Privacy And Consumer Protection — 2026-08-27 (partial)

. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much. I'm not sure this is on, but perfect. I appreciate you hearing this bill. I'm sorry it's the only one that you had to come in this morning for. And yet there is some urgency to the situation. And this bill, 1078, allows businesses who are acting in good faith to issue gift cards that have outdated disclosures for a limited time if the consumer is accurately notified of their right to redeem the card for cash at the point of sale. So last year, the legislature adopted a bill that sort of did an inflationary increase from the first time the assembly member from Assemblymember Ortega's district did the gift card redemption almost 20 years ago. And it was $9.99. And so last year, the bill took it to $15. dollars. But what happened, and I have a representative here from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk who will testify, what happened is, for example, in this case, they had thousands and thousands of dollars of gift cards that had the prior instructions on them. So what this bill does is allow them to use that and not have to dump them at a cost of thousands of dollars while they still advise consumers what the accurate redemption value is. So this still is true to the bill for the actual redemption value, but it allows the boardwalk and any other company that would fall under this not to have to destroy thousands of dollars worth of gift cards because of that change. And so the bill has no registered opposition. And with me today to testify in support is Chris Reyes, the Director of Strategic Development and External Affairs for the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which owns and operates the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. And I already apologized to him for doing the five-hour round trip I do every week for speaking up to two minutes.

if that helps, Senator. Well, don't take too much advantage. But let me turn it over to Chris, and at the appropriate time, I would request an iPhone.

Thank you so much for having me here today. Thank you for your willingness to consider this bill. I know it's a very busy time for you. My name is Chris Reyes, and I'm here on behalf of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It's a place I've proudly worked since I was 14 years old. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is owned and operated, family owned and operated by the Santa Cruz Seaside Company. And we're proud to support SB 1078. Thankful to our hometown senator for authorizing this legislation. He actually lives on the same street as my parents, just about two blocks down. And I think my father walks by his house all the time and blathers at him about politics. So I'm grateful he's still willing to do this today. His father was an officer in the sheriff's department when I worked for the county. So, yeah, it's a small town. Yeah, very small. So as you probably know, SB 1078 proposes a technical revision of SB 22, which went into effect in April this year and increased California's gift card cash redemption threshold from under $10 to under $15. We supported that legislation. The boardwalk uses reloadable My Boardwalk cards. They can be used to buy food, attractions and other purchases. We're almost entirely cashless facility. So that my boardwalk cards are a critical piece of our operation. We're fully compliant with the new law. We'll still be fully compliant with the new law if this legislation passes. But once the legislation passed, we became in possession of, we were in possession of a million pre-printed my boardwalk cards that had the under $10 redemption language on them. and those cards represent a cost to us of about $250,000. So those cards were essentially obsolete. So this legislation allows us the ability to start using those cards without weakening any consumer protections or redemption rights. So without the transition period we can continue using those cards despite fully complying with the law and honoring the under redemption Those cards would essentially have to be destroyed if we not able to do this So SB 1078 creates a narrow, temporary, safe harbor, allowing businesses to use gift certificates that have outdated disclosures for a limited time. In this case, that limited time is two years and only if certain requirements are met. As I mentioned, SB 1078 does not weaken any consumer protections or redemption rights. Consumers retain the full right to redeem gift cards with a balance under $15. SB 1078 simply offers a common-sense solution that prevents operational waste, protects compliant businesses from unnecessary liability while supporting consumer rights. Thank you for consideration, and I hope you'll vote yes. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Sabrina DeMeo Lockhart. I am the CEO of the California Attractions and Parks Association. and a board member of the California Travel Association. Both organizations are grateful for and in support of this bill. Thank you.

I do love the boardwalk. I'm a Bay Area girl. So thank you for being here, and I just want to thank the senator. We are not perfect here in the legislature, and we make mistakes. And so I appreciate you cleaning this up on behalf of especially our smaller businesses here in California.

I forgot that part. I appreciate the consideration, and I respectfully ask for an offer. Thank you, Senator.

Well, I'm on a committee where he's presenting, so I'll go down and try to get him kicked out.

But he was going the other way. No, no. Come back this way. I should have grabbed him. . . Thank you. Thank you.

Here.

Brian.

Brian here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Move.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

I'm done.

Motion to adjourn.

Aye.

Yeah.

Bye. Yeah. Yes, it was. You're good. Good. We're good. All right. Whew.

Petrie Norris. Aye.

Thank you. Thank you.