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CDA Priority Legislation to See Action in the Final Month of 2023 Legislative Session
CDA’s government affairs program is executing a final advocacy push on this year’s major legislative priorities, which focus on economic recovery, mental health reform, and improving operational efficiencies for BIDs. Below is an overview of some of the key priority bills for the California Downtown Association in this year’s legislative session.
AB 1217 (Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills) – SUPPORT
Bill will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee later this month
This legislation will extend provisions of AB 61 (Gabriel, 2021) which has helped to facilitate the state’s restaurant recovery by building on local programs such as the City of San Francisco’s “Shared Spaces” program, San Jose’s “Al Fresco” plan, Sacramento’s “Farm to Fork Al Fresco”, Long Beach’s “Open Streets Initiative”, San Diego’s “Slow Streets Program”, and Los Angeles’s “L.A. Al Fresco Program” to expand outdoor dining opportunities statewide.
These local programs have been a tremendous success — and have proven to be incredibly valuable for so many community restaurants throughout the state. AB 1217 will help community restaurants in the following ways:
- Ensuring restaurants statewide can take advantage of local outdoor dining expansion opportunities;
- Extending the ABC’s regulatory relief, allowing expanded outdoor alcohol;
- Allowing for the preparation and service of food as a temporary satellite food service without obtaining a separate satellite food service permit.
AB 1217 contains some of the most successful elements of emergency pandemic relief and continues beyond the timeline provided in AB 61. We know that expanded outdoor dining has been critical to the success of so many community restaurants as they work to recover from the pandemic.
SB 43 (Eggman, D-Stockton) – SUPPORT
Bill will be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee later this month
This legislation would update the definition of “gravely disabled” to include a new focus on preventing serious physical and mental harm stemming from a person’s inability to provide for their needs for nourishment, personal or medical care, shelter, or attend to self-protection or personal safety, due to their mental or substance use disorder. When deciding about the risk of harm, the bill would require the court to consider when a person is unable to appreciate the nature of their disorder and that their decision-making is impaired due to their lack of insight into their mental or medical disorders.
It would also create a hearsay exemption for information contained in a medical record, presented by an expert witness, in order to ensure all relevant information is presented to, and considered by, the court when making a gravely disabled determination.
The focus of the gravely disabled definition solely on the ability to provide for one’s food, clothing, and shelter is inadequate to address the real needs in our communities and often leads to criminalization and jail rather than treatment. This standard has remained largely unchanged since 1967 and has become a serious barrier to needed treatment for those at risk of dying on our streets. We are in the
midst of a worsening behavioral health crisis and the failure to address this definition has led to tragedy for more and more families desperate to get help for their loved ones.
SB 363 (Eggman, D-Stockton) – SUPPORT
Bill will be heard in Assembly Appropriations later this month
The bill would require, by January 1, 2026, a real-time behavioral health bed database to collect, aggregate, and display information about beds in inpatient psychiatric facilities, crisis stabilization units, residential community mental health facilities, and licensed residential alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facilities. This information would help provide timely access to care and increase coordination between service settings.
A significant roadblock in our fragmented behavioral health continuum is a lack of care coordination between various provider types and a lack of information about which resources are accessible or available in the community. SB 363 would require the database to include a minimum baseline of information, including the contact information for a facility’s designated employee, the types of diagnosis or treatments for which the bed is appropriate, and the target populations served at the facility. The database would also have the capacity to enable searches to identify beds that are appropriate for individuals in need of inpatient or residential mental health or substance use disorder treatment.
AB 557 (Hart, D-Santa Barbara) – SUPPORT
Bill is on the Senate Floor and will be taken up later this month
This legislation eliminates the January 1, 2024 sunset on the provisions of the Brown Act that provided additional flexibility for local agencies looking to meet remotely during an emergency while still maintaining public access and transparency. This legislation will provide a narrow but important emergency authority, allowing local governing bodies to safely meet and act during applicable states of emergency declared by the Governor.
AB 361 (Rivas, 2021) codified, until Jan 1, 2024, numerous provisions of Governor Newsom’s Executive Orders pertaining to the Brown Act in 2020. The provisions only apply if an emergency or public health orders prevent a local agency board from meeting in-person. If the meeting could still be held in-person without endangering local agency board members or personnel, then the local agency would not be permitted to rely on the provisions added to California Government Code section 54953 by AB 361. Local agencies needing to meet remotely pursuant to those provisions are only permitted to do so in concert with an emergency declared by the Governor of California.
By removing the sunset, AB 557 preserves the critical flexibility for local agencies needing to meet remotely to continue providing the public with essential services during a Governor-declared emergency. By adjusting the renewal period for resolutions to 45 days (up from 30 days), AB 557 would provide accommodation for those agencies regularly meeting on a fixed date every month.
SB 76 (Wiener, D-San Francisco) – SUPPORT
Bill will be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee later this month
SB 76, which would allow local jurisdictions to create designated outdoor “entertainment zones” that will enable local brick and mortar bars and restaurants to sell takeout alcoholic beverages to patrons for
consumption at street fairs, outdoor festivals, and other events. As amended, SB 76 would also enable music venue licensees to serve alcohol at a limited number of private events at their venue that do not involve entertainment in addition to a few other technical fixes.
While not a panacea, this measure will aid the recovery of downtown small businesses by removing barriers to brick-and-mortar businesses participating in nearby outdoor events, like street fairs and festivals. It will also allow municipalities to create entertainment zones that allow neighborhood businesses – which are currently barred from selling alcoholic beverages to-go during festivals – to participate on equal footing with outside vendors.
Jason Bryant
Bryant Government Affairs
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