AB 626: California Retail Food Code: microenterprise home kitchen operations.

Existing law, the California Retail Food Code, establishes uniform health and sanitation standards for retail food facilities for regulation by the State Department of Public Health, and requires local enforcement agencies to enforce these provisions. Existing law defines food facility as an operation that stores, prepares, packages, serves, vends, or otherwise provides food for human consumption at the retail level, as specified. Existing law exempts, among others, a private home, including a registered or permitted cottage food operation, from the definition of food facility. A violation of the California Retail Food Code is generally a misdemeanor.

This bill would, among other things, include a microenterprise home kitchen operation within the definition of a food facility, and would define a microenterprise home kitchen operation to mean a food facility that is operated by a resident in a private home where food is stored, handled, and prepared for, and may be served to, consumers, and that meets specified requirements, including, among others, that the operation has no more than one full-time equivalent food employee and has no more than $50,000 in verifiable gross annual sales. The bill would specify that the governing body of a city or county, or city and county, shall have full discretion to authorize, by ordinance or resolution, the permitting of microenterprise home kitchen operations in accordance with the provisions of this bill, except as provided. The bill would require a microenterprise home kitchen operation to be considered a restricted food service facility for purposes of certain provisions of the code, except as otherwise provided, and would exempt a microenterprise home kitchen operation from various provisions applicable to food facilities, including, among others, provisions relating to handwashing, sinks, ventilation, and animals. The bill would require the applicant for a permit to operate a microenterprise home kitchen operation to submit to the local enforcement agency written standard operating procedures that include specified information, including all food types or products that will be handled and the days and times that the home kitchen will potentially be utilized as a microenterprise home kitchen operation.

The bill would require an Internet food service intermediary, as defined, that lists or promotes a microenterprise home kitchen operation on its Internet Web site or mobile application to, among other things, be registered with the department, to clearly and conspicuously post on its Internet Web site or mobile application the requirements for the permitting of a microenterprise home kitchen operation, as specified, prior to the publication of the microenterprise home kitchen operations offer of food for sale, and to submit the name and permit number of a microenterprise home kitchen operation to the local enforcement agency if it receives, through its Internet Web site or mobile application, 3 or more unrelated individual food safety or hygiene complaints in a calendar year from consumers who have made a purchase through its Internet Web site or mobile application. The bill would also make related findings and declarations.

By expanding the scope of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 113789 of the Health and Safety Code proposed by AB 2178 and AB 2524 to be operative only if this bill and AB 2178, this bill and AB 2524, or all 3 bills are enacted and this bill is enacted last.

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.