Tag Archives: california laws

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2018 New Laws For California

1. Vehicle registration fee increase: As part of SB 1, drivers will pay between $25 and $175 more for vehicle registration at DMV. The fee, which goes into effect Jan. 1, is based on the vehicle’s current value, as follows:

  • Vehicles worth between $0 and $4,999: $25 fee increase
  • Vehicles worth between $5,000 and $24,999: $50 fee increase
  • Vehicles worth between $25,000 and $34,999: $100 fee increase
  • Vehicles worth between $35,000 and $59,999: $150 fee increase
  • Vehicles worth $60,000 and higher: $175 fee increase

2. Recreational-use marijuana: The sale and cultivation of recreational-use marijuana will be legal in California on Jan. 1. By the new year, the state will have to have regulations and processes in place to issue permits for adult-use marijuana businesses. The deadline does not apply to county or city municipalities, as per AB 64.

3. Marijuana use in vehicles: Effective Jan. 1, drivers will be prohibited from smoking or ingesting marijuana or marijuana products while driving or riding as a passenger in a vehicle, as part of SB 65.

4. Minimum wage increase: For the second year in a row under SB 3, the minimum wage will increase to $11 an hour, beginning Jan. 1, for more than 2 million workers in California. Under the bill, minimum wage went up to $10.50 an hour in 2017 and will go up again to $12 per hour in 2019. It will increase $1 each year to $15 in 2022. However, Gov. Jerry Brown can halt the increase if there is a negative job growth.

5. Bars and ride-sharing: Calling for a safe ride home could get even easier, thanks to a new law that goes into effect Jan. 1. AB 711 will allow alcohol companies and businesses to team up with ride shares, like Uber and Lyft, as well as taxi services, to give out vouchers or promo codes for discounted rides.

6. Sanctuary state of California: SB 54 restricts the ability of state and local police in California to cooperate with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents. Beginning Jan. 1, law enforcement officers won’t be allowed to ask about someone’s immigration status or hold them for ICE agents, unless that person has been convicted of a crime. In addition, AB 291 prohibits landlords from reporting renters who are in the country illegally.

7. Ammunition sales: Beginning Jan. 1, ammunition purchases must be made in person through an authorized firearms and ammo vendor, as per Prop 63, which was approved by voters in November 2016.Ammunition buyers will be allow for online sales of ammunition, but it must be shipped to a licensed vendor from whom the buyer can pick it up. KCRA talked to the owner of an El Dorado County ammunition store that could close due to this new law.

8. Gender identity on driver’s licenses: SB 179 removes the requirement that people have to choose either male or female on their identification documents. Transgender people will be able to select “nonbinary” as an option if they do not identify as either male or female. This new choice will be available beginning in 2019.

9. Guns banned at schools: AB 424 eliminates a previous policy, implemented in 2016, that gave school administrators the ability to decide whether campus employees with concealed carry permits were allowed to bring their firearms to school. The new law bans firearms on campus altogether.

10. Buses and seat belts: Beginning July 1, anyone riding in a bus is required by law to be properly restrained by seat belts, if the bus is equipped with them. SB 20 also prohibits adults from putting children between the ages of 8 and 16 on a bus unless they are properly restrained by a seat belt or “child passenger restraint system that meets federal safety standards. Violations of this law will be punishable by a fine.

11. High school exit exam: High school students can rejoice at not having to suffer through the lengthy high school exit exam, which California did away with in 2015 in an effort to rewrite it. AB 830 permanently eliminates the exam as a condition of graduation.

12. Baby changing tables in bathrooms: Changing diapers is no longer just a woman’s job, and because of AB 1127, diaper-changing stations will be a requirement in both women’s and men’s public bathrooms. This applies to new construction or restrooms that undergo significant renovations.

13. Rescue animal sales: AB 485 bans pet stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits unless they are rescue animals. The law aims to prevent California pet stores from selling animals bred in puppy mills and other mass-breeding operations.

14. Job salary history: Under AB 168, employers will no longer be able to ask job applicants about their salary history, compensation or benefits. Employers will also be required to disclose pay scales for a job if the applicants asks for them.

15. Free college: As part of a nationwide push by Democrats to provide free higher education, AB 19 is the first step in that process, waiving the fee for first-time students who enroll full time in California community colleges.

16. Neighborhood voting: In an effort to bolster declining voter turnout, SB 450 replaces neighborhood polling places with elections done mainly by mail. Every voter will receive a mail-in ballot, which they can then take to a drop-off location up to four weeks before Election Day.

17. Car window tinting: Under the previous law, drivers were prohibited from having tint or any other material or display that “reduces the driver’s clear view through the windshield or side windows.” AB 1303allows drivers with a medical condition certified by a dermatologist to tint their windshields, side and rear windows to protect them from ultraviolet rays.

18. Crossing the street: Pedestrians who cross the street while the red hand signal is flashing will no longer be penalized for doing so. Under AB 390, if the flashing red hand symbol appears and there is a countdown to indicate how much time pedestrians have left to cross, walkers are legally permitted to do so.

Blog, Civil Rights, Family, Legal News, Supreme Court

Is a nanny cam legal in California?

Q We have a few concealed cameras placed in our home so we can keep track of what is happening while away. This is in part because our 6-year-old has different baby-sitters. Is there anything illegal about the cameras?

— B.K., Rancho Palos Verdes

A It is legal to have a video-only recording of activities inside your home. You are not required to let anyone know, nor does it matter if the camera is hidden. But that video must be utilized for a reasonable purpose. It cannot be an overt invasion of someone’s privacy. For example, we are all entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as when we are taking a shower.

Under California law, it is potentially illegal if such a camera also records audio. It is not lawful to record an oral communication through use of a hidden camera or device if a person has not consented to it.

Q Is there no invasion of our privacy posed by all these video cameras outside on buildings?

— C.D., El Segundo

A If you are out in public, such as walking on a sidewalk, you are pretty much fair game. Further, the video cameras do not physically intrude into your sphere of privacy. Thus, making a claim for invasion of privacy because of an outdoor video camera, while you are out in public, would be quite challenging.

It is a different situation, for examples, if you are in a bathroom facility, inside a hotel room or in a changing room at a clothing store. The nature of your activity, and your location, are factors to evaluate if you believe your right of privacy has been wrongly invaded.

Full Read – http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20170131/ask-the-lawyer-is-a-nanny-cam-legal-in-california

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News

Drug makers spend big to fight California price control referendum

By and

Drug Companies To Pour $100M Into Battle Against California’s Price Control Ballot Initiative

The initiative, likened by one lobbyist to a “grenade being rolled into the conversation,” would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the industry is gearing up to fight back. In other news, Novartis’ heart-failure drug is getting a warmer welcome in Europe than America, and the company is considering its options in selling its stake in Roche.

Politico: Drug Makers Spend Big To Fight California Price Control Referendum

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state. That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C. (Cook and Karlin-Smith, 4/25)

The industry is expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the November ballot initiative.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton give drug makers the jitters when they talk about Medicare negotiating the prices of prescription drugs. But the biggest near-term threat to the industry comes from a California ballot initiative that would test a version of that idea in the most populous state.

That ballot initiative “is a grenade being rolled into the conversation, and it is being taken very seriously,” says a Republican drug lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Drug companies are expected to pour $100 million into an effort to squash the referendum in what will be a test of the industry’s strength at a time of growing consumer backlash against drug prices. The initiative would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — one of the few federal agencies allowed to negotiate drug prices.

From the industry’s perspective, California could set a dangerous precedent. Besides having an economy the size of many small countries, the liberal bastion is often a laboratory for new ideas that take root and then spread east. That’s even more likely given that the presidential front-runners are pushing the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare.

“This is the crack in the door” on drug pricing, said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit devoted to consumer protection issues. “If any Democrat in America wants bulk purchasing in Medicare, it will start with bulk purchasing for the most liberal state government in America.”

Which is precisely the intention of the initiative’s sponsor, Michael Weinstein, CEO of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “If we win, we hope it will start a national prairie fire,” he said.

Weinstein pursued the ballot measure after years of in-your-face activism on AIDS and after watching the California state legislature fail to do anything about drug prices — a big concern to people with HIV/AIDS who may be taking costly drugs for the rest of their lives.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/drug-makers-california-referendum-222334#ixzz471Q9mg4k
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Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Supreme Court

Robert Downey Jr. gets holiday pardon from Gov. Jerry Brown for 1990s drug offenses

By Paige St. John Contact Reporter
Actor Robert Downey Jr., who spent time behind bars in the late 1990s on drug convictions, received a Christmas Eve pardon from Gov. Jerry Brown, effectively removing a black mark from the movie star’s checkered past.

The actor was one of 91 people to whom the governor granted clemency for past crimes, most of them minor drug offenses that no longer are felonies under California law, as well as robbery and burglary. It has become an annual Christmas Eve tradition: official proclamations for men and women who previously served time for mostly nonviolent crimes.

Downey has a long history of problems with drugs and the law, including repeated arrests in 1996.

In June 1996, he was pulled over by police in Malibu for speeding. They found him under the influence, with a gun, cocaine and heroin in the truck.

Then in July, the then-31-year-old actor turned up in the house of a neighbor, passed out in a spare bedroom. At the time, he had just completed the film “One Night Stand,” portraying a character dying from AIDS.

“It’s like I’ve got a shotgun in my mouth, my finger on the trigger and I like the taste of gun metal,” Downey told a Los Angeles judge in 1999, as he was sentenced to three years in state prison. He was released one year later, and three months after that, was arrested in a Palm Springs hotel room where cocaine also was found.

He bounced between jail and rehabilitation clinics for several years, but then remarried and, in 2008, rekindled his acting career in the role of Tony Stark and “Iron Man” in a series of Marvel films.

In total, the actor served 15 months behind bars, and in 2002, he completed his parole.

Downey obtained an order on Oct. 20 from a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, finding that he has since “lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen.”

On Oct. 28, Brown inducted Downey into the California Hall of Fame, alongside Charlie Brown cartoonist Charles M. Schulz and country music legend Buck Owens.

The Christmas Eve pardon reads, “By completion of his sentence and good conduct in the community of his residence since his release, Robert John Downey, Jr. has paid his debt to society and earned a full and unconditional pardon.”

Read Full Article – http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-robert-downey-jr-pardon-20151224-story.html