Food & Agr. Code, § 12996 · Article 12. Penalties and Injunctive Relief
Food & Agr. Code, § 12996
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Every person who violates any provision of this division relating to pesticides, or any regulation issued pursuant to a provision of this division relating to pesticides, is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than five thousand dollars ($5,000) nor more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), or by imprisonment of not more than six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment. Upon a second or subsequent conviction of the same provision of this division relating to pesticides, a person shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) nor more than seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000), or by imprisonment of not more than six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment. Each violation constitutes a separate offense.
(b) Notwithstanding the penalties prescribed in subdivision (a), if the offense involves an intentional or negligent violation that created or reasonably could have created a hazard to human health or the environment, the convicted person shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year or in the state prison or by a fine of not less than fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) nor more than one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
(c) This section does not apply to violations of Chapter 7.5 (commencing with Section 15300) or Section 13186.5.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 574, Sec. 4. (AB 211) Effective September 27, 2022.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAC§ionNum=12996.
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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