California’s legislators move a whole lot of recent legal guidelines annually, most of which take impact in January. However a handful kick in on July 1, the beginning of the state’s fiscal 12 months.
Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom final 12 months, the wide-ranging new legal guidelines embrace sweeping protections for California customers towards hidden “junk” charges that add surprising prices to the whole lot from live performance tickets to meals supply. The legal guidelines additionally deal with points associated to housing affordability, the problem of fixing your individual iPhone and different digital units, and screening measures to detect date-rape medication in alcoholic drinks at bars and nightclubs.
As in years previous, the listing largely displays the politics and pursuits of the Democrats who maintain a supermajority of seats within the state Meeting and Senate.
Right here’s a take a look at a number of of the brand new legal guidelines that can take impact Monday.
No extra hidden charges
Two new legal guidelines would require that companies together with inns, meals supply apps, airways and live performance venues embrace all necessary charges and surcharges of their marketed costs.
The wide-reaching transparency regulation, Senate Invoice 478, will apply to many industries. The fees that should be disclosed upfront to prospects embrace resort charges at inns, cleansing charges for lodging rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, venue charges for live shows and sporting occasions, and surcharges for driver advantages and deliveries on apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats.
The invoice was sponsored by Sens. Invoice Dodd (D-Napa) and Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and backed by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
A second regulation targets cleansing and resort charges at inns and short-term leases. Meeting Invoice 537, launched by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), requires that lodgings show the entire value earlier than checkout, besides any authorities taxes and costs.
The legal guidelines have already led to some nationwide modifications, together with lodge web sites that now show the entire value for every keep earlier than taxes, and a “complete earlier than taxes” search possibility on Airbnb.
President Biden final 12 months known as out junk charges and backed a invoice in Congress that may ban the charges nationally. The Federal Commerce Fee has additionally began drafting rules that may bar firms from promoting costs with out together with necessary charges.
Limits on safety deposits
Many California landlords will likely be barred from charging greater than the equal of 1 month’s hire for safety deposits. Landlords might beforehand cost the equal of two occasions the month-to-month hire for unfurnished models, and 3 times the month-to-month hire for furnished models.
Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who launched AB 12, stated that top safety deposits is usually a barrier to discovering inexpensive housing, particularly in coastal California cities the place rents are among the many nation’s highest.
Mother-and-pop landlords who come clean with two rental properties, with not more than 4 models, are exempt from the regulation.
Bank card codes for gun retailers
Beginning July 1, bank card fee networks should present a novel figuring out code for gun and ammunition retailers. These four-digit identifiers, often known as “service provider class codes,” already seem on bank card statements for many kinds of companies, together with grocery shops, inns and gasoline stations, and assist fee networks supply rewards and observe spending developments.
Sometimes, gun and ammunition retailers are categorized as sporting items shops. Below AB 1587, launched by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), bank card fee networks should start providing the service provider class code for gun and ammunition retailers on July 1. Retailers have till Might of subsequent 12 months to combine the code into their methods.
Ting’s workplace stated the code would enable banks to flag suspicious exercise associated to gun purchases, akin to the warnings that banks already move alongside to regulation enforcement businesses about purchases probably linked to terrorist financing, fraud and identification theft.
Date-rape drug testing kits in bars
Bars and nightclubs in California will likely be required to supply kits that check for managed substances slipped into drinks.
The regulation would require bars and golf equipment to promote (or supply without cost) strips, stickers, straws or different units that check alcoholic drinks for the presence of frequent date-rape medication, together with ketamine, GHB and flunitrazepam, which is commonly bought below the model title Rohypnol.
AB 1013, launched by Josh Lowenthal (D-Lengthy Seaside), will even require bars and golf equipment to publish “in a outstanding and conspicuous location” a discover that reads: “Don’t get roofied! Drink spiking drug check kits obtainable right here. Ask a workers member for particulars.”
Tax on weapons and ammunition
The sale of many firearms, ammunition and elements used to construct weapons will incur an 11% excise tax. The income from AB 28 will fund gun violence prevention and gang intervention applications in California. The federal authorities expenses an excise tax on weapons, however California’s is the primary such tax on the state stage.
The regulation, launched by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), is not going to apply to gross sales to lively and retired cops and regulation enforcement businesses, nor to gross sales by mom-and-pop distributors who reported lower than $5,000 in gross sales within the quarter when the acquisition was made.
State finances analysts estimated that the tax would generate $159 million in income within the first 12 months. If the excise tax is handed on by distributors to their prospects, analysts stated, the invoice would generate further gross sales and use tax income of as much as $14 million for state and native governments.
Info on how you can repair your iPhone
Producers of many digital units and home equipment will likely be required to supply the elements, instruments and directions wanted to restore their merchandise below a brand new regulation geared toward empowering customers who’re enthusiastic about fixing their very own telephones, dishwashers and lawnmowers.
Below SB 244, the Proper to Restore Act, producers should make paperwork, elements and instruments obtainable to repair units that price $50 to $99 for not less than three years after the product was final manufactured. For merchandise that price greater than $100, the time interval rises to seven years, no matter guarantee durations.
California is the third U.S. state, after New York and Minnesota, to move a so-called right-to-repair regulation.
The regulation, launched by state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), doesn’t apply to online game consoles, hearth alarms and heavy equipment utilized in agriculture, forestry and development.
