[conspire] New California laws, 2018

[Rick Moen]

Every year, a bunch of new state laws take effect with the new year. 
This go around:

1.  Legal sales of recreational marijuana, to persons 21 and over with
proper identification.  Except each town/city/county wants it to be
somewhere else that allows the storefronts.  (You may buy lawfully only
at a licensed dispensary.) This will by 2020 probably create a lawful
market bigger than the California dairy industry and almost as big as
the almond industry.  Recreational users may grow up to six plants for
personal use, but access must be controlled (e.g., a locked gate) and
out of site.  

The state Bureau of Cannabis Control will publish a list of licensed
dispensaries, https://cannabis.ca.gov/ .  Retail customers may buy 28.5
gm (just under 1 oz.) at a time, or 8 grams. of cannabis concentrates or
infused foods.  Transport of personal amounts of cannabis has been 
legalised (with the rare exception of USCBP checkpoints).  Personal
amounts may also be lawfully given as gifts to adults 21 and older.
Medical marijuana customers may buy more, and are exempted from a 15%
state excise tax, plus a per-purchase $1.15 state cultivation tax.
Cities may at their option add a 7.75 - 9.75% excise tax on top of that.
So, recreational pot will be state-legal but enormously more expensive
(about 41% more) than medical pot.

Dispensaries (if permitted by local authorities) must be at least 600' 
away from schools and close by 10PM.

(Jeff Sessions won't like you, though, and his lot of Feds still class
pot as a Schedule 1 drug under the hallucinatory delusion of it being as
dangerous as heroin.  So, if you induldge, watch out about Border Patrol
checkpoints like the one on I-5 north of San Diego and at ports and
airports.)

The January 1st rollout deadline apparently applies to state business
permits, but county and city jurisdictions are permitted by AB-64 to 
drag their feet longer on local permitting that is necessary before the
store can get a state permit.  Initially there will be about four dozen
dispensaries around the state.  (It's been very amusing to watch the
parade of municipal NIMBY-ism on this matter.)

Locally, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz have issued
permits to a few dispensaries.  In San Francisco, local permits
are in the works but not issued yet.


2.  But you may not consume marijuana in any form while driving or
riding in a motor vehicle on roads (AB-65).  (Any bicyclist want to be a
test case?)  Nor in public places.  The penalties for pot use in a car
(even as a passenger) are about as harsh as for drunk driving.


3.  Seatbelts for bus riders (SB20) - starting July 1st.  (Subject to
$20 fine if you don't.) But buses that don't yet have seatbelts are
still grandfathered in.


4.  Job applicants may no longer be asked about salary (/benefits)
history or relying on salary history as a factor in determining salary
for a new employee (AB-168), nor (in general) whether they have criminal
convictions (AB-1008).  Latter law applies to private employers, state
agencies, and public utilities with five or more workers.  (Employers
may still ask about criminal convictions after a tentative job offer
has been extended.)

The idea here is that people who've served their time aren't supposed to
be punished yet more for the rest of their lives by being functionally 
unemployable.  That has tended, in fact, to keep ex-felons stuck
in the criminal underworld, as a result of employees simply discarding
any applicant who checked that checkbox.


5.  Vote-by-mail (no more neighbourhood voting stations in San Mateo
County (along with Sacramento, Madera, Napa and Nevada counties).  
This is Phase One of a statewide move (well, following Sacramento
County having already gone first).  Next will be L.A. County in 2020,
then the rest of the state.  Voters will still be able to do in-person
voting at, or bring their mail-in ballots to, several county voting
centres if they prefer, with drop-off locations starting up to four 
weeks before the election, and in-person 'vote centres' opening ten days
before election day to register voters and take votes (SB-450).


6.  The California Disclose Act (AB-249) requires for the first time
that who bought a ballot initiative be disclosed.  The law requires
that political advertisements disclose the top three donor of $50k or
more to a campaign and improves disclosure of 'earmarked' donations to 
make it more difficult to conceal who's behind them.

(Reminder:  Before each election, I publish a thorough analysis of
the entire ballot, with links to other such analyses.  Master link:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/vote.html )


7.  AB-390 has now amended CVC section 21456(b), which until now said
'No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the direction of the
signal', creating the counterintuitive situation where some cities
raised revenue by citing pedestrians for stepping into the crosswalk
after the flashing countdown timer started, even though they finished
crossing before the red.  This was a $197 fine for the basic violation.
LAPD issued more than 17,000 such citations just in the downtown L.A.
area over a recent four-year period, for example.  The reform puts an
end to this racket.

The new law makes it lawful to enter a crosswalk during a countdown
signal if there is sufficient time to reasonably complete crossing.


8  All ammunition sales most be made in person 'through' a licensed
vendor, including purchases from out-of-state (e.g., online) vendors
(AB-693).  E.g., online sales must be shipped to a licensed vendor
for pickup.  Exempted:  law enforcement of city, county, state, and
Federal governments.  School administrators will no longer be permitted
to give certain employees with concealed-carry permits permission to
carry firearms onto campus (AB-424).  Persons convicted of hate crimes
will lose the right of firearms possession for ten years (AB-725).


9.  Statewide minimum wage goes up to $10.50/hour for businesses with 25
or fewer rworkers, $11/hour for businesses with more.

The statewide wage is scheduled to increase $1 each year to $15 in 2022, 
except that the governor may halt these increases if negative job growth 
ensues.


10.  Vehicle regristrations/renewals will be hiked between $25 and $175
depending on vehicle value, funding being earmarked for repairs to state
roads and bridges (SB 1).  The fee depends on current state-estimated
vehicle value:

$25 for $0-4999
$50 for $5000-24999
$100 for $25000-34999
$150 for $35000-59999
$175 for $60000 and up


11.  The state high school exit exam (suspended in 2015 for a rewrite)
has been abolished.


12.  Pet stores may no longer sell dogs, cats and rabbits unless they
are rescue animals -- an effort to discourage rather horrific 'puppy
mill' mass-breeding operations.  However, this _had_ been scheduled to 
take effect right away, and has been delayed to Jan. 1, 2019 (AB-485).


13.  State and local law enforcement are barred from giving out
information to Federal Immmigration and Customs Enforcement for
deportations (because Tenth Amendment), except for in cases where
immigrants have been convicted of certain very serious crimes (SB-54) 
including felony DUI, child abuse, gang-related offences, and about 800 
other serious crimes, and are prohibited from asking persons about their
immigration status.  Also landlords will be subject to civil fine if
they fink out their renters to La Migra (AB-291), and workplaces will be
required to give their workers 72 hour notice and insist on a warrant if
immigration raids will occur (AB-450).  Students whose parents have
been deported are required to be permitted to continue attending
California schools (SB-257).


14. New swimming pools will now be required to have two meaningful
safety features to protect children against drowning (SB-442).


15. First year of community college in California will be free of
tuition for first-time full-time students (AB-19) -- provided there's
enough money in the new 2018-19 year's state budget for the necessary
fee waivers.


16. DMV may no longer withhold driver's licences or vehicle
registrations for unpaid parking tickets:  Low-income Californians 
and students at CSU and community colleges will be offered payment 
plans for parking fines (AB-503).


17. Some rather pernicious rent-to-own contracts for dog and cat 
purchases have been banned.  (People apparently didn't understand
that Fluffy was subject to repossession.)


18. Parental leave:  Mothers and fathers at small businesses with 20-49
employees are guaranteed up to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave within
the first year of their child's birth.  (Larger businesses already 
give this benefit.)  SB-63.  Workers taking paid time off to temporarily
care for a family member will now get 60% of their regular wage during
tempary leave.


19.  Permanent handicapped placards will now need renewal every six
years under stricter oversight (replacing automatic two-year renewal)
an applicants will be required to prove their name and birth dates by 
submitting a copy of their driver's licences or similar.  Sen. Jerry
Hill (D-San Mateo) sponsored this reform after it was found that more
than 26,000 Californians over age 100 had in-force disabled placards, 
even though there are are only 8,000 centenarians in the state and few
of them drive.  (Therefore, the system has been corrupted by fraud.)
DMV will be required to periodically compare its list against the SSA's 
'death file' and cancel placards of deceased drivers.


20.  No pesticide spraying within 1/4 mile of schools and day-care
centres during school hours (8-6, M-F).