Bringing home the bacon tops new California laws in 2022

FILE - A plate of bacon sits on the kitchen table on the Ron Mardesen farm, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, near Elliott, Iowa. A 2018 voter-approved California ballot measure, to take effect, Jan. 1, 2022, set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Critics have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost. Mardesen already meets the California standards for the hogs he sells to specialty meat company Niman Ranch, which supported passage of Proposition 12 and requires all of its roughly 650 hog farmers to give breeding pigs far more room than mandated by the law. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall,File)
FILE - A plate of bacon sits on the kitchen table on the Ron Mardesen farm, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, near Elliott, Iowa. A 2018 voter-approved California ballot measure, to take effect, Jan. 1, 2022, set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Critics have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost. Mardesen already meets the California standards for the hogs he sells to specialty meat company Niman Ranch, which supported passage of Proposition 12 and requires all of its roughly 650 hog farmers to give breeding pigs far more room than mandated by the law. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall,File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- It's not often bacon leads a roundup of new laws taking effect with the New Year in California.

But even in progressive California, that's the headline-grabber.

It's among a host of other legislation designed to safeguard employees, shield those seeking abortions, protect protesters from police, spare children from gender influence in store displays, and further ease criminal penalties to reduce mass incarceration.

Several of the laws mark national "firsts" -- first minimum wage to reach $15 an hour, first to protect warehouse workers from quotas, first to mandate hourly wages for garment workers, first to require the gender-neutral displays.

They are among hundreds of new laws also addressing everything from stealthily removing condoms to handing out disposable packages of condiments.

But first ...

What about the bacon?

The sausage-making stems from a 2018 ballot measure where California voters set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs starting Saturday.

Industry lawsuits opposing the initiative failed, but grocers and restauranteurs are now suing to force a 28-month delay. Critics including some lawmakers of both parties have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost.

California is allowing the continued sale of pork processed under the old rules, which proponents say should blunt any shortage and price surge.

$15 minimum wage

California becomes the first state to require a $15-an-hour minimum wage for businesses with more than 25 employees, though Washington, D.C., and many California cities in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas already reached that milestone.

The minimum for businesses with 25 or fewer employees bumps to $14 with the new year and will increase to $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2023. From then on, the wage will rise annually based on inflation.

The increases were set in motion by a 2016 law. Similarly, Illinois and New Jersey are boosting their minimum wage by $1 each year until they hit $15 an hour in 2025.

Housing and homelessness

Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to double down on addressing California's affordable housing and related homelessness problem after he handily defeated a recall election in September.

Days later, he approved two measures designed to sidestep local zoning ordinances. One allows local governments to rezone neighborhoods near mass transit for up to 10 housing units.

The second requires cities to approve up to four housing units on what was a single-family lot, over the objections of municipal leaders. Some cities were rushing to pass ordinances undercutting the law before it takes effect, while other opponents are gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would restore local control.

Protecting employees

California becomes the first U.S. state to bar warehouse retailers like Amazon from firing workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks. It also becomes the first state to require the garment industry to pay workers by the hour.

It also now bars secret employment settlements involving discrimination based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, expanding on a 2018 law.

Recycling and waste

California is expanding on its existing law that allows restaurants to distribute single-use straws only upon request. Now take-out places can give consumers single-use condiment packages like ketchup and mustard and utensils like knives, forks and spoons only if asked.

It's among numerous new laws designed to cut waste. One sets what advocates call the nation's strictest standards for the "chasing arrows" recycling symbol. Another toughens regulations for what can be used in compost.

Yet what California regulators say is the "biggest change to trash in 30 years" comes from a law passed in 2016 that takes effect Saturday.

It requires local governments to provide organics recycling collection to all residents and businesses, and phases in a requirement for businesses and large food generators to donate unsold food to distribute to Californians in need.

Restricting police

Several laws that fizzled in 2020 despite national unrest over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis officer were signed into law in 2021.

They include measures limiting police use of rubber bullets against protesters and providing a way to decertify troubled officers, though some of the certification process doesn't take effect until January 2023.

Other new laws bar a type of restraint hold that has led to deaths and specify when officers have a duty to intervene to prevent or report excessive force. Another expands the list of police misconduct records that must be made public.

The state also is increasing the minimum age to become a police officer from 18 to 21 and requiring the state attorney general to investigate all fatal shootings by police of unarmed civilians, including those where there is a reasonable dispute over whether that civilian was armed.

Easing criminal penalties

California is taking additional steps to ease criminal penalties, building on a decade of efforts to reduce mass incarceration.

Among them, it is ending mandatory minimum prison or jail sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, thus giving judges more discretion to impose probation or other alternative sentences.

It is expanding on a 2019 law that limited the use of the felony murder rule, which previously allowed accomplices in felonies to be convicted of murder if someone died but now is restricted to people who intended to kill or directly participated.

And it is creating the presumption that those arrested on allegations of violating their probation be freed on their own recognizance unless a judge deems them to be a public safety or flight risk.

It is also limiting prison terms for those associated with street gangs, considering mitigating circumstances in applying sentencing enhancements, and retroactively removing other enhancements for repeat offenders and certain prior drug crimes.

photo FILE - Hogs gather to feed in a pasture on the farm of Ron Mardesen, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, near Elliott, Iowa. A 2018 voter-approved California ballot measure, to take effect, Jan. 1, 2022, set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Critics have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost. Mardesen already meets the California standards for the hogs he sells to specialty meat company Niman Ranch, which supported passage of Proposition 12 and requires all of its roughly 650 hog farmers to give breeding pigs far more room than mandated by the law. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
photo FILE - A hiring sign hangs in the window of a Taco Bell in Sacramento, Calif., on July 15, 2021. On Jan. 1, 2022, California becomes the first state to require a $15-an-hour minimum wage for businesses with more that 25 employees. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
photo FILE - In this June 1, 2020, file photo, a protester, who appears to have a bruise from a rubber bullet, raises his arm shortly before being arrested for violating a curfew in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles. A new law to limit the police use of rubber bullets will take effect Jan. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
photo FILE - A police officer prepares to fire rubber bullets during a protest over the death of George Floyd in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020. Supporters of legislation allowing for "bad officers" to be permanently stripped of their badges were twisting arms and calling out opponents on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020, as they struggled for votes on one of the year's top policing reform bills. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)
photo FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2018, file photo, packages move down a conveyor system were they are directed to the proper shipping area at an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Sacramento, Calif. California becomes the first U.S. state to bar warehouse retailers, like Amazon, from firing workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
photo FILE - This May 21, 2020, file photo shows a homeless encampment on Beaudry Avenue as traffic moves along Interstate 110 in downtown Los Angeles. Seven new laws aimed at homelessness will take effect, Jan. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
photo FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2013, file photo, inmates walk through the exercise yard at California State Prison Sacramento, near Folsom, Calif. California is taking additional steps to ease criminal penalties in an effort to reduce mass incarceration. Some of those taking effect Jan. 1, 2022 include ending mandatory minimum prison or jail sentences for non-violent drug offensives and limiting the use of the felony murder rule, which previously allowed accomplices to be convicted of murder if someone died, but now is restricted to people who intended to kill or directly participated. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)