The Brief

Across California, hundreds of bar owners have been hanging signs that read, “Don’t get roofied! Drink spiking drug test kits available here.”

If they don’t post the signs — or if they don’t have kits available for patrons to test their drinks to determine if they’ve been drugged — the proprietors run the risk of state fines or having their liquor licenses suspended.

The new requirements for the state’s 2,400 bars and nightclubs take effect today, thanks to a law that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last year. Its lead author is Long Beach Democratic Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, a former nightclub owner who is currently a partner in three Southern California restaurants that serve alcohol.

And it’s not Lowenthal’s only anti-drink spiking legislation. He has three other anti-drink spiking bills pending in the Legislature that would add new requirements for alcohol servers. One would require bars to provide cups with lids on them at a customer’s request. Another would require the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to include mandatory training for alcohol servers to spot drink spiking.

A third bill is potentially the most controversial. It would require employees, if they believe a customer has been drugged from a spiked drink, to call police, follow the 911 dispatcher’s instructions and “monitor” the customer until law enforcement or an ambulance crew arrives.

Lowenthal told CalMatters last week that his legislation seeks to address a rise in drink-spiking that has “gotten to crisis proportions.”

“The bars need to be involved,” he said during a break from Thursday’s Assembly floor session. “Alcohol companies need to be involved. Patrons need to be involved looking out for each other. We need to be talking about it and creating this level of prevention. Because once somebody’s drink has already been spiked, it’s too late. So what can we do to prevent it from happening?”

Firm numbers about the prevalence of drink spiking are hard to come by, and research that’s available is based on surveys and anecdotes.

A survey published in 2016 in the American Psychological Association’s journal “Psychology of Violence” found that 8% of 6,064 students surveyed at three universities believed they’d been slipped drugs. Eighteen percent of more than 45,000 respondents in a 2022 global survey from a London-based research firm reported that they had been drugged. The same survey noted that 92% of the victims didn’t report their suspicions to police.

According to Lowenthal’s office, the Long Beach Police Department receives around 25 reports of drink spiking a year.

Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, pictured here addressing the California Assembly last year, is behind several measures that aim to combat drink spiking.

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Rich Pedroncelli

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AP Photo

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Lowenthal said the lack of data is due in part to the nature of the drugs. They cause severe short-term memory lapses, and the drugs typically fade from the human body after a few hours. It’s a combination that makes it difficult for a victim to remember what happened and that leaves behind no evidence for investigators to find, experts say.

“You can’t see them,” Lowenthal said. “You can’t taste them. You can’t smell them, and they leave the body within 24 hours, so you can’t even test that it’s in somebody’s system if they’d been roofied.”

(“Roofied” is a slang term used to describe someone who’s drink has been spiked with the most notorious date-rape drug, Rohypnol.)

Last year’s bill requiring bars to post notices and provide drink-spiking test kits advanced to Newsom’s desk without a single lawmaker voting “no” and without any formal opposition, including from lobbyists representing bars and restaurants, according to the Digital Democracy database.

Lowenthal’s other three bills have advanced from the Assembly to the state Senate in the same fashion and without any opponents.

That includes the bill requiring employees to monitor someone suspected of being drugged until police or medics arrive. Lowenthal argues it’s important for the employees to keep an eye on a victim so they don’t leave with their would-be rapist who drugged them. His bill, however, wouldn’t penalize a bar employee or liquor license holder if a drugged person leaves before help arrives.

Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gipson told Lowenthal he was glad to see the measure earlier this spring when the bill was before the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee, which handles alcohol and gambling legislation.

Gipson, a former police officer from Gardena, told the committee his cousin had died after a drug-induced robbery. Gipson told CalMatters an autopsy found so much Rohypnol and alcohol in his cousin’s body that the coroner believed it had caused him to stop breathing.

Gibson said he supports “anything that we can do in this space to make it safe.” He added that bar patrons need to be on guard.

“If you have to leave a drink, take it with you to the bathroom,” Gipson said. “Never leave it unattended, even with people that you think you know and you think you can trust.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has rejected a proposal that would have let tenants across the county fall behind by about three months' worth of rent and still have local protections from eviction.

Supporters said the rules would have helped immigrants stay housed after losing income because of federal immigration raids.

Only one of the county’s five supervisors supported the expanded eviction protections. With none of the other four willing to second the motion in Tuesday’s meeting, the proposal died before it ever came to a vote.

The proposal failed after an hour of impassioned public comment from both renters and landlords. Onlookers chanted “cowards” as the board cleared the room for closed session.

Would the rules have been challenged in court?

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who put forward the proposal, said earlier in the meeting that expanding eviction protections would have been an appropriate way to help the county’s nearly one million undocumented immigrants.

Anticipating potential lawsuits to strike down the proposed ordinance, Horvath said, “I understand there is legal risk. There is in everything we do. Just like the risk undocumented Angelenos take by going outside their homes every day.”

Landlords spoke forcefully against the proposed rules. They said limiting evictions would saddle property owners with the cost of supporting targeted immigrant households.

“This proposed ordinance is legalized theft and will cause financial devastation to small housing providers,” said Julie Markarian with the Apartment Owners Association of California.

Horvath’s proposal would have built on an existing protection for renters in unincorporated parts of L.A. County, such as East L.A., Altadena and City Terrace. Under the current rules, renters can fall behind by up to one month’s worth of “fair market rent” (an amount determined by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department) and still be legally protected from eviction.

Protections won’t go countywide

Last week, county leaders voted to explore increasing that threshold to two months. But Horvath wanted to go further by increasing the limit to three months and making it apply countywide, not just in unincorporated areas.

Tenant advocates said family breadwinners have been detained during federal immigration raids, and other immigrants are afraid to go to their workplaces, causing families to scramble to keep up with the region’s high rents.

“Immigrant tenants are experiencing a profound financial crisis,” said Rose Lenehan, an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union. “This protection is the bare minimum that we need to keep people housed and keep people from having to choose whether to stay in this county with their families and with their communities or self deport or face homelessness.”

A report published this week by the L.A. Economic Development Corporation found that 82% of surveyed small business owners said they’d been negatively affected by federal immigration actions. About a quarter of those surveyed said they had temporarily closed their businesses because of community concerns.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday placed on the June ballot a proposed temporary half-cent sales tax increase to fund the county’s struggling health care system, which has been hit hard by federal funding cuts.

If passed by voters, the increase would bring the county’s tax rate to 10.25%. It is projected to raise one billion dollars annually over five years.

The tax would expire in five years.

The background

County health officials said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut $2.4 billion from county health programs over three years, threatening closure of some of the county’s 24 clinics and an array of public health programs.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who co-authored the proposal, said the county faced a “federally imposed crisis” that in the absence of state action, could only be addressed by raising taxes on county residents.

“This motion gives the voters a choice, given the stark realities that our county is facing,” Mitchell said.

The vote was 4-1, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger the lone dissenter. Barger is the board’s sole Republican. She worried shoppers would go to Orange County, where the sales tax is 7.75%. She also said the state should take the lead on addressing federal funding cuts to county health care systems.

Public reaction

More than 700 people showed up Tuesday to speak out on the proposal. Health care providers pleaded with the board to place the measure on the ballot, saying federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal had hit them hard.

“This is a crisis,” said Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of L.A. County. “Medi-Cal accounts for over half of clinic funding. So these changes will lead to clinic closures, longer wait times, overcrowded E.R.’s and higher costs for the county.” 

Others opposed any plan that would increase the sales tax.

“Our city is opposed to the adding of this regressive tax to overtaxed residents and making it even more difficult for cities, especially small cities, to pay for the increasing cost of basic resident services,” said Rolling Hills Mayor Bea Dieringer. “The county needs to tighten its belt further.”

Details on the proposed plan

Under the plan, up to 47% of revenue generated will be used by the Department of Health Services to fund nonprofit health care providers to furnish no-cost or reduced-cost care to low-income residents who do not have health insurance. 

Twenty-two percent would provide financial support to the county’s Department of Health Services to safeguard its public hospital and clinic services. Ten percent would be allocated to the Department of Public Health to support core public health functions and the awarding of grants to support health equity.

The rest would be sprinkled across the health care system, including to support nonprofit safety net hospitals and for school-based health needs and programs.

A last-minute amendment by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath set aside 5% of funding for Planned Parenthood.

The spending would be monitored by a nine-member committee but ultimately would be up to the discretion of the Board of Supervisors.