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TO: Members, Assembly Appropriations Committee SUBJECT: SB 1420 (PADILLA) FOOD FACILITIES: NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION - OPPOSE SB 1420 would require chain restaurants to print on their menus specified nutritional information for each standard menu item served. For chain restaurants using only menu boards, the bill would require that the total number of calories for each standard menu item be indicated on the menu board. These provisions are both impractical and expensive. Mandating that nutritional information be provided in such a manner is impractical as many restaurants already choose to provide this information to consumers in ways that best accommodate their business models. A variety of successful methods exist and are currently being used by the restaurant industry, ranging from poster charts to informative tray liners to providing information on menus. Such business decisions are currently governed by cost-effectiveness, practicality, and consumer demand. SB 1420, however, unreasonably eliminates those business considerations by creating an inflexible mandate that every restaurant targeted in the bill must adhere to. Restaurants, like all other businesses, have watched their costs of operation spiral out of control over the last few years due to increases in minimum wage, healthcare premiums, costs of raw products, and an ever more stringent array of regulatory requirements. It will likewise be costly for these businesses to have every menu and menu board adjusted and reproduced to meet the strict requirements under the bill. Some of these added costs will likely be passed on to the consumer or result in fewer offerings.