Here is another important, nuts-and-bolts bill that does not elicit controversy. Every year, food that could feed a hungry family instead gets thrown out, in part because the people who might have donated it, churches, nonprofits, home cooks, weren’t sure whether they’d be legally on the hook if something went wrong. HB 281 removes that uncertainty.
The bill defines a “charitable food donor” as a nonprofit or religious organization, or a home-based food processor, that produces food for a homeless shelter or for people displaced by a declared natural disaster. Those donors are exempted from the state’s usual food licensing and plumbing code requirements, and from civil or criminal liability arising from donating that food in good faith. In plain terms, a church running a soup kitchen or a home cook putting together meals after a flood doesn’t need a commercial food license or a lawyer on standby to do it.
Good intentions shouldn’t require a permit. HB 281 makes sure the law encourages exactly the kind of neighbor-helping-neighbor generosity Kentuckians already show up with.
HB 281 was sponsored by Rep. Robert Duvall, along with twenty-nine cosponsors from both parties. It passed the House 95-0 and the Senate 38-0.