Wednesday not only marks the first day of July — but also when several new California laws go into effect.
This year, these new laws tackle the loudness of commercials played on streaming services, how food items are labeled in stores and listed on menus, school policies on phones and gun control, to name a few.
Though the vast majority of laws each year — roughly 700-800 — take effect on Jan. 1, around two dozen are given a “delayed operative date” of July 1 so that people or agencies have some extra time to get into compliance, veteran Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli explains.
Last year, nearly 2,400 bills were introduced in the legislature. Of those, about 38% were sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Newsom signed 794 and vetoed 123.
In certain instances, a law can actually go into effect at other times of the year. That’s true this year for the Delete Act, which fully goes into effect beginning Aug 1.
At the start of this year, California created a portal for residents to submit requests to have their personal information deleted by data brokers, companies that gather personal information on consumers from online sources and public records and then sell that info to other companies to use for targeted advertisements.
Starting in August, data brokers must begin processing those deletion requests. And going forward, they will have to check the portal every 45 days to process requests made in that timeframe. The law also prohibits data brokers from selling or sharing “new information” about the consumer who made the request.
In the meantime, as the halfway point of 2026 approaches, Californians are met with a bevy of new laws set to take effect on Wednesday.
Streaming services
One new law regulates just how commercials can be on video streaming platforms.
The law will not allow video streaming services to transmit commercials louder than the video content the user is watching, consistent with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s Commercial Loudness Mitigation Act, which was originally created for television broadcast stations and cable operators. California’s new law will make streamers adhere to the same standards.
Food safety
Companies will have to be clearer on their food products’ quality and whether they are safe to eat, while large restaurant chains will need to clearly note which foods contain common allergens.
One new law, authored by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, requires food sold in stores to have terms that indicate a product’s freshness and safety on its label.
Products will have to have a “Best if Used By” or “Best if Used or Frozen By” date on their labels to indicate when it is freshest. A separate “Use By” or “Use or Freeze By” date also has to be affixed to food packages to indicate when a food must be eaten by.
Another new law — the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences Act written by Sen. Caroline Menjivar, D-San Fernando Valley — requires restaurant chains with 20 or more locations in the state to clearly list, either directly on their menus or in a digital format, what items served contain any of the “big nine” food allergens, those being milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish, wheat, soybeans and sesame.
Gun control
Known as the “Glock ban,” a new law prohibits licensed firearm dealers from selling certain semi-automatic handguns that can be converted into a fully automatic firearm. It specifically prohibits dealers from selling pistols that have a “cruciform trigger bar,” connecting the trigger to the firing mechanism in Glock handguns.
People can insert a device in the rear of this style of handgun, called a switch, to manipulate the trigger mechanism and allow the gun to shoot more than one round of ammunition at a time — effectively converting a semiautomatic firearm into a fully automatic one.
State law already makes it a felony to own a machine gun. But the Glock ban expands the definition of a machine gun to any semiautomatic pistol equipped with a switch.
Gun owners who already own this style of pistol can continue to do so — so long as it’s not equipped with a switch. And the new law does not prohibit private-party transfers of this type of gun, either, so long as it does not have a switch.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has said in a social media post that she warned Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta “to drop the unconstitutional restrictions on law-abiding citizens’ rights to purchase legal firearms before the ban goes into effect, or we will sue.”
Education
Limiting phone use by students, creating gender-free bathrooms on campuses and imposing new requirements for middle and high school ID cards are some of the changes K-12 schools are making ahead of next school year.
The Phone-Free Schools Act requires that every school district, charter school and county office of education have a policy in place limiting the use of smartphones. Though schools must allow students to use their phones in an emergency, school policies should “limit or prohibit the use” of smartphones by students while they are on campus or under the supervision of school faculty.
School policies may also include enforcement mechanisms to limit phone use, and they must be updated every five years.
The bill, authored by Assemblymembers Josh Hoover, R-Folsom; David Alvarez, D-San Diego; Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach; and Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, was signed into law by Newsom in September 2024, meaning schools have had nearly two years to develop their policies.
Meanwhile, another new law requires all K-12 schools, public or private, to have at least one all-gender bathroom on campus available for all students to use. Campuses with just one male or female bathroom must create an all-gender bathroom as well.
Middle and high schoolers getting new ID cards in the fall will spot the telephone number and text line for an LGBTQ+ suicide hotline under the state law authored by Assemblymember Mark González, D-Los Angeles.
Already, new ID cards for students had to be printed with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline as of July of last year. But now, new ID cards printed for students in public middle and high schools, as well as public colleges and universities, must include the hotline number operated by the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts for LGBTQ+ youth.
Autonomous cars
Law enforcement agencies across the state will now be able to ticket autonomous vehicles, called “robotaxis,” like Waymos, for traffic violations on public roads. The ticket would be issued directly to the vehicle’s manufacturer.
The law requires robotaxi manufacturers to maintain a “dedicated emergency response telephone line that is available for emergency response officials.” It also requires that each autonomous vehicle be equipped with a communication device enabling nearby emergency response officials to talk to remote human operators.
The new law, too, authorizes law enforcement agencies to issue an “emergency geofencing message” to direct robotaxis from dangerous areas or crime scenes.