More than 1,000 new laws are set to go into effect in California this year, ranging from kinda-okay rules to completely ridiculous ones. But regardless of how you feel about each new regulation, one thing’s for sure – there are a lot of them.
According to an op-ed written by California native Timothy Snowball for The Hill, 1,009 new laws passed during the Golden State’s 2018 legislative session will be implemented sometime in 2019. Among the stupidest is a new law that restaurants only be allowed to advertise milk and water on their children’s menus. The law doesn’t ban eating establishments from giving kids other sugary beverages like juice or sodas, but it does prohibit them from suggesting them outright.
Another new law makes it illegal for restaurants to give straws to their customers without first being asked for one, going so far as to threaten waiters with jail time and $1,000 fines per offense for offering their patrons a plastic drinking device.
Other laws aren’t quite so onerous, like the one that legalizes selling food made in one’s home. But others, like a new measure hiking up the state’s minimum wage to $11 that went into affect on Jan. 1, have proven disastrous in other states and cities that have already tried it.
Other California state laws scheduled to take effect in 2019 include an end to cash bail, the reduction of sentences for many people convicted of marijuana crimes, a new prepaid mail-in voter system, and a requirement that instead of losing their license, all persons who’ve been convicted of two or more DUIs install a device on their car that they have to blow into in order to start the vehicle.