Food safety: food handlers.

The California Retail Food Code provides for the regulation of health and sanitation standards for retail food facilities by the State Department of Public Health. Local health agencies are primarily responsible for enforcing this law. Violation of these provisions is a misdemeanor. This law generally requires food facilities, except temporary food facilities, to have an owner or employee who has successfully passed an approved and accredited food safety certification examination from an accredited food protection manager certification organization, except as specified. Existing law generally defines a food facility to mean an operation that stores, prepares, packages, serves, vends, or otherwise provides food for human consumption at the retail level. Existing law also requires, with specified exceptions, a food handler, as defined, who is hired prior to June 1, 2011, to obtain a food handler card from a food protection manager certification organization, as described. A food handler hired after June 1, 2011, is required to obtain a food handler card within 30 days of his or her date of hire. A food handler must maintain a valid food handler card for the duration of his or her employment as a food handler. This bill would, for purposes of the above-described food handler requirements, define a food facility to mean a food facility that sells food for human consumption to the general public, with certain exceptions. The bill would, instead, until January 1, 2012, require a food handler to obtain a food handler card from either a food protection manager certification organization or a specified training provider, and would require, commencing January 1, 2012, the card to be obtained only from a specified training provider. By changing the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.