BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
Senator Ed Hernandez, O.D., Chair
BILL NO: AB 2130
AUTHOR: Pan and Gatto
AMENDED: May 1, 2014
HEARING DATE: June 11, 2014
CONSULTANT: Marchand
SUBJECT : Retail food safety.
SUMMARY : Repeals provisions of law enacted last year 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 require food employees to minimize bare
hand contact with ready-to-eat foods.
Existing law:
1.Establishes the California Retail Food Code (CRFC) to regulate
retail food safety, which is enforced by local environmental
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, including the
following:
a. The retail food facility permit holder obtains
prior approval from the regulatory authority;
b. Written procedures are maintained in the food
facility that include a list of the specific
ready-to-eat foods that are touched by bare hands, and
diagrams and other information showing that
hand-washing facilities are in an easily accessible
location and in close proximity to the work station
where the bare hand contact procedures is being
conducted;
c. A written employee health policy that details
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the manner in which the food facility complies with
specified provisions of law, including provisions
requiring employees to report to their managers about
their health as it relates to gastrointestinal
symptoms and diseases that are transmittable through
food;
d. Documentation that food employees have
received training, as specified, including proper
hand-washing techniques, good hygienic practices, and
the risks of contacting the specific ready-to-eat
foods with bare hands; and,
e. Documentation that food employees contacting
ready-to-eat foods with bare hands use two or more of
the following control measures: double hand-washing;
nail brushes; a hand antiseptic after hand-washing;
or, incentive programs such as paid sick leave to
encourage food employees not to report to work if they
are ill.
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, 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 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 percent on the examination is required.
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,
AB 2130 | Page
3
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
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.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, negligible state costs.
PRIOR VOTES :
Assembly Health: 18- 0
Assembly Appropriations: 17- 0
Assembly Floor: 73- 0
COMMENTS :
1.Author's statement. 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
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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 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.
2.Background on 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. The CDC cites five
highly infective pathogens that can easily be transmitted by
food workers and cause severe illness: Norovirus; Hepatitis A
virus; Salmonella; Typhi; Shigella spp.; and, Escherichia coli
(E.coli). 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.
3.Minimizing vs. prohibiting bare hand contact. Although the US
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Model Food Code includes a
prohibition on food workers touching ready-to-eat foods with
bare hands, the US 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
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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 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."
4.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 percent of the time when hand washing would be
recommended, and only appropriately washed their hands (using
soap and drying their hands) 27 percent of the time washing
was recommended. Interestingly, however, the attempted and
appropriate hand washing rates were significantly lower when
gloves were worn (18 percent and 16 percent, respectively)
than when gloves were not worn (37 percent and 30 percent).
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."
5.Prior legislation. AB 1252 (Committee on Health) made numerous
technical, clarifying, and non-controversial changes to the
CRFC, and prohibited bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food
without prior authorization from the local environmental
health department.
SB 359 (Hernandez) of 2012 would have enacted provisions
substantially similar to AB 1252. These provisions were
subsequently removed and the bill was amended to address a
different subject matter.
SB 946 (Steinberg), Chapter 650, Statutes of 2011, also would
have included provisions substantially similar to AB 1252.
These provisions were deleted and the bill was amended to
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address a different subject matter.
SB 602 (Padilla), Chapter 309, Statutes of 2010, required 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 Food Code and provided for
the regulation of temporary and mobile food facilities under
the Food Code.
SB 1359 (George Runner), of 2008, was substantially similar to
SB 241. This bill was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. In
his veto message, the Governor stated that it was due to the
historic delay in passing the 2008-09 State Budget, and the
bill did not meet the standard of the highest priority for
California.
SB 744 (George Runner), Chapter 96, Statutes of 2007, enacted
numerous technical, clarifying, and non-substantive changes to
the Food Code.
SB 144 (George Runner), Chapter 23, Statutes of 2006, repealed
and reenacted the California Uniform Retail Food Facilities
Law as the Food Code.
6.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 Caf�, 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 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
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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.
7.Letter of concern. The California Retail Food Safety Coalition
(CRFSC), which requested the changes made by AB 1252 last
year, and which this bill is repealing in part, have written a
letter urging that these bare hand contact provisions be
revised, and not repealed. The CRFSC is comprised of local
environmental health officials and representatives from the
retail food industry, through the California Restaurant
Association, the California Grocers Association, the
California Retailers Association, and other industry groups.
CRFSC states that while no group, however large, can fully
represent an industry as extensive as the retail food
industry, the recommendation to include this prohibition was
not submitted for legislative action until there was consensus
by all represented constituency groups, and that the coalition
recognized that this was an important provision to reduce the
transmission of fecal-oral pathogens by food handlers.
CRFSC states that the provision for no bare hand contact with
ready-to-eat food was adopted by the FDA for their Model Food
Code in 1993, and it has taken more than 20 years for
California to come up to the same science-based requirements.
The FDA's Model Food Code states that "infected food employees
are the source of contamination in approximately one in five
foodborne disease outbreaks reported in the United States with
a bacterial or viral cause. Most of these outbreaks involve
enteric, i.e., fecal-oral agents. These are organisms that
employees were shedding in their stools at the time the food
was prepared."
CRFSC states that it urges the consideration of revisions to
these provisions, and not wholesale repeal. CRFSC suggests
consideration of three possibilities: 1) possible elaboration
or even expansion of the local variance process already
provided for in the law; 2) consideration of a longer
statutory phase-in or soft roll-out; and, 3) statutory
clarification of conditions under which non-compliance with
this provision would be deemed a major versus a minor
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violation.
SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION :
Support: 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
de Vere's Irish Pub, Sacramento
Der Biergarten, Sacramento
Dish It Up Catering and Diggers Deli, Vacaville
Dos Coyotes Border Caf�
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 Caf�, 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
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Numerous individuals
Oppose: None received
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