SACRAMENTO Calif. California on Tuesday became the first state to enact a law mandating the disclosure of nutrition information by chain restaurants, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signing the industry-supported menu-labeling bill on the day before it expired. His signature came a few days after a federal nutrition disclosure bill that would pre-empt state and local requirements was introduced on Capitol Hill with the support of the National Restaurant Association and other foodservice groups.
California Senate Bill 1420 was introduced by state Sen. Alex Padilla as a revision of the menu-labeling requirement that the governor vetoed last year after characterizing it as unfeasible. Over the summer, lawmakers and foodservice industry lobbyists forged SB 1420 as a compromise that afforded more flexibility to the 17,000 restaurants that would be covered. The California Restaurant Association said it supported the measure because it would pre-empt a growing patchwork of city and county disclosure mandates, including measures adopted earlier this year in San Francisco and Santa Clara counties.
Under the new law, units of chains with at least 20 stores statewide will be asked to post the calorie counts of standard dishes on menus and menu boards as of July 1, 2009. For the 18 months following that date, however, restaurants also have the option of providing a fuller nutrition analysis of standard items in a brochure available on request at the point of sale. Calorie counts would be part of that breakdown. As of Jan. 1, 2011, all applicable restaurants would have to post the calorie information on menus and menu boards, regardless of their earlier means of compliance.
Local health departments will enforce the law, and infractions are punishable by fines of $50 to $500.
The bill extends protection from liability lawsuits to restaurants that use “reasonable means” to do nutritional analyses of their dishes, using methods recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Those methods include the use of nutrition databases and laboratory analysis.
“This legislation will help Californians make more informed, healthier choices by making calorie information easily accessible at thousands of restaurants throughout our state,” Schwarzenegger said. “By being the first state to provide this information to consumers, California is continuing to lead the nation with programs and policies that promote health and nutrition.”
An official of the National Council of Chain Restaurants expressed disappointment that the law in California does not offer more flexibility for nutrition disclosure, saying a federal standard is needed.
“The law would provide a statewide standard that would replace a confusing and inefficient hodgepodge of local California ordinances,” said Jack Whipple, president of the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group. “However, what’s really needed is a consistent, uniform nationwide standard so that consumers from Florida to Alaska have a clear understanding of the nutritional content of food in restaurants.”
The NCCR is one of the industry groups that support the federal disclosure bill that was introduced last week in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. The measure would mandate calorie disclosures by chains with 20 or more units nationwide. The requirements would be phased in within two and a half years of the bill’s passage, but state and local disclosure mandates would be pre-empted immediately upon the federal bill’s enactment.
The bill is called the Labeling Education and Nutrition, or LEAN, Act.