The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has identified three laws to watch in 2021 as 41 of 58 counties statewide wrangle with purple zone limitations during the holidays.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the restrictions last week.
Purple tier restrictions include limiting indoor retailers and malls to 25% capacity while closing food courts, for instance, and not gathering with more than three healthy households in all activities, according to a statement online.
“We're very concerned about the use of emergency power,” Susan Shelley, vice-president of communications with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), said. “We'd like to see the legislature reassert its rightful place in state government. We'd like to see some checks and balances on the use of power and not have one individual declaring that people can or cannot run their businesses or leave their homes.”
Shelley added the HJTA is also concerned about the impact of three new laws on small businesses as the new year approaches. They include:
Known as the California Family Rights Act, Senate Bill 1383 is expected to potentially adversely impact business owners by creating costs.
“Businesses are subject to this law if they have five employees or more, which puts a tremendous burden on small businesses with five to 10 employees,” Shelley told the Southern California Record. “If they have to provide job protection for everyone who takes family leave, it's much more difficult for small business to cover those positions, to train someone to take over that work and hold that position open. Small business owners now need legal advice to comply with all of the paperwork that comes with family leave.”
Assembly Bill 685 requires extensive notification for exposure to COVID-19 and carries with it a $10,000 fine for non-compliance, according to media reports.
“The downside is that the rules keep changing and in order to keep track of every bit of every rule, there’s a huge compliance cost,” Shelley said in an interview. “If someone tests positive, there's a 24-hour requirement within one business day for the business to comply with all of these regulatory reporting requirements, which is very difficult for a small business.”
According to the state COVID-19 dashboard maintained by the Department of Public Health, there are 1,144,049 coronavirus cases statewide and 18,875 fatalities as of Nov. 26.
“California's regulatory climate is not helpful to small businesses, which are not in the business of doing complex reporting to the government,” Shelley said. “They're in the business of baking, cooking, dry cleaning and nail salons, for example.”
Under Senate Bill 1159, coronavirus infections now fall under workers' compensation, which raises the cost of workers' compensation insurance, according to Shelley.
“It creates a rebuttable presumption that the worker contracted COVID-19 on the job and that it's a workplace injury, which makes the employer responsible for the cost and that's different than the presumption ordinarily under workers' comp where there's a requirement to show that it happened on the job,” she said. “With SB 1159, it's the opposite. You have to prove it didn't happen on the job, which is impossible because this is a virus and you can't control every minute of everyone's day.”