facility as an operation that stores, prepares,
packages, serves, vends, or otherwise provides food for human
consumption, on or off the premises, regardless of whether
there is a charge, at the retail level. Food facilities
include, but are not limited to, permanent and nonpermanent
facilities, public and private school cafeterias, restricted
food service facilities, licensed health care facilities,
commissaries, mobile food facilities, mobile support units,
temporary food facilities, vending machines, certified
farmers' markets, and farm stands.
3)Exempts from the definition of a food facility, and therefore
from the provisions of CRFC, premises set aside for wine
tasting if no other beverage, except for bottles of wine and
prepackaged non-potentially hazardous beverages, is offered
for sale for onsite consumption, and no food, except for
crackers, is served.
4)Exempts from the definition of a food facility, and from the
provisions of CRFC, premises set aside by a beer manufacturer,
as defined, for the purposes of beer tasting, if no other
beverage, except for beer and prepackaged non-potentially
hazardous beverages, is offered for sale for onsite
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consumption, and no food, except for crackers or pretzels or
other prepackaged nonpotentially hazardous food, is served.
5)Establishes a tiered statewide standard to permit non-grocery
retailers with limited food display areas to sell prepackaged,
non-potentially hazardous food products. Requires compliance
with general provisions of the CRFC and definitions. Requires
varying compliance - depending on the square footage of the
food display area of the facility - with CRFC provisions
relating to proper storage of food, inspection and enforcement
provisions, impoundment of food, penalties, and owner/operator
responsibilities. Specifies that a beer tasting room that
maintains less than 25 square feet of prepackaged
nonpotentially hazardous foods is subject to these general
provisions and definitions.
FISCAL EFFECT: This bill has not been analyzed by a fiscal
committee.
COMMENTS:
1)PURPOSE OF THIS BILL. According to the author, this bill
would benefit thousands of small independent wineries in
California by eliminating the expense of obtaining a local
food permit for wineries that serve pretzels, or other
prepackaged non-hazardous food items, in addition to crackers.
This bill would also eliminate the need for wineries to
obtain a local food permit if they maintain no more than 25
square foot retail display of prepackaged foods. The author
states that this would benefit small business by allowing them
additional ways to differentiate themselves in a highly
competitive market.
According to the California Retail Food Safety Coalition
(CRFSC), two technical changes are needed within the CRFC.
First, the CRFSC states that a time frame for limiting
community events is necessary. The time frame was previously
removed to allow more local control, but due to the economic
downturn some zoning departments have incurred significant
budget and staff deficits and are not regulating community
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events as they once have, resulting in lack of uniformity from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In addition, the structural and
operational requirements for a temporary food facility are
consistent with the transient nature of such an event. By
adding back the time into the definition, we would preserve
and define a "community event" by establishing boundaries for
its safe operation.
Second, CRFSC states that a clarifying amendment is needed for
food facilities that are exempt from bathroom requirements.
Currently, restaurants that have on-site consumption are
required to provide restrooms for patrons; however, there is
an exemption for restaurants that were built before 2004. The
language, as currently written, expands the exemption to "any
building" regardless if it was a food facility or not,
therefore, on-site restrooms would not be required. The CRFSC
states that this was not the intent of the exemption; the
exemption was put into code to exempt only food facilities
that were in operation prior to the restroom requirement.
Restaurants that were built and approved before 2004 did not
have to remodel to meet the current requirements. Therefore,
a technical amendment is needed to clarify that only food
facilities built prior to, and in continuous operation since,
January 1 2004, are exempt from the on-site bathroom
requirement.
2)BACKGROUND. The CRFC is patterned after the federal Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code, which is a model for
local, state, and federal jurisdictions that are responsible
for ensuring food safety. According to the FDA, the Food Code
represents FDA's best advice, updated every four years, for a
uniform system of provisions that address the safety and
protection of food offered at retail and in food service.
Forty-eight states and territories have adopted food codes
patterned after the FDA Food Code, representing over 80% of
the U.S. population.
This bill is substantially similar to AB 1235 (Knight), Chapter
927, Statutes of 2014, that provided similar treatment for
beer tasting rooms. This bill makes additional,
nonsubstantive changes that combine individual exemptions for
beer and wine tasting rooms into single, unified code
sections, thereby removing separate treatment in the codes for
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these entities with respect to snack food served during
tastings.
3)CRFSC. The CRFSC is an informal coalition with over 70
members representing a wide cross-section of organizations
involved in retail food safety ranging from federal, state and
local regulatory agencies to food car operators, fair vendors,
national chain grocers, and restaurants. Since 1993, the
CRFSC has been focusing on retail safety in the state by
periodically sponsoring bills to update CRFC. All suggested
changes to the CRFC are reached through a consensus process.
4)SUPPORT. The Wine Institute, sponsor of this bill, writes that this
bill benefits many small wineries throughout California that
use food displays to provide additional sales to their
customers, by removing the need for a food facility license
for these displays. This bill also clarifies and allows the
same types of snack foods to be provided to customers during
their beer or wine tasting.
5)RELATED LEGISLATION.
a) AB 226 (Atkins) creates fishermen's markets as a type of
nonpermanent food facility and sets up guideline and
requirements for the operation of fishermen's markets. AB
226 is pending in Assembly Health Committee.
b) AB 234 (Gordon) allows a "community food producer" to
sell whole uncut fruits or vegetables, or unrefrigerated
shell eggs, to any licensed food facility if the community
food producer follows certain requirements. AB 234 passed
out of this Committee on April 7, 2015 on a vote of 16-1
and is now pending in Assembly Appropriations Committee.
c) AB 724 (Dodd) revises the definition of community event
to include a district fair, and requires a temporary food
facility to be granted a permit to operate at a community
event if the enforcement agency makes a determination that
the temporary food facility meets specified requirements
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and requires the permit to be issued for the entire
duration of the community event. AB 724 is pending in
Assembly Health Committee.
d) AB 1076 (Mayes) exempts from the definition of a food
facility, a snack bar operated by a charitable nonprofit
organization and authorizes snack bars to undertake limited
food preparation, as defined. AB 1076 is pending in this
Committee.
e) SB 746 (Wolk) exempts, beginning January 1, 2018, grain
milled and sold at the Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park
from registration and other requirements applicable to
retail food facilities if certain conditions are met. SB
746 is pending in Senate Natural Resources and Water
Committee.
6)PREVIOUS
LEGISLATION.
a) AB 1235 expands an exemption from provisions of the CRFC
premises set aside for a beer tasting facility to serve
prepackaged, non-potentially hazardous food for onsite
consumption. Requires a beer tasting facility that sells
prepackaged, non-potentially hazardous foods to comply with
general provisions of the CRFC and limits the food display
area to less than 25 square feet.
b) AB 1014 (Fletcher), Chapter 159, Statutes of 2011,
exempts premises set aside by a beer manufacturer, as
defined, for beer tasting, from the definition of a food
facility, thereby, exempting beer tasting premises from the
provisions of the CRFC.
c) SB 241 (Runner), Chapter 571, Statutes of 2009, among
other things, clarifies the exemption for premises set
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aside for wine tasting to apply regardless of whether there
is a charge for the wine tasting.
d) SB 144 (Runner), Chapter 23, Statutes of 2006,
establishes the CRFC in order to create uniformity between
California's retail food safety laws and those of other
states, as well as to enhance food safety laws based on the
best available science.
e) AB 1778 (Areias), Chapter 1065, Statutes of 1985,
excludes premises set aside for wine tasting if no other
beverage, except for bottles of wine and prepackaged
nonpotentially hazardous beverages, is offered for sale for
onsite consumption and no food, except for crackers, is
served, from the definition of a food facility.
7)TECHNICAL AMENDMENT: The incorrect code section is referenced
for beer tasting rooms; an amendment is needed to cite the
correct code section:
"? a premises set aside for beer or wine tasting, as the term is
defined in Section 25000.2 Section 23357.3 or Section 23356.1
?".
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Wine Institute (sponsor)
California Retail Food Safety Coalition
Family Winemakers of California
AB 143
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared
by: Dharia McGrew/HEALTH/(916) 319-2097