Okay, I guess if you're going to have a law that requires gloves or tools to handle food that won't be cooked, that includes drink garnishes. I don't necessarily want to see a bartender wearing latex gloves — but it makes a certain measure of sense.
Thinking of a bartender and a bar area, there are probably more important cleanliness issues to deal with, though.
New Law Requires California Bartenders to Wear Gloves on the Job –
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"there are probably more important cleanliness issues to deal with, though." Like what?
The rags used to wipe the counter, all of the equipment and containers and this and that behind the bar, etc. Bar areas aren't particularly bad (in good bars, at least), but there are a lot more moving parts and potential problems than, say, a restaurant kitchen.
I guess part of it becomes how often the gloves are replaced.
I expect mroe bartenders using tongs.
When you think about all the dirty things a bartender touches on an almost hourly basis….especially cash….I wouldn't have a problem with them wearing gloves.
Yeah, but if they're not changing gloves, all that dirty stuff is still going to be hanging around. Tongs also seem like a better solution.
Hm. So if there is a murder in a bar and you don't find any prints on the weapon, the bartender did it!
"The rags used to wipe the counter" When I worked at a bar these were kept in a small bucket of antiseptic solution. I believe that was a requirement of the health code, though it may not be in all jurisdictions.
"there are a lot more moving parts and potential problems than, say, a restaurant kitchen." Skeptical of this. Kitchens handle both raw meat and raw vegetables (the latter being the most common vector for salmonella). They also have a lot more overall surface area that comes into contact with food.
"I guess part of it becomes how often the gloves are replaced." When I took a food safety course the health inspector who taught it emphasized repeatedly that the most common source of food-born disease the human handling it. Apparently a lot of people are carriers of diseases they have developed resistance to, but that can still cause disease in others. He also emphasized how to actually wash your hands to prevent disease: 20+ seconds of heavy washing with a thick lather, dry with paper towels. Virtually nobody does that, and certainly no bartenders have the time to do that frequently. So wearing gloves is probably a big improvement over just not washing your hands very frequently, which from my experience in bars is the norm.
Still, I wonder how much cost-benefit analysis went into this. Not every possible threat to public safety needs to be addressed.
There was a sickness epidemic once when I lived in Fort Collins. It was believed to be started at Texas Roadhouse. Peanuts. Lots of people. Shared illness.
+Lucas Wiman I will bow to your bartending experience; I've not seen such buckets for rags, but it would make sense.
Kitchents, including food prep areas, strike me as overall better lit and with more open counter space that normally is available behind a bar. The result would be how thorough cleaning efforts would be, even if, yes, kitchens have more dangerous vectors (and a dirty kitchen would be more dangerous than a dirty bar, certainly.)
I suspect, like many public health laws passed, there was not much cost-benefit analysis, just a perceived problem. I even doubt the framers of the law actually realized that bartenders would be included in its sweep.