BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 241|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 241
Author: Runner (R), et al
Amended: 4/14/09
Vote: 27 - Urgency
SENATE HEALTH COMMITTEE : 11-0, 4/22/09
AYES: Alquist, Strickland, Aanestad, Cedillo, Cox,
DeSaulnier, Leno, Maldonado, Negrete McLeod, Pavley, Wolk
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
SUBJECT : Retail food facilities
SOURCE : California Retail Food Safety Coalition
DIGEST : This bill establishes single operating site
mobile food facility as a new category of mobile food
facilities regulated under the California Retail Food Code,
imposes various requirements on these facilities, and
revises standards applicable to mobile food facilities and
satellite food facilities, makes additional technical and
nonsubstantive amendments to the California Retail Food
Code, and declares that these provisions will take effect
immediately as an urgency statute.
ANALYSIS : Existing law, the California Retail Food Code
(CalCode), provides for the development of health and
sanitation standards for retail food facilities by the
State Department of Public Health (DPH) and vests local
health agencies with primary responsibility for enforcing
CONTINUED
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this code.
CalCode:
1. Establishes the authority of local environmental health
jurisdictions to adopt a food safety inspection program
with state oversight.
2. Establishes uniform food safety and sanitation
requirements for local jurisdictions to follow.
3. Requires plans for new and remodeled food facilities to
be submitted and approved by the local environmental
health jurisdiction prior to operation.
4. Provides authority for the local jurisdiction to
inspect, immediately suspend a permit, conduct hearings,
take samples or other evidence, impound food or
equipment, and issue reports.
5. Establishes standards for temperature control of
potentially hazardous foods.
6. Requires that food be protected from contamination.
7. Establishes standards for sanitization.
8. Establishes requirements for food handler health and
hygiene.
9. Establishes standards for food service equipment, among
other standards.
Existing law subjects the following special categories of
food facilities to specified requirements:
1. Mobile food facility, defined as any vehicle used in
conjunction with a commissary or other permanent food
facility upon which food is sold or distributed at
retail, exclusive of transporters, as defined.
2. Satellite food service, defined as a remotely located
food service operation that is conducted on the same
property as, in reasonable proximity to, and in
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conjunction with and by, a fully enclosed permanent food
facility, exclusive of food service operations located
within a fully enclosed permanent food facility.
3. Mobile support unit, defined as a vehicle used in
conjunction with a commissary or other permanent food
facility that travels to, and services, mobile food
facilities as needed, to replenish supplies, including
food and potable water; clean the interior of the unit;
or, dispose of liquid or solid wastes.
4. Nonpermanent food facility, defined as a food facility
that operates from a mobile unit or at a nonpermanent
location, including, but not limited to, a certified
farmers' market, a mobile food facility, a temporary
food facility, or a vending machine.
Single operating site mobile food facilities . This bill
establishes "single operating site mobile food facility" as
a new category of mobile food facilities regulated under
the CalCode.
This bill imposes various requirements on these facilities,
revises standards applicable to mobile food facilities and
satellite food facilities.
This bill defines single operating site mobile food
facilities as at least one, but no more than four,
unenclosed mobile food facilities, and their auxiliary
units, that operate adjacent to each other at a single
location.
This bill prohibits a single operating site mobile food
facility from providing whole fish, whole aquatic
invertebrates, or prepackaged food, and from engaging in
limited food preparation.
This bill imposes on a single operating site mobile food
facility, which is required to provide warewashing and
handwashing facilities, specified requirements on
warewashing and hand washing, and specified permitting
requirements.
Satellite food service . This bill allows satellite food
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service operations that handle nonprepackaged food to be
equipped with approved handwashing facilities and
warewashing facilities that are either permanently plumbed
or self-contained, as opposed to requiring only permanently
plumbed facilities, pursuant to current law.
This bill revises the requirements for the storage of food
and utensils when satellite food service is not being
conducted.
This bill allows the duly contracted personnel or
third-party provider of the permitholder to control
satellite food service activities, in addition to the
permitholder of the fully enclosed permanent food facility.
This bill requires, for the purposes of permitting and
enforcement, the permitholder of the permanent food
facility and the permitholder of the satellite food service
to be the same.
Nonpermanent food facilities . This bill repeals the
requirement that nonpermanent food facilities that handle
nonprepackaged food shall be equipped with both potable
water and wastewater tanks, unless approved temporary water
and wastewater connections are provided.
Mobile food facilities . This bill prohibits a mobile food
facility that is engaged in food preparation, other than
limited food preparation, from operating in conjunction
with a mobile support unit, and revises the requirement
that all food from a mobile food facility shall be stored
at the commissary or other approved facility at the end of
the operating day.
This bill provides that a mobile food facility operating
within a fully enclosed structure shall not be required to
provide a secondary food compartment over food preparation
areas. Exempts mobile food facilities handling only whole
produce, whole fish, whole aquatic invertebrates, or the
bulk dispensing of nonpotentially hazardous beverages from
the requirement to provide handwashing facilities, as
specified.
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This bill revises the requirement for the placement of the
handwashing and warewashing sinks for an unenclosed mobile
food facility. Revises the requirements under which a
mobile food facility is not required to provide a
warewashing sink. Requires overhead protection, as
specified, for warewashing sinks for unenclosed mobile food
facilities. Specifies, for mobile food facilities where
nonprepackaged food is cooked, blended, or otherwise
prepared, and for unenclosed mobile food facilities that
prepare potentially hazardous beverages for immediate
service, the requirements of the compartments of
warewashing sinks.
Other provisions . This bill makes additional technical and
nonsubstantive amendments to the CalCode.
This bill limits the authority of a local health officer or
local enforcement agency to restrict or exclude only those
employees who are specifically food employees from a food
facility. Prohibits food stored in a private home from
being used or offered for sale in a food facility.
This bill allows an enforcement officer to establish
additional structural or operational requirements, or both,
as necessary to ensure that foods, food-contact surfaces,
and utensils are of a safe and sanitary quality, based upon
local environmental conditions, location, and other similar
factors.
This bill revises the definitions of cold water, egg,
fabric implements and types of materials used to create
them, frozen food, prepackaged food, temporary mobile
facility, transporter, and produce stand, and vermin as
specified. Defines "person in charge," for purposes of
assuring food safety as it related to employee roles.
This bill clarifies that a child care facility, a community
care facility, a residential care facility for the elderly,
and a residential care facility for the elderly chronically
ill are not defined as food facilities.
This bill revises exemptions for premises set aside for
wine tasting.
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This bill revises language regarding methods in protecting
food from cross contamination.
This bill revises the definition for potentially hazardous
foods and provides that unused portions of potentially
hazardous foods held for dispensing in serving lines and
salad bars may be maintained at specified temperatures and
times if the unused portions are discarded.
This bill revises the definition of food compartment and
limited food preparation. Makes an exception to the
requirement to have additional food compartments when
adding ingredients to a beverage, or dispensing into a
serving container in response to an individual consumer
order, (such as the case with coffee/cappuccino carts) when
conducting limited food preparation.
This bill specifies manual warewashing temperatures,
specifies mechanical warewashing sanitation methods and
procedures.
This bill provides principles delineated for following the
Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point principles,
developed by the National Advisory Committee on
Microbiological Criteria, and the steps needed to complete
them. These steps include, but are not limited to
identification of likely hazards to consumers presented by
a specific food, determination of critical control points
in receiving, storage, preparation, displaying, and
dispensing of a food, and measurable critical limits for
each critical control point determined.
This bill makes clarifying changes regarding the heating
and cooling of food, the sanitization of equipment, the
compliance of nonconforming structural conditions of food
facilities.
This bill makes other various technical and nonsubstantive
changes.
This makes provides that fees collected for the permit, or
registration, or related services, that cover
administrative and enforcement expenses shall only be
expended for that purpose.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/4/09)
California Retail Food Safety Coalition (source)
California Association of Environmental Health
Administrators
California Retailers Association
Moore Marketing
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The California Association of
Environmental Health Administrators (CAEHA), states that
they are a participant in the sponsoring coalition, CRFSC,
which since 1993 has been focusing on retail safety in the
state by sponsoring improvements to the CalCode. CAEHA
further states that SB 241 is essentially the
reintroduction of two bills from the 2008 legislative
session, SB 1359 (Runner), which included provisions that
conformed California law more closely to the science-based
federal food code, and AB 2540 (Mendoza), which was
introduced to correct a number of code changes made at the
time of adopting CalCode in 2006 which had severely
hampered the permitting and operations of food carts.
CAEHA contends that while both bills passed out of the
Legislature on special consent, they both fell prey to the
Governor's blanket veto of almost 300 lesser measures
during the height of the budget crisis.
CTW:do 5/4/09 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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