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C.O.O.K. Alliance

Foodie and/or legislative Lawyers: Help Write Model Legislation for New CA Home Cooking Law!

Help protect new gig economy workers

Posted May 18, 2019

Quick Background: In 2018, California passed the first-of-its-kind law to legalize home cooking, opening opportunities to those previously excluded from the formal food economy by allowing cooks to apply for a permit to cook and sell food out of their home kitchen. The majority of new cooks are women, many are women of color and immigrants or newcomers to the country.

Because this has never been done before, we are running into many novel legal questions and issues.

The first is this: We need to write a model ordinance for counties who want to opt-into this law (in CA the law is opt-in by county). We are specifically asking for lawyer(s) who are comfortable drafting legislation (particularly local ordinances an state laws). The first county opted-in recently but we need to draft model legislation for other states to adopt. Specifically we need help drafting food safety protections section, gig economy protections section, and permitting section.

Taking this project will require a 30 minute on-boarding with me (a lawyer) and will need to be completed by August 1st.

This project is complete!

This project has been completed thanks to the efforts of our volunteers.

Visit the Project Directory to check out other projects that still need your help!

Additional Information

  • Time Commitment: 1-5 hours
  • Training Provided: Yes
  • Additional Training Details: One 30-min on-boarding to explain the law, review the first ordinance, discuss how to fix the language.
  • Site-Preference: Remote
  • Open to Law Students: No
  • Bar License(s) required: Any Bar License
  • Required Languages: None
  • Required Legal Expertise: None
  • Deliverables Due: September 30, 2019
  • Mentoring Provided: Yes
  • Supervision Provided: Yes
C.O.O.K. Alliance

The C.O.O.K. Alliance is the leading voice for home food entrepreneurs in the United States. New home cooking laws are legitimizing an existing informal 'gig economy' and shifting the ways people find meaningful work in an increasingly automated world. We are deeply committed to shaping the home cooking sector to promote greater dignity and opportunity for cooks, as well as healthy food access for consumers, than historically found in the U.S. food industry. Our nonprofit is comprised of cooks, technologists, policy wonks, and labor organizers based in Oakland, CA. We sponsored California’s Homemade Food Operations Act (AB 626), which went into law this year and makes California the first state in the U.S. to permit “microenterprise home kitchens” to sell prepared meals to the public. We are currently working on all issues of implementation, creating model legislation, and working on novel legal questions that are arising in this new industry.

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