California Bills

Existing law provides for financial and food assistance benefits to needy Californians, including, among other programs, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program and CalFresh, under which each county provides for financial and food assistance benefits to qualified individuals who meet specified eligibility criteria. Existing law, administered by the State Department of Social Services, provides for the establishment of a statewide electronic benefits transfer (EBT) system for the purpose of providing those financial and food assistance benefits. Existing law authorizes a county to deliver CalFresh benefits and, upon election by the county, CalWORKs benefits through the use of an EBT system. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services to, on or before February 1, 2017, convene a workgroup to develop recommendations for delivering a water benefit to supplement the purchase of drinking water for low-income households with inadequate access to safe drinking water, as specified. The bill would require the workgroup to consist of representatives from specified entities, including the Department of Water Resources, the Office of Emergency Services, and applicable community advocates, and would require the workgroup to develop recommendations that include, among other things, an implementation plan for identification of eligible households and delivery of the benefit to those households. The bill would require the State Department of Social Services to, on or before July 1, 2017, submit a report with the recommendations to the Legislature and the California Health and Human Services Agency. The bill would also make relating findings and declarations.

Existing law makes specified provisions in construction contracts void and unenforceable, including provisions that purport to indemnify the promisee against liability for damages for death or bodily injury to persons, injury to property, or any other loss arising from the sole negligence or willful misconduct of the promisee or the promisee's agents who are directly responsible to the promisee, or for defects in design furnished by those persons. This bill would specify, with certain exceptions, for contracts and amendments to them entered into on or after January 1, 2017, that a design professional, as defined, only has the duty to defend himself or herself from claims or lawsuits that arise out of, or pertain or relate to, negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct of the design professional. The bill would prohibit these provisions from being construed to affect any duty of a design professional to defend any claims brought against him or her on an ongoing basis during their pendency or the design professional's obligation to reimburse reasonable defense costs incurred by other persons or entities, limited to the design professional's degree of fault, as determined by a court, arbitration, or negotiated settlement. The bill would provide that contracts and solicitation documents are deemed to incorporate its provisions by reference and would define claim to include a demand for money or services, lawsuit, or demand for arbitration. The bill would prohibit waiver of these provisions and would provide that any clause, covenant, or agreement contained in, collateral to, or affecting a contract that requires a design professional to defend claims or lawsuits against other persons or entities is void and unenforceable. The bill would provide legislative findings and declarations in support of these provisions.

Existing law, the Gender Tax Repeal Act of 1995, prohibits a business establishment from discriminating against a person because of the person's gender with respect to the price charged for services of similar or like kind and specifies that this prohibition does not apply to price differences based specifically upon the amount of time, difficulty, or cost of providing the services. This bill would also prohibit a business establishment from discriminating against a person because of a person's gender with respect to the price charged for goods of a substantially similar or like kind, except for food, as defined, or goods sold by a new motor vehicle dealer, as defined. The bill would specify that these exceptions shall not bar or otherwise impact a claim brought under the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The bill would specify that a price difference based specifically on labor, materials, tariffs, or other gender-neutral reasons for having an increased cost of providing the goods is not included within this prohibition. The bill would also specify that a retail establishment is not prohibited from passing through a price to the consumer that is set by a manufacturer, distributor, or other entity that the retailer cannot control.

Existing law prohibits the operation of a place of business in which drug paraphernalia is kept, displayed, or sold unless the drug paraphernalia is completely kept within a separate room or enclosure to which persons under 18 years of age are excluded. Existing law prohibits the sale of synthetic cannabinoid compounds, as specified. This bill would allow a city, county, or city and county, to regulate, by ordinance, the sale of a substance used as a recreational drug that poses a threat to human life or health and a particular risk to minors if specified conditions are met, including the fact that the substance is sold under a product name or label that is clearly identifiable, there is substantial evidence that the substance has been advertised, purchased, sold, or consumed as a recreational drug, and there is substantial evidence that the substance can cause intoxication, disability, or death if ingested smoked, inhaled, or injected into the body. The bill would allow the city council or board of supervisors to require vendors to maintain records of sale, make inventory available for inspection by a peace officer, and store the substance in a secure place that cannot be accessed by minors. The bill would allow the city, county, or city and county, to prohibit the sale of the substance to minors and require the payment of a penalty for noncompliance with the ordinance, not to exceed $250.

Existing law requires the Department of General Services to provide planning, acquisition, construction, and maintenance of state buildings and property, and maintain a statewide property inventory of all real property held by the state. This bill would authorize the Director of General Services to revert a specified parcel of state real property to the City of San Buenaventura pursuant to these provisions. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the City of San Buenaventura.

Under existing law, when a person, as a result of a mental disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or is gravely disabled, he or she may, upon probable cause, be taken into custody by a peace officer, member of the attending staff of an evaluation facility, designated members of a mobile crisis team, or other designated professional person, and placed in a facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Health Care Services as a facility for 72-hour treatment and evaluation. Existing law requires that a written application be submitted to a facility before a person may be detained for evaluation and treatment on this basis, as specified. This bill would additionally authorize a nondesignated emergency physician or psychiatric professional, upon probable cause, to take the person into custody for a period of up to 72 hours for the purpose of obtaining evaluation and treatment from a designated professional person or to arrange the transfer of the person to a designated facility. The bill would provide that an application for detention for evaluation and treatment is valid in all counties in which there is a designated facility to which the person may be taken. The bill would require a designated facility to accept, within its clinical capability and capacity, all categories of persons for whom it is designated, without regard to insurance or financial status. The bill would authorize the communication of patient information amongst peace officers, specified medical personnel, and qualified professionals during an emergency, for purposes of providing emergency services, referral, and placement for the person.

(1) Existing law requires the Attorney General to maintain records, including, among other things, fingerprints, licenses to carry concealed firearms, and information from firearms dealers pertaining to firearms, for purposes of assisting in the investigation of crimes and specified civil actions. In regard to certain of those records, existing law authorizes specified peace officers to disseminate the name of the subject of the record, the number of firearms listed in the record, the description of any firearm, and other information reported to the Department of Justice, as specified, if the subject of the record has been arraigned, is being prosecuted, or is serving a sentence for domestic violence or is the subject of specified protective orders. Existing law requires the law enforcement officer to provide a victim of domestic violence to whom information is disseminated with a "Victims of Domestic Violence" card, and authorizes the victim or other person to whom the information is disseminated to disclose that information as he or she deems necessary to protect himself, herself, or another person from bodily harm by the person who is the subject of the record. This bill would require the Attorney General to also maintain information about ammunition transactions and ammunition vendor licenses for those purposes. The bill would similarly authorize specified agencies, officials, and officers to disseminate the name of a person and the fact of any ammunition purchases by that person, as specified, if the subject of the record has been arraigned, is being prosecuted, or is serving a sentence for domestic violence or is the subject of specified protective orders. The bill would require the law enforcement officer to provide a victim of domestic violence to whom information regarding an ammunition purchase is disseminated with a "Victims of Domestic Violence" card. By imposing new duties on local law enforcement officers, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law, subject to exceptions, requires that the delivery or transfer of ownership of handgun ammunition occur only in a face-to-face transaction and makes a violation of this requirement a crime. This bill would extend those provisions, subject to exceptions, to any ammunition and would reorganize those provisions. (3) Existing law provides that the term "vendor" for purposes of ammunition sales is a "handgun ammunition vendor" as defined for those and other purposes. This bill would provide that the term "vendor" for purposes of ammunition sales means "ammunition vendor" and, commencing January 1, 2018, means a licensed ammunition vendor. The bill would provide that commencing on January 1, 2018, only a licensed ammunition vendor may sell ammunition. The bill would revise the definition of "ammunition" for those purposes. (4) Existing law establishes the Prohibited Armed Persons File, the purpose of which is to cross-reference persons prohibited from possessing firearms with records of firearm transactions to determine if these persons have acquired or attempted to acquire firearms. Under existing law, a person who is prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm is prohibited from owning, possessing, or having under his or her custody or control any ammunition or reloaded ammunition. This bill would, commencing July 1, 2019, use the Prohibited Armed Persons File to cross-reference persons who attempt to acquire ammunition, as specified, to determine if those persons are prohibited from possessing ammunition. (5) Existing law makes it a crime for a person, corporation, or firm to provide ammunition, as specified, to an individual that the person, corporation, or firm knows or should know is prohibited from possessing or owning ammunition. This bill would apply that prohibition to other business enterprises. The bill would make it a crime for a person, corporation, firm, or other business enterprise to provide, as specified, ammunition to an individual that the person, corporation, firm, or other business entity knows or has cause to believe is not the actual purchaser or transferee of the ammunition or knows or has cause to believe that the ammunition is to be sold or transferred to a person prohibited from possessing or owning ammunition. (6) Existing law prohibits an ammunition vendor from allowing a person the vendor knows or should know is a person who is prohibited from possessing firearms, for specified reasons, from handling, selling, or delivering handgun ammunition in the course and scope of his or her employment. Existing law prohibits an ammunition vendor from selling or otherwise transferring ownership of, offering for sale or otherwise offering to transfer ownership of, or displaying for sale or displaying for transfer of ownership of, any handgun ammunition in a manner that allows that ammunition to be accessible to a purchaser or transferee without the assistance of the vendor or an employee of the vendor. This bill would extend those prohibitions to any ammunition. The bill would require that when neither party to the ammunition transaction is an ammunition dealer, the transaction be conducted by an ammunition dealer. The bill would, subject to exceptions, require a resident bringing ammunition into the state to have the ammunition delivered to an ammunition dealer for delivery to the person, as specified. The bill would provide that a violation of these provisions is a crime. (7) Existing law, subject to exceptions, requires a handgun ammunition vendor to record specified information at the time of delivery of handgun ammunition to a purchaser, as specified. This bill would extend those provisions to transactions of any ammunition and would, commencing on July 1, 2019, require the ammunition vendor to submit that information to the Department of Justice, as specified. The bill would require the department to retain the information for 2 years in a database to be known as the Ammunition Purchase Records File and would prescribe the authority of the department and other entities to use the file, as specified. The bill would, commencing on July 1, 2019, and subject to exceptions, require the purchaser of ammunition to be authorized to purchase ammunition by the department, as specified. The bill would require the department to cross-reference the Prohibited Armed Persons File and the Automated Firearms System for those transaction purposes. The bill would require, commencing on July 1, 2019, and subject to exceptions, that only persons listed in the Automated Firearms System, or who purchase a one-time ammunition transaction license from the department, would be able to purchase ammunition. A violation of these provisions would be a crime. The bill would authorize the department to accept applications for ammunition vendor licenses, commencing on July 1, 2017. The bill would require an ammunition vendor to be licensed, commencing on January 1, 2018, in order to sell ammunition. The bill would create an application process for ammunition vendors, as specified. The bill would establish the Ammunition Special Account, into which vendor license fees and ammunition transaction fees would be deposited and made available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the department for purposes of enforcing the ammunition vendor licensing and ammunition purchasing provisions. The bill would require the ammunition vendor to conduct business at the location specified in the license, except in the case of gun shows or events, as specified. The bill would require ammunition sales at a gun show or event to comply with certain requirements pertaining to ammunition transfers and recordkeeping, the violation of which is a crime. (8) By expanding existing crimes and creating new crimes, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (9) 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 with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

Existing law generally restricts certain alcoholic beverage licensees from paying, crediting, or compensating a retailer for advertising in connection with the advertising and sale of alcoholic beverages and expressly authorizes exceptions to this prohibition. This bill would authorize, until January 1, 2022, a person, as defined, who has an ownership interest in an on-sale retail license, subject to a numerical limitation, to be compensated by an authorized licensee, as defined, for promotional or marketing services of the authorized licensee's products subject to specified conditions, including that the compensation be based solely on the promotional and marketing activities. The bill would create several new crimes, including that an authorized licensee who, through coercion or other illegal means, induces the holder of a wholesaler's license to provide compensation pursuant to these provisions guilty of a misdemeanor. The bill would additionally make an authorized licensee or a person who violates these provisions guilty of a misdemeanor. 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.