By CalMatters Staff  There are roughly 1,000 new laws hitting California starting the first day of 2025.  If that sounds like a lot, it could have been much more: California lawmakers introduced nearly 5,000 bills in the most recent legislative session ending this fall, a two-year period that saw nearly half die without a single vote. In all, lawmakers passed about 1,200 bills in 2024 and Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed 200 of those. And that’s the bureaucratic funnel in a nutshell.   Most of these incoming laws are technical, fix previous laws or are narrow in scope. But there are some that affect lots of Californians, or are just plain interesting. There are the consumer finance protection laws, numerous education-related laws — including one to expand alcohol education that was written by a former lawmaker arrested for a DUI — as well as a law banning local voter ID rules and another granting a few more days to fight an eviction. CalMatters reporters describe some of the noteworthy laws taking effect Jan. 1. Dive in to stay informed about the changes that matter to you.  Editor’s note: CalMatters’ review of some of the new laws taking effect in 2025 is being split into two parts. Read about some of the other new laws on Friday. Cannabis cafes and entertainment zones  Starting Jan. 1, alcohol and cannabis sales could expand in some parts of California thanks to two new laws that aim to increase central city foot traffic, which has yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Senate Bill 969, authored by state Sen. Scott Weiner, will let local governments designate “entertainment zones,” where bars and restaurants can sell alcoholic beverages for people to drink on public streets and sidewalks.   Some organizations, such as the California Alcohol Policy Alliance, oppose SB 969 because it could contribute to drunk driving accidents and increased alcohol mortality rates.   Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a similar bill in 2022, but it was limited to San Francisco. In September, the city experimented with an entertainment zone for Oktoberfest and reported at least 10 times more foot traffic than the 2023 celebration.   “Getting people out in the streets to enjoy themselves is critical for communities across our state to bounce back from the pandemic,” Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, said in a statement.   There’s still a lot of broader economic uneasiness, among business leaders and Californians concerned about the cost of living. Newsom has embarked on a jobs tour.  AB 1775 legalizes Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes, allowing lounges to also sell food and drinks that aren’t pre-packaged. After opposition from the American Heart and Lung Association and Newsom’s veto of a similar bill in 2022, AB 1775 includes additional protections for workers against secondhand smoke.   “Lots of people want to enjoy legal cannabis in the company of others,” bill author Assemblymember Matt Haney, also a San Francisco Democrat, said in a statement. “And many people want to do that while sipping coffee, eating a sandwich, or listening to music. There’s no doubt that cannabis cafes will bring massive economic, cultural and creative opportunities and benefits to our state.”  California bans schools from forcing teachers to ‘out’ LGBTQ students  Amid a flurry of recent school board policies aimed at the rights of transgender students, California passed a new law in July that prevents schools from requiring staff to notify parents if a student identifies as LGBTQ.  The new law, AB 1955, came in response to a handful of school boards adopting policies that require teachers and other school staff to notify parents if a student identifies as a gender other than what’s on their school records.   “Teachers can still talk to their parents,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference on Monday in which he touted a new plan to improve career opportunities for adults. “What they can’t do is fire a teacher for not being a snitch. I don’t think teachers should be gender police.”  LGBTQ advocates said that “forced outing” policies, such as those adopted in Chino, Temecula and a dozen other districts, infringe on students’ privacy and could potentially harm students whose parents disapprove of their identity.   The state sued to stop Chino’s policy, and most districts either scrapped their policies, tweaked the language or put them on hold.   This act “could not be more timely or necessary, and LGBTQ+ students across California can breathe a sigh of relief,” Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, which advocates for LGBTQ rights, wrote. “LGBTQ+ youth can now have these important family conversations when they are ready and in ways that strengthen the relationship between parent and child, not as a result of extremist politicians intruding into the parent-child relationship.”  Opponents of the new law said that parental notification policies actually strengthen ties between students and parents, and schools should not withhold information on such important matters. Even though a parental notification measure that would have applied to all schools failed to qualify for the ballot, opponents vowed to keep fighting.   “This (law) doesn’t clarify anything. And nothing prevents individual teachers from bringing the issue up with parents,” said Roseville school board member Jonathan Zachreson, an organizer of the failed ballot measure and whose district was among those that passed parental notification policies. “So the battle continues.”  The new law also requires the state Department of Education to update its LGBTQ resourcesand encourage school districts to offer counseling, support groups, clubs, anti-bullying policies and other measures to support LGBTQ students and their families. Schools would have to pay for those services with their existing funding.   LGBTQ young people are particularly vulnerable on school campuses. In a recent survey of 18,000 LGBTQ young people nationwide, nearly half said they had been bullied in the past year, and 10% said they had attempted suicide. Those whose schools supported LGBTQ rights were less likely to suffer from mental health challenges.  Even if the new law sparks a backlash in more conservative areas of the state, California was right to move forward with it, especially as some states push ahead with their own parental notification policies, said USC education professor Morgan Polikoff.   “Will everyone like this law? Certainly not. Will it lead to conflict? There is no doubt,” Polikoff said. “But I am hopeful this will be good for the queer kids in California’s schools and will point the way toward similar efforts in other states.”  Fewer buyer protections after lemon law changes  The year 2025 is shaping up to be a confusing one for Californians unlucky enough to buy a new or used car that turns out to be a clunker.  Starting Jan. 1, car buyers who purchase a faulty vehicle will have to navigate a new version of California’s “lemon law” that for five decades has given consumers the right to demand car companies fix or replace defective vehicles they sell.   That is, unless lawmakers quickly pass a law that allows some of the car companies to opt out of the new requirements.  The confusion stems from a law Gov. Gavin Newsom reluctantly signed in late September, after the bill was hastily jammed through the Legislature in the waning days of the session following secret negotiations between lobbyists.   Newsom said it was important to address the problem of California’s courts getting clogged with lemon law cases, even as critics said the bill significantly watered down consumer protections.   But Newsom said he signed it only after lawmakers said they’d introduce legislation next year to make the reforms voluntary for automakers.   Lawmakers have already introduced legislation that they say meets Newsom’s demands. It’s now anyone’s guess how long it will take the bill to make it through the Senate and the Assembly and get Newsom’s signature. Meanwhile, portions of the new lemon law take effect Jan. 1; others in April.  Adding to the confusion, a month after Newsom signed the new lemon bill, Assembly Bill 1755, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state’s lemon law doesn’t require manufacturers to honor a car’s warranty when it’s re-sold as a used vehicle. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling, courts had interpreted the lemon law to require manufacturers to replace or repair a defective used car or truck if the clunker was sold within the window of its original new-vehicle warranty.   The justices said that if Californians have a problem with how they’ve interpreted the statute, state lawmakers are welcome to write a new bill. “Those arguments are best directed to the Legislature, which remains free to amend the definition of ‘new motor vehicle’ to include used vehicles with a balance remaining on the manufacturer’s new car warranty,” the court wrote in its Oct. 31 opinion. At least one lawmaker has suggested to CalMatters he and his colleagues could take the court up on that suggestion.  As the Legislature sorts this out, Rosemary Shahan of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety said car buyers next year are going to have a tough time figuring out what to do if they drive a lemon off the lot.  “It’s going to be really confusing for consumers,” she said.  California’s lemon law defines a “lemon” vehicle as one that has serious warranty defects that the manufacturer can’t fix, even after multiple attempts. The lemon law applies only to disputes involving the manufacturer’s new vehicle warranty.   If the manufacturer or dealer is unable to repair a serious warranty defect in a vehicle after what the law says is a “reasonable” number of attempts, the manufacturer must either replace it or refund its purchase price, whichever the customer prefers, according to the California Department of Consumer Affairs.  Disputes can be resolved through arbitration or in court if a consumer sues. The new lemon law was a compromise between U.S. automakers, consumer attorneys and judges who came together to address a growing backlog of lemon law cases in the state’s courts.  The number of such cases in California courts climbed from nearly 15,000 in 2022 to more than 22,000 last year. In Los Angeles County, nearly 10% of all civil filings are now lemon law cases.  Proponents argue the bill Newsom signed will speed up the process of getting consumers a working vehicle, while setting new procedural rules for the litigation process that will ease the burden on courts.  But Shahan and other critics argue the changes will primarily benefit U.S. car companies, since they’re the ones most commonly sued under the state’s lemon law at the expense of consumers. Foreign car companies largely opposed the measure.  Shahan says the statistics on lemon law cases show why U.S automakers wanted the rule changed. U.S. car companies have a significantly higher number of lemon law cases in California than their foreign counterparts.   It’s also why, if lawmakers pass the bill Newsom wants, the foreign companies are likely to choose to abide by the original version of the lemon law.   In the meantime, until lawmakers pass the pending legislation, buyers who purchase any defective new vehicle will have less time to sue, and they’ll get less money from rebates, according to Shahan and other critics. The new rules also shrink the period they can use the lemon law to just six years instead of the entire life of a vehicle’s warranty, which can last longer, Shahan said.  And because of the Supreme Court’s ruling that said new vehicle warranties do not cover the car once it’s resold used, plaintiffs such as Mariana Alvarado Rodriguez are now feeling the squeeze.  In 2021, Alvarado Rodriguez, a seasonal farmworker who lives in Tulare County, purchased a 2018 GMC Sierra 1500 with 40,002 miles from a Fresno County car dealer for $25,000, according to court records.   Almost immediately after she drove it off the lot, she said the truck started having mechanical problems that she claims should have been covered under the vehicle’s warranties. But she said the car’s maker, General Motors, refused to honor them. “I kept making payments,” she said in Spanish. “Then … I finally decided to get an attorney and told the dealership, ‘That truck, it just doesn’t work.’ ”  A Fresno County judge tossed her lawsuit a year later after the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled in a separate case that warranties that would apply to new cars don’t carry over if the vehicle is sold again. The Supreme Court affirmed that judgment.   Alvarado Rodriguez said she still doesn’t have reliable transportation for when she returns to work this spring in the fruit-packing sheds. “The process has been so long,” she said. “It’s really, really affected me.”  Democratic Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana is one of the authors of the new lemon law reforms slated to take effect next year. He also co-wrote the new legislation in December to address Newsom’s concerns. For now, it doesn’t address the Supreme Court’s ruling that impacted used vehicle warranty claims like Alvarado Rodriguez’s.  He said lawmakers will likely take that issue up as well when they reconvene after the holidays.  “I would expect that there would be further conversation,” he said. “At least it’s my point of view that you don’t want consumers to be hoodwinked.”  New law could help tenants facing eviction stay in their homes  Tenant advocates suffered a big defeat this fall when California voters decided against expanding cities’ ability to limit rent increases. But a state law set to take effect Jan. 1 will give renters facing eviction a little more breathing room.  The law doubles the time tenants have to respond after receiving an eviction notice from five business days to ten. Lawyers who work with renters say that what may seem like a minor procedural change could make a big difference in allowing people to stay in their homes.   Tenants who are served an eviction notice and don’t respond in writing within the legal timeframe can lose their case by default, potentially incurring financial penalties and a black mark on their record that affects their future ability to obtain housing. That’s true even if a tenant has a valid legal defense – for example, if their landlord increased the rent above state limits or refused to fix problems like lack of heat or broken door locks. About 40% of California tenants lose their cases this way, researchers have estimated.  “Five days has never been enough for a tenant to find legal assistance and try to decipher the complaint filed against them, find out what kind of defenses they have, fill out the paperwork and make it to court,” Lorraine López, a senior attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, told CalMatters earlier this fall.  Access to legal services varies widely across California. San Francisco guarantees legal representation to any tenant facing eviction, and in other cities like Oakland and Los Angeles, robust networks of pro-bono lawyers help renters file responses. But Californians who live in so-called “legal deserts” – often in rural areas – must travel many miles to meet with an attorney.  Tenants with lawyers are less likely to get locked out of their homes, some studies have shown – though fewer than 5% of renters in eviction cases nationwide have legal help, compared with more than 80% of landlords, the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel estimates.  Authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, the new law also offers something for landlords, who generally like eviction cases to move faster. It limits the amount of time tenant lawyers can take to file certain motions alleging errors in a landlord’s complaint. Landlord representatives said lawyers would use those motions to drag out cases unnecessarily.  The change convinced the state’s largest landlord lobby, the California Apartment Association, to remain neutral on the law while legislators debated it. Some local property owner groups still opposed the law.  “The longer these things take, the more expensive it is (for landlords) and the more rent is lost,” said Daniel Bornstein, an attorney who represents property owners.  The post New laws going into effect in 2025: Part I  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.