CA Lawmakers Reconsider Bare-Hand Food Ban

California lawmakers are beginning to back away from a new law that bans bare-hand contact with food in restaurants and bars, with the Assembly Health Committee voting unanimously Tuesday to repeal and revisit the regulation.

The vote follows opposition from chefs and bartenders who say they were caught off-guard by the new regulation, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed last year requiring restaurant workers to wear gloves or use utensils when handling ready-to-eat food, including the rice in a sushi roll and the mint in a mojito.

It allows for exceptions if eateries show good hygiene practices, but food industry representatives say local regulators were granting them inconsistently.

California is among the last states to adopt a bare-hand contact ban. Regulators say bare-hand contact by kitchen staff is a leading cause of foodborne illness. But independent and high-end restaurateurs say the law is restrictive, wasteful and undermines existing hygiene practices.

“We already have laws governing sanitation, and it’s called washing your hands,” Sacramento  Randall Selland told lawmakers Tuesday.

This article appeared in print on page 3 of the March 27th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.