SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new California state law is hoping to reduce sexual assault incidents as it requires night clubs and bars across the state to provide test strips to see if a drink is spiked.
Customers of bars and nightclubs can find out if their drink has been spiked starting July 1.
Assembly Bill 1013 mandates certain alcoholic beverage license holders offer drug testing devices for sale or at no cost to patrons.
Assembly Member Josh Lowenthal wrote the bill that requires establishments with a Type 48 license from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) to have signage displayed clear space, letting customers know the drug testing kits are available to test for common date-rape drugs.
ABC says the required signage should display a message reading, “Don’t get roofied! Drink spiking drug test kits available here. Ask a staff member for details.”
“Unfortunately, most sexual assault goes underreported,” said Lowenthal, a Democrat representing the Long Beach area.
Lowenthal says while it may not catch the people who put drugs in people’s drinks, it can create an awareness and make those individuals think twice about doing so.
“It is tough to catch people after the fact, everything has to be about prevention,” said Lowenthal. “These days, the drugs that are being used are GHB and ketamine, date rape drugs that totally completely incapacitate you.”
Lowenthal says members of his staff and other staff around the legislature have been victims of spiked drinks. He knows much more work needs to be done to address the problem.
“I am a bar and restaurant owner myself,” said Lowenthal. “I can tell you that within the industry, the last thing we want is to have this taking place in our establishments, the notion that we could be indirectly assisting sexual assault, is incredulous to us.”
Lowenthal says there are other bills going through the legislative process tackling drink spiking like requiring all bars to offer lids for a drink if the customer asks for it. Plus, requiring bars to contact police if a person reports their drinks has been drugged, and how to detect roofing training be placed into the alcohol training module.
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