New Laws of 2010 – Some You May Want to Know About!
January 1, 2010 Community, Food, Laws, Real Estate
As the hype of New Year’s Eve transitions to the first day of the new decade, a variety of new laws come into effect as of January 1, 2010. Here are a few you may want to know about:
- LEAD FREE FAUCETS- as of today, it is illegal to sell faucets, as well as faucet parts which contain more than 0.25% lead (the legal limit up to now was 8%). This may be a problem when homeowners and landlords want to replace current faucet parts and may end up having to put in a completely new faucet.
- WATER SOFTENER BAN – This new law allows local government to ban residential water softener if regulators fins that the salts discharged into the municipal sewer lines pose a pollution problem.
- HARVEY MILK DAY – This proclaims Harvey Milk’s birthday, May 22, as a day of recognition. This law also encourages public schools to commemorate this day.
- TEEN VOTING- This law allows permanent California residents to pre-register to vote at the age of 17.
- PAPARAZZI PENALTY – A $5,000 to $50,000 fine for paparazzi who take and sell pictures without permision while in “personal or family activity”. These types of activities would include a special outing with kids, for example.
- MORTGAGE FRAUD LAWS – Due to the recent mortgage crisis, this will require loan officers to register with the state and makes it a crime to provide a mis-statement, misrepresentation, or omision during the application proccess, punishiable by 1 year in prison. This also ensure banks will provide borrowers with all of their products.
- DRUNK DRIVERS – Now a judge can require a first time drunk driving offender to install a breath testing device on the vehicle they own, requiring the driver to pass “the test” to start the vehicle each time they drive.
- RESTAURANTS- The new law requires restaurants to use oils, margarine and shortening with less than half a gram of trans-fat per serving of regular foods. Next year, this will also apply to deep-fried bakery goods.
- SCHOOLS – The new law here expands the use of digital textbooks in public schools and will direct textbook money to buy electronic viewing devices.
There were dozens of new laws that passed in addition to the ones stated above, including fines for human trafficking, tougher penalties for watching dogfights, Vehicles impounded in prostitution arrests, technology to bill motorists for toll roads, making it a misdemeanor to hang a noose, as well as a ban on shortening cow tails.
There’s a lot to know …hope this helped a bit.
We wish you a great year ahead; Happy 2010.
Comments (1)
Thanks a lot for this, I appreciate the info