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California Bill Would Require Retailers, Restaurants to Cash Out Gift Cards

The measure applies to amounts of $25 or less that can get ’stranded' on cards, lawmakers say. Restaurants don’t like the idea of becoming ATMs.
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California Bill Would Require Retailers, Restaurants to Cash Out Gift Cards
Gift cards are displayed at a Target store in New York on Dec. 21, 2023. Richard Drew/AP
Brian Back
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Critics of California’s notoriously high tax burden like to quip that state government views businesses as an ATM.

Now, state officials want to actually require California retailers to function as ATMs for customers.

Brian Back
Brian Back
Author
Brian Back is a longtime small business entrepreneur in California. He previously was founding editor and publisher of San Francisco-based Sustainable Industries, a reporter and columnist for the Portland Business Journal, staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and a contributor to several other local and national media outlets. He earned an M.A. in journalism from Georgia State University and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Dayton.