Sugar-sweetened beverages: safety warnings.

(1) Existing federal law, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, regulates, among other things, the quality and packaging of foods introduced or delivered for introduction into interstate commerce and generally prohibits the misbranding of food. Existing federal law, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, governs state and local labeling requirements, including those that characterize the relationship of any nutrient specified in the labeling of food to a disease or health-related condition. Existing state law, the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law, generally regulates misbranded food and provides that any food is misbranded if its labeling does not conform with the requirements for nutrient content or health claims as set forth in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the regulations adopted pursuant to that federal act. Existing law requires that a food facility, as defined, make prescribed disclosures and warnings to consumers. Existing law makes a violation of these requirements a crime. Existing state law, the Pupil Nutrition, Health, and Achievement Act of 2001, prohibits the sale of specified beverages to pupils at schools, except for vegetable-based drinks, drinking water with no added sweetener, milk, and in high schools, an electrolyte replacement beverage if those beverages meet certain nutritional requirements. This bill would establish the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Safety Warning Act, which would prohibit a person from distributing, selling, or offering for sale a sugar-sweetened beverage in a sealed beverage container, a multipack of sugar-sweetened beverages, or a concentrate, as those terms are defined, in this state unless the sealed beverage container, multipack, or packaging of the concentrate bears a safety warning. The bill also would require every person who owns, leases, or otherwise legally controls the premises where a vending machine or beverage dispensing machine is located, or where a sugar-sweetened beverage is sold in an unsealed container, to place a specified safety warning in certain locations, including on the exterior of any vending machine that includes a sugar-sweetened beverage for sale. (2) Under existing law, the State Department of Public Health, upon the request of a health officer, as defined, may authorize the local health department of a city, county, city and county, or local health district to enforce the provisions of the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Public Health to assess a civil penalty against any person for a violation of that law in an amount not to exceed $1,000 per day, except as specified. Existing law authorizes the Attorney General or any district attorney, on behalf of the State Department of Public Health, to bring an action in a superior court to grant a temporary or permanent injunction restraining a person from violating the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law. This bill, commencing July 1, 2021, would make the first violation of that law or regulations adopted pursuant to that law result in a notice of violation that would inform the recipient that they have an opportunity to remedy the violation without penalty, and a second or subsequent violation punishable by a civil penalty of not less than $50, but no greater than $500. This bill would also create the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Safety Warning Fund for the receipt of all moneys collected for violations of those requirements, and would allocate moneys in this fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the department for the purpose of enforcing those provisions. The bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, obesity, and dental disease.