BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2130
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Date of Hearing: March 25, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
Richard Pan, Chair
AB 2130 (Pan) - As Amended: March 20, 2013
SUBJECT : Retail food safety.
SUMMARY : Repeals a prohibition on bare hand contact with
ready-to-eat food by food employees and replaces it with prior
law, which required food employees to minimize bare hand
contact. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires food employees to minimize bare hand and arm contact
with nonprepackaged food that is in a ready-to-eat form.
2)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. Allows food employees to
handle ready-to-eat food without the use of utensils if hands
are cleaned in accordance with current hand washing
requirements.
3)Repeals existing law that prohibits bare hand contact with
ready to eat food, as detailed in 1) and 2) below.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Prohibits food employees from contacting exposed, ready-to-eat
food with their bare hands and instead requires the use of
suitable utensils such as deli tissue, spatulas, tongs,
single-use gloves, or dispensing equipment.
2)Provides an exception to the prohibition in 1) above for a
food facility that obtains prior approval from the local
enforcement agency (LEA) and maintains the following written
procedures and documentation:
a) For each bare hand contact procedure, a listing of the
specific ready-to-eat foods that are touched by bare hands.
b) Diagrams and other information showing that hand washing
facilities are installed, located, and maintained in
accordance with current law.
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c) A written employee health policy that details the manner
in which the food facility complies with current law that
prevents employees with gastrointestinal illness from
handling food and requires reporting of employees who are
experiencing such illness to the LEA. This policy is
required to include:
i) Documentation that food employees acknowledge that
they have been informed to report information about their
gastrointestinal symptoms and diseases, as specified;
ii) Documentation that food employees and conditional
employees acknowledge their responsibilities to report
gastrointestinal symptoms and comply with consequent
exclusions from food handling, as specified;
iii) Documentation that the person in charge acknowledges
his or her responsibilities to report sick employees to
the local enforcement agency;
iv) Documentation that food employees acknowledge that
they have received training in the risks of contacting
the specific ready-to-eat foods with bare hands and in
various requirements of current law, including proper
hand washing techniques and requirements; where to wash
hands; proper fingernail maintenance; prohibition of
jewelry; and good hygienic practices;
v) Documentation that hands are washed before food
preparation and as necessary to prevent
cross-contamination by food employees during all hours of
operation when the specific ready-to-eat foods are
prepared;
vi) Documentation that food employees contacting
ready-to-eat foods with bare hands use two or more of the
following control measures to provide additional
safeguards: double hand washing, nail brushes, a hand
antiseptic after hand washing, incentive programs such as
paid sick leave that assist or encourage food employees
not to report to work if they are ill, or other control
measures approved by the LEA; and,
vii) Documentation that corrective action is taken when
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the requirements specified in (i) through (vi) above are
not followed.
3)Establishes the California Retail Food Code (CRFC), which
states the intent of the Legislature to occupy the whole field
of health and sanitation standards for retail food facilities
and makes standards set forth in CRFC exclusive of all local
health and sanitation standards relating to retail food
facilities, with specified exceptions. Finds and declares
that the public health interest requires that there be uniform
statewide health and sanitation standards for retail food
facilities to assure the people of this state that the food
will be pure, safe, and unadulterated.
4)Under the CRFC, contains comprehensive food safety provisions
related to management and personnel; general food safety;
cleaning and sanitizing of equipment and utensils; water,
plumbing, and waste; and physical facilities.
5)Requires food employees to thoroughly wash their hands,
including detailed washing, rinsing, and drying procedures,
with particular attention paid to the areas underneath the
fingernails and between the fingers. Requires hand washing
before engaging in food preparation; after touching body parts
other than hands; after using the restroom; after coughing,
sneezing, using a tissue, using tobacco, eating, or drinking;
when switching from working with raw to ready-to-eat food;
before dispensing or serving food; and after engaging in
various other activities that contaminate the hands. Requires
hand washing to be carried out in sinks exclusively dedicated
to hand washing.
6)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, including both of the following:
a) The course provides basic, introductory instruction on
the elements of knowledge related to food safety,
including: foodborne illness and toxins; time and
temperature control; personal hygiene, including the
association of hand contact to foodborne illness; methods
of preventing food contamination; procedures for cleaning
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and sanitizing equipment and utensils; and problems and
potential solutions associated with temperature control,
preventing cross-contamination, housekeeping, and
maintenance; and,
b) The course and examination are designed to be completed
within approximately two and one-half hours; the
examination consists of at least 40 questions regarding the
required subject matter; and a minimum score of 70% on the
examination is required.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill has not yet been analyzed by a fiscal
committee.
COMMENTS :
1)PURPOSE OF THIS BILL . The author writes that, in 2013, 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 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.
The author indicates that, since AB 1252 took effect 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, the author states that the Committee bill process
was not appropriate for this provision, which should have been
fully vetted and debated before being enacted. This bill is
intended to give food facilities relief from the bare hand
contact prohibition, allowing businesses to follow 2013 law
until the value of prohibiting bare hand contact can be
assessed.
2)BACKGROUND . The CRFC is largely a product of the
recommendations of the California Retail Food Safety Coalition
(CRFSC), a body of public health and food industry
representatives. The CRFSC periodically sponsors bills to
update CRFC that contain provisions reached through its
consensus process. In 2013, the CRFSC sponsored AB 1252, a
Health Committee-authored bill that contained numerous such
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provisions, including the restoration of the definition of hot
dog to state law, a clarification of the definition of service
animals to conform with federal regulations, and authorization
for food facilities to use temporary alternative storage
methods, such as a trailer, for food storage during holidays,
emergencies, remodels, or other circumstances, if approved by
the local environmental health department. However, among its
many noncontroversial, minor, and technical changes, AB
1252 contained a prohibition on bare hand contact with ready
to eat food without prior approval from the local
environmental health department. No opposition to any of
AB 1252's provisions, including the bare hand contact
prohibition, was registered through the legislative process.
(It is the custom and practice of the Assembly Health
Committee, for Committee-authored bills, to immediately remove
any provision to which opposition arises.) However, as local
environmental health departments began communicating with food
facilities in preparation for the bill's implementation, media
reports began to indicate that many small restaurants and bars
were surprised, frustrated, and confused about the bare hand
contact prohibition. Three petitions on change.org gathered a
combined 20,000 signatures in favor of repeal of the bare hand
contact provision in AB 1252.
Federal Food Code. The federal Food and Drug Administration's
(FDA) Food Code 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. All 50 states have
adopted food codes patterned after the FDA Food Code;
California's food safety law, the CRFC, is patterned after the
FDA Food Code published in 2005.
Although the CRFC is modeled on the FDA Food Code, there are
important differences between them. For example, California's
food handler card law (created by SB 602, Padilla, Chapter
309, Statutes of 2010), requires all food handlers to complete
a course in food safety and obtain a food handler card within
30 days after hire at a food facility. There is no comparable
requirement in the FDA Food Code.
Foodborne illness. According to the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), foodborne illness is a common,
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costly-yet preventable-public health problem. The CDC
estimates that each year roughly one in six Americans (or 48
million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000
die of foodborne diseases. According to CDC's 2011 estimates,
the most common foodborne illnesses are caused by norovirus
and by the bacteria Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens, and
Campylobacter. Since 1996, CDC has documented various trends
in foodborne illness; overall, the incidence of infection with
six key foodborne pathogens (Campylobacter, Listeria,
Salmonella, an Escherichia coli strain, Vibrio, and Yersinia)
has declined by 22%.
Equivocal evidence on glove use and food safety. The National
Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods
(NACMCF), within the United States Department of Agriculture's
Food Safety and Inspection Service, provides impartial
scientific advice to federal agencies to use in developing
integrated food safety systems from farm to table and to
ensure food safety in domestic and imported foods. In 1999,
the NACMCF issued a set of recommendations on bare hand
contact with ready-to-eat foods. The NACMCF found, based on
the evidence, that bare hand contact can contribute to the
transmission of foodborne illness and recommended three
measures to counter this risk: a) the exclusion of ill workers
from contact with ready-to-eat foods and food contact
surfaces; b) proper handwashing; and c) minimizing bare hand
contact with ready-to-eat foods. The NACMCF found that
available scientific data was insufficient to support a
blanket prohibition of bare hand contact with ready-to-eat
foods.
Since the NACMCF recommendations were published, a number of
studies have investigated the connection between bare hand
contact and foodborne illness. These studies have had mixed
conclusions. Some studies have shown that proper glove use
can decrease the transfer of pathogens to food.<1>,<2> Yet
despite evidence that proper glove use, in combination with
---------------------------
<1> Michaels, Barry, Cheryll Keller, Matthew Blevins, Greg
Paoli, Todd Ruthman, Ewen Todd, and Christopher J. Griffith.
"Prevention of food worker transmission of foodborne pathogens:
risk assessment and evaluation of effective hygiene intervention
strategies." Food Service Technology 4, no. 1 (2004): 31-49.
<2> Montville, Rebecca, Yuhuan Chen, and Donald W. Schaffner.
"Glove barriers to bacterial cross-contamination between hands
to food." Journal of Food Protection 64, no. 6 (2001): 845-849.
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hand washing, can reduce food contamination, some studies
suggest that the use of gloves in food service environments
may provide food workers with a false sense of security and
increase the risk of cross contamination by reducing hand
washing and leading workers to wear gloves too long. One
study found that attempted and appropriate hand washing rates
were significantly lower when gloves were worn (18% and 16%)
than when gloves were not worn (37% and 30%).<3> Another
study analyzed tortillas purchased from fast food restaurants
for the presence of various pathogens; coliform bacteria were
found in 9.6% of samples handled by gloved workers and 4.4% of
samples handled by bare hands, although this difference was
not statistically significant.<4>
3)SUPPORT . Supporters of this bill argue that AB 1252's bare
hand contact prohibition will require bars, bakeries, and
restaurants to buy and discard thousands of disposable gloves,
imposing a significant financial burden and environmental
impact, and that glove changes will result in a loss of
operational efficiency. These businesses indicate that they
were not involved in the discussion surrounding AB 1252. Many
of these supporters from the food service industry express the
opinion that the use of gloves is no safer than a thorough
hand washing, as it creates a false sense of comfort that
hands need not be washed.
4)PREVIOUS LEGISLATION .
a) AB 1252 (Committee on Health) makes numerous technical,
clarifying, and noncontroversial changes to the CRFC and
prohibits bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food without
prior authorization from the local environmental health
department.
b) SB 309 (Padilla), Chapter 309, Statutes of 2010,
--------------------------
<3> Green, Laura R., Carol A. Selman, Vincent Radke, Danny
Ripley, James C. Mack, David W. Reimann, Tammi Stigger, Michelle
Motsinger, and Lisa Bushnell. "Food worker hand washing
practices: an observation study." Journal of Food Protection 69,
no. 10 (2006): 2417-2423.
<4> Lynch, Robert A., Margaret L. Phillips, Brenda L. Elledge,
Sridhar Hanumanthaiah, and Daniel T. Boatright. "A preliminary
evaluation of the effect of glove use by food handlers in fast
food restaurants." Journal of Food Protection 68, no. 1 (2005):
187-190
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requires a food handler to obtain a food handler card
within 30 days after hire date at a food facility, and
every three years thereafter, upon successful completion of
a food safety training course.
c) SB 241 (George Runner), Chapter 571, Statutes of 2009,
makes a number of clean up changes to the CRFC and provides
for the regulation of temporary and mobile food facilities
under the CRFC.
d) SB 144 (George Runner), Chapter 23, Statutes of 2006,
repealed and reenacted the California Uniform Retail Food
Facilities Law as the CRFC.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Biba Restaurant, Sacramento
Bits, Bites, and Boxes, Loomis
Citizen Hotel, Sacramento
de Vere's Irish Pub, Sacramento
Der Biergarten, Sacramento
Eden Vale Inn, Placerville
Freeport Bakery, Sacramento
Grange Restaurant and Bar, Sacramento
Mulvaney's B&L, Sacramento
River City Brewing Company, Sacramento
River City Saloon, Sacramento
Three individuals
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Ben Russell / HEALTH / (916) 319-2097