New Nevada Laws Passed in 2021 Impacting Business & commerce
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The Nevada State Legislature met in Carson City recently and worked hard to pass nearly 564 Bills in the 2021 session. These Bills ranged from decriminalizing speeding tickets to expanding voting procedures. These next series of blogs will go through all the changes made to Nevada laws in all area’s from banning specific types of weapons without serial numbers to increasing taxes on the mining industry to help fund our education system in Nevada. Even though the session just ended, the law that have made there way to the governs desk an become effective once signed by the Governor. The following Bills these blogs have been signed by the Governor.
With the session only just ended, Bills they enacted are still making their way to the governor’s office. This Blog will focus on the Bills passed that impact business and commerce in our state.
Assembly Bill 28: The Nevada state legislature passed a number of Bills helping businesses in our state compete against out of state competitors by providing advantages to companies based in Nevada. Assembly Bill 28 changes the law in order to provide local businesses better opportunity to obtain state contracts by penalizing out of state bidders based on other states policies. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/81st2021/Bill/7270/Text
Assembly Bill 60: This Bill appears to be a result of the current political atmosphere and the “Me Too” movement. This Bill quashes provisions of a contract or a settlement agreement if they prevent any party to the agreement from testifying about a crime, sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation. This Bill prevents businesses from “paying off” employees or partners from testifying about those improper acts.
Assembly Bill 61: Assembly Bill 61 is a welcome measure to try to control the ridiculous amount of Robo calling that is occurring in our state and the price gauging that took place during the pandemic. The Bill classifies Robo calling and raising prices without merit during a state of emergency as a deceptive trade practices and penalizes the companies for these practices. Many businesses profited during the pandemic by raising prices on basic needs items astronomically.
Assembly Bill 106: Assembly Bill 106 was passed in February and provides $50 million for small businesses and nonprofits impacted by the pandemic. These funds are intended to help the many small business’ in our state that went months without revenue due to the Governor’s restrictions during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Assembly Bill 359: Assembly Bill 359 requires translation of contracts and other business documents. Most state, school and other county forms have been available in Spanish for many years.
Assembly Bill 363: Assembly Bill 363 is affectively a tax increase for anyone who is using a property as a short-term rental or renting through websites like Airbnb and requires them to pay lodging taxes.
Assembly Bill 399: Another interesting Bill that passed was assembly Bill 399 which was likely lobbied by animal rights activists in our state. This Bill requires that all eggs sold in the state of Nevada the certified as cage free with a few exceptions. The term “Cage-free” is a term that is regulated by the USDA and means that the eggs come from hens that are not raised in cages. It means that the hens can “freely roam a building, room, or enclosed area with unlimited access to food and fresh water during their production cycle, but [do] not have access to the outdoors.” https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/USDA%20Grademarked%20Product%20Label%20Submission%20Checklist.pdf
Senate Bill 114: Another Bill likely passed through the efforts of lobbyists for the cannabis industry is Senate Bill 114 which allows for restaurants and manufactures of food products to sell and produce foods and drinks that contain hemp products in Nevada. Hemp is high in protein and products include hemp oil, hemp milk, hemp seeds, hemp protein powder and many other food items. Historically, hemp products were purchased at health food stores. Hemp has many health benefits. Many people associate hemp with marijuana. However, hemp has no mind-altering effects and does not contain enough THC to impact mood. The term “hemp” is defined as cannabis that contains 0.3 percent or less THC content by dry weight.
https://www.healthline.com/health/hemp-vs-marijuana#hemp
Senate Bill 237: Another Bill that is a successful result of lobbying efforts by the LGBTQ community is Senate Bill 237. This Bill provides for small businesses that are owned by members of the LGBQT community to be eligible for various forms of state assistance and incentives and provides protection from discrimination towards those businesses.
Senate Bill 248: Senate Bill 248 is a welcome relief to our citizens and especially people injured in auto accidents. It requires that collection agencies provide written notice to anyone who owes a medical debt at least 60 days prior to taking any action to collect the debt. This allows for the debtor to contact the insurance company or the medical provider to make payment arrangements prior to collection actions being taken. It is also important to note that in Nevada, a hospital cannot attempt to collect a debt against you until they have billed your health insurance.
Senate Bill 260: This Bill is Nevada’s attempt to prevent our citizens personal data from being sold on the open market by website operators. The Bill extends restrictions that are already in place to website operators that use a seller’s personal data and prevents them from selling that data to brokers who buy and sell the personal information of website users. Although this sounds good on paper, it is important to know that the web is a worldwide entity and users or operators outside our state may not be bound by these state restrictions. And if jurisdiction is found that they are operating in Nevada and are subject to this law it would be very difficult and resource intensive to find them and catch them. However, it does give our attorney general leverage in the event that any mass distribution of Nevada resident information is found to have occurred by a website operator. It is likely that the offenders that would be prosecuted would be large entities like Facebook or Google if violations of the law were fold to have taken place.
Senate Bill 320: Senate Bill 320 affects third-party food delivery companies most likely companies like Uber eats or Postmates. This Bill requires that these companies have written contracts with the restaurants. This Bill likely arises from conflict during the pandemic between food delivery services and restaurants. That requires the terms to be written so that both parties know the terms and the payment terms that are in place.
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