Business: retail food.

Assembly Members Gabriel, Mark González, and Wicks, with principal coauthor Senator Cervantes, advance AB 592 to extend and recalibrate a set of COVID-era provisions affecting alcohol service, outdoor dining, and satellite food operations, anchoring the changes to specific sunset dates and conditions. The bill would keep in effect, until January 1, 2029, the expanded license-area relief associated with COVID-19 Temporary Catering Authorizations and would prohibit issuing new COVID-19 Temporary Catering Authorizations on or after January 1, 2027, with the repeal of related provisions on that same date.

The proposal alters several core regulatory frameworks. It makes permanent, rather than time-limited, the ability for local jurisdictions to reduce the number of required parking spaces for existing uses by the amount deemed necessary to accommodate an expanded outdoor dining area, where the expansion interferes with parking. It also extends indefinitely the authority for permitted facilities to prepare and serve food as temporary satellite operations without obtaining a separate satellite permit or submitting new operating procedures, subject to ongoing compliance with related standards. In addition, it authorizes a restaurant to operate with open windows, folding doors, or nonfixed storefronts during hours of operation if the facility develops and submits to the enforcement agency a written integrated pest management and food safety risk mitigation plan, and it meets specified plan requirements, including a self-enclosure condition when the facility is nonoperational.

The integrated pest management and food safety risk mitigation plan must be documented in writing and kept available for review by local environmental health enforcement officers. It must include a facility-wide risk assessment, control procedures to prevent presence and harboring of vermin, ongoing monitoring procedures with frequency proportional to risk, employee training, and recordkeeping such as dates of self-closure events and pest-control site visits with accompanying receipts, kept onsite for 12 months. Plan updates are required annually or when the facility or operation changes. The bill requires self-closure upon observation of vermin activity and a halt to operation until vermin are eliminated. Local agencies may not unreasonably withhold plan approval and must identify conditions that would allow safe operation of an open-front configuration, approving unless uniquely impracticable to mitigate significant public-health risk. The bill preserves existing authority to suspend or revoke plan approval if vermin are observed, plan procedures are not followed, or complaints are verified.

Implementation of these changes would involve local jurisdictions and enforcement agencies in reviewing and approving plans, administering outdoor-dining and satellite-service provisions, and overseeing pest-management measures. The measure acknowledges a state-mandated local program in connection with the extended duties and the permitting framework. It also specifies that no reimbursement is required by the act, aligning with the established constitutional framework for local cost recovery. These changes sit within the broader regulatory structure governing alcohol licensing, retail food operations, and health and safety standards, reflecting a shift toward longer-term continuation of COVID-era adjustments alongside new pest-management requirements for open-front dining configurations.