The online mega-retailer on Wednesday, May 29, officially opened its first pharmacy in the state. Located in an industrial area of Corona in western Riverside County, the pharmacy near the 15 and 91 freeways promises to deliver prescription drugs — often within hours — using the same infrastructure that puts other goods on customers’ doorsteps.

Once fully ramped up, the pharmacy, which technically opened in March, will deliver medication to the Inland Empire, Orange County and the greater Los Angeles area, including West Hollywood, Torrance and Long Beach.

“Our mission with Pharmacy is to make it easier for people to get and stay healthy,” John Love, Amazon Pharmacy vice president, said before a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “It’s that simple.”

David Ambroz, Amazon’s head of community engagement in Southern California, said the pharmacy leverages “Amazon’s world-class logistics network” to “provide fast, free and convenient delivery of prescription medications right to the customer’s door.”

Riverside County Supervisor Karen Spiegel helped cut the ribbon.

“There’s more to this than the pills,” said Spiegel, a former Corona mayor who represents the city on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. “It’s about the people and I get excited about the job opportunities that are now available” through the pharmacy.

One of 12 Amazon Pharmacy locations nationwide, the Corona pharmacy is next to an existing Amazon fulfillment center — a warehouse where goods are brought in, categorized, packaged and shipped in an elaborate process involving computers, forklifts, conveyor belts and bustling, vest-wearing employees.

The pharmacy, Love said, operates like any retail pharmacy.

It’s in a much smaller room than the cavernous fulfillment center, with rows of shelves and medication sitting in bins with brightly colored labels in an environment where sterile safety glasses are required.

More than 1,000 medications are available at the pharmacy, Love said. The pharmacy itself isn’t a walk-up facility and sits behind two sets of locked doors.

“One of the benefits of (the) pharmacy, from a shipping and a delivery (standpoint), is it’s light and small,” Love added. “So there’s a lot of medications that we can sort in a fairly small amount of space.”

A machine resembling a smart fridge contains frequently prescribed pills and sits behind the pharmacists’ station. Two computer panels let pharmacists review medications and spot any potential problems, such as a pill that might conflict with a patient’s other medication, for example.

After that, to protect patients’ privacy, medications are packaged and labeled in Amazon packages resembling anything else that someone might order. From there, the packages are sent to the fulfillment center, where a seemingly endless procession of drivers push package-laden carts to deliver on their rounds.

Amazon plans to give price estimates to customers before they order medication — a move Love and others hope convinces people who think they can’t afford their medicine to fill their prescriptions.

“We hear these terrible stories of people going up and having a really embarrassing moment,” Love said. “You might be at a physical pharmacy in your neighborhood and you get in line and they tell you the price of the medicine and you can’t afford the medication.”

Launched in 2020, Amazon’s other locations include New York City, Seattle, Indianapolis, Miami and Phoenix. Its entry into the pharmacy market caused the stock of competitor GoodRx to fall 22.5%, with the stock of Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS taking a hit as well, CNBC reported in 2020.

Spiegel said it’s an honor that Corona is the first California location.

“It’s one of those things that time, money, whatever the reason is (for not filling a prescription), you’ve now taken that away and that’s what’s amazing,” she said.

The Warehouse Worker Protection Act, unveiled Thursday, May 2, would ban quotas that the bill’s authors say require workers to move at an unsafe pace, miss restroom breaks or cut corners in their work in order to keep up with expectations.

Mirroring a law already on the books in California, the bill also would require companies to disclose more information about the quotas that workers are expected to meet and to notify them if those standards change.

It also would authorize the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate and intervene if it finds a company is setting a pace of work that increases employees’ risk of injury or withholding information about employee expectations.

“The Warehouse Worker Protection Act is about dignity, safety, and respect for the workers that make companies run,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, said in a news release. “When corporations repeatedly use and abuse warehouse workers, they show us that their number one obligation is to their profits.”

Sens. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, and Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, are co-sponsoring the bill, which already faces opposition from business groups that argue it’s unnecessary and burdensome.

“(It) is a bad bill whose time has not come,” Marc Freedman, a vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a commentary posted on the chamber’s website.

Inland Empire warehouse workers and their advocates have long complained about being forced to work at breakneck, dangerous speeds to process goods at distribution centers, especially those owned by Amazon.

In 2022, AB 701 became law in California. Described as the first legislation of its kind in the nation, the bill makes it illegal for a worker to be fired for falling short of a quota that interferes with taking a lunch or bathroom break.

Also under AB 701, companies must share productivity requirements and work-speed metrics with employees. Like the Senate bill, it also bars quotas that prevent workers from going to the bathroom or taking a lunch break.

The new bill “(takes) some important steps for stronger protections for warehouse workers and it’s good to see,” said Tim Shadix, legal director for the Ontario-based Warehouse Worker Resource Center.

“It’s providing more transparency and fairness in the workplace around how work is measured and quantified and monitored.”

It can be “a very opaque process” for workers to understand productivity measures and quotas, Shadix said.

“It’s kind of like a sword hanging over their head,” he said. “They know they’re supposed to work as fast as possible, but it’s not always clear how fast and that leads to stress and burnout and also injuries and bad health outcomes.”

The bill “also goes a little farther than California in one great way,” Shadix said. It directs the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to create a national ergonomics standard within three years, he said.

“Workers everywhere desperately need that,” he said. “Ergonomic injuries are one of the largest categories of injuries for workers across many industries and certainly for warehouse workers.”

The release from Markey’s office cites a new study from the National Employment Law Project, which found that one in 15 Amazon warehouse workers sustain injuries, with Amazon accounting for 79% of all large warehouse employment and for 86% of warehouse injuries.

Amazon disputes the notion that its warehouses are dangerous.

According to numbers shared by Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty, the company has invested more than $1 billion in technology and training to improve workplace safety and since 2019, “recordable incident” rates improved 24% while lost time rates improved 77%.

Allegations that Amazon’s injury rate is higher than the industry average are misleading because companies like Walmart, Target and Costco report injuries under different OSHA categories, Amazon said.

“It’s a common misperception that Amazon has fixed quotas, but we do not,” the statement provided by Lighty added. “Our Time Logged In policy assesses whether employees are actually working while they’re logged in at their station” and “our employees can see their own performance at any time and can talk to their manager if they’re having trouble finding the information.”

In another commentary on the U.S. chamber website, Freedman said the bill “would bring back the most odious and unworkable regulation the Occupational Safety and Health Administration … has ever issued, a standard regulating ergonomic hazards such as repetitive motions.”

“This would hold employers accountable for employee injuries or strains that happen outside the workplace, and force employers to redesign workplaces based on unproven theories about potential remedies.”

The bill “would also deny employers their due process rights in challenging certain OSHA citations and create a shortcut for unions to organize warehouses,” Freedman added.

While “more needs to be done” to help warehouse workers, “the overall pieces of the bill are strong,” Shadix said.

“These are some very common sense-like first steps to make to provide some basic protections for workers around this growing problem.”

Tribune News Service contributed to this report.

Relief arrived Thursday, March 21, when a state board approved rules protecting workers in a range of settings from sweltering indoor temperatures.

But those rules could be put on ice for months if not longer, frustrating activists who warn that indoor heat threatens warehouse workers’ health, if not their lives.

While the rules stem from a law passed eight years ago, the California Department of Finance maintains it hasn’t had enough time to do a legally required study of the rules’ costs.

“I guess the question is, well, what were they doing all these years?” asked Sheheryar Kaoosji, executive director of the Ontario-based Warehouse Worker Resource Center.

Finance department spokesperson H.D. Palmer said it wasn’t until February — admittedly late in the process, he said — when his agency learned of “significant costs” — potentially several billions of dollars — to enforce the new rules in state prisons.

That triggered a legal requirement for an in-depth department study of the rules’ costs, Palmer said. The department wasn’t able to do that study by the time the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board met March 21, he added.

“It wasn’t a question of the issue of heat regulations at all,” Palmer said. “It wasn’t an issue of worker safety. It was simply an issue of our inability to be able to do the fiscal due diligence that was necessary.”

It’s “unlikely” the state’s Office of Administrative Law, which reviews state regulations, would move forward with the indoor heat rules “without a certification by us,” Palmer said.

What’s more, a one-year clock for the finance department to certify it concurs with the rules’ financial estimates expires March 30, Palmer said.

“After that, the clock resets and it’s unclear how long it will take until the rules can be enforced. It wouldn’t necessarily take an entire year,” Palmer said.

The state Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees labor laws, could hypothetically enact the heat rules as emergency regulations that don’t require the finance department’s input, Palmer said. In that case, the rules would be in effect for one year and not become permanent until the finance department wraps up its cost study, he added.

In an emailed statement, Erin Mellon, communications director for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said “the administration is committed to implementing the indoor heat regulations and ensuring workplace protections.”

“However, it is imprudent to move forward with a cost estimate that is off by billions of dollars. We are exploring all options to put these worker protections in place, including working with the legislature.”

Logistics is a cornerstone of the Inland Empire economy, employing tens of thousands of people who work in warehouses — often 1 million square feet or larger — that stretch into the horizon. Summertime temperatures frequently reach 100 degrees or higher in the region and in the desert, where more warehouses are sprouting up to satisfy the demand for logistics space.

For years, warehouse workers have complained about fainting, headaches, dizziness, nausea and other symptoms they blame on sweltering indoor working conditions in a fast-paced environment with little to no time for breaks.

In some cases, the heat has led to workers having heart attacks or organ failure, Kaoosji said.

“Because workers are pushed to work as fast as they can, they skip taking a break. They don’t drink water,” Kaoosji said. “Often the water is far away from where the workers are.”

Workers “also walk in and out of metal shipping containers that are out in the sun a lot of the time during the day,” Kaoosji said.

“The heat in those facilities often does build up over time to the point where it’s as hot or even sometimes hotter inside than outdoors.”

Online retailer Amazon, a major Inland logistics employer, has said it has already taken a number of steps to keep workers cool.

Regarding the new rules, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said via email: “We’ve seen the positive impacts of our effective heat mitigation program and believe all employers should be held to the same standard we’ve already proactively set for our company and our Amazon delivery service providers.”

The new rules, which apply to non-warehouse employers as well, make California the second state in the nation after Oregon to enact indoor workplace heat standards and are an outgrowth of state legislation signed in 2016. There is no nationwide indoor heat standard.

That law establishes temperature thresholds that, if reached, would require warehouse employers to take steps to either lower inside temperatures or give workers heat relief.

Once the indoor temperature reaches 82 degrees, employers would have to give workers water and access to cooling areas. Fans or other cooling devices would have to be used once the temperature hits 87 degrees.

“Right now, workers have the right to speak up when they feel ill or feel impacted no matter what,” Kaoosji said. “(The new rules put a) burden on the employer to actually deal with (heat) and address it when it’s above that temperature because workers shouldn’t have to be in a position where they (have to) complain or speak up.”

With the rules in limbo, Kaoosji said his center is reaching out to elected officials and working with labor unions and other groups “to make clear that (these rules) need to go into effect.”

“We’re still going to bring workers together to speak up about this issue in their workplaces throughout the summer and educate workers about the right to speak up about heat and other issues in the workplace whether or not there is a standard.”

The eight-page memo also reveals Amazon’s plans to no longer donate to the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum over a display of artwork showing an Amazon facility ablaze.

And it describes Perris’ mayor as “an influential elected leader that we have cultivated” while noting reluctance by some local politicians to accept Amazon’s campaign donations.

The Ontario-based Warehouse Worker Resource Center, which seeks to improve warehouse working conditions, released the memo, which it says came from a source it can’t publicly reveal. The Southern California News Group was unable to independently confirm the memo’s authenticity.

“In Amazon’s leaked memo, they detail a strategy to paper over these valid concerns with donations, media clippings and support for policy changes that either benefit Amazon or hurt their competitors,” center Executive Director Sheheryar Kaoosji said in a Tuesday, Dec. 5, news release.

“Amazon sees our community as nothing more than warehouses and bodies to staff those warehouses. It’s a paper thin façade and they should invest just as much time into actually addressing working conditions, pay and the extreme environmental cost to Southern California and the people here.”

An Amazon spokesperson said Tuesday that the center’s description of the memo “is a blatant mischaracterization of Amazon’s work, and in fact, Amazon is proud to be engaged philanthropically in communities across the country.”

“Partnerships with community leaders and stakeholders help guide how Amazon gives back,” the spokesperson, Jennifer Flagg, said via email. She did not say whether the memo is authentic.

Flagg added: “Through employee volunteerism or our charitable donations, it is always Amazon’s intention to help support the communities where we work in a way that is most responsive to the needs of that community.”

In an Inland Empire that’s become a hub for the logistics industry, Amazon stands out as a major player. The online retailer employed 162,000 Californians as of January 2023, many of them in fulfillment centers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Logistics is a major economic driver for a region lacking the highly educated workforce needed to attract high-paying jobs in industries such as medicine and technology. But critics said the Inland Empire pays the price for being America’s shopping cart, from low-paying jobs in sweltering warehouses to toxic truck emissions that shorten lifespans and disproportionately affect communities of color.

The unsigned memo outlines a “community engagement plan” to “to support Amazon’s operations and physical retail businesses in Southern California.”

It describes using charitable donations, including a holiday toy drive and donations to anti-hunger efforts, to bolster Amazon’s image while cultivating good press by pitching Amazon-friendly stories noting the company’s work in the community and strengthening ties with nonprofit groups “who can be vocal advocates for Amazon.”

“There are currently not enough Amazonians serving on prominent boards in Southern California,” the memo adds.

Under the heading “What Will We Stop Doing in 2024,” the memo states: “We will not fund organizations that have positioned themselves antagonistically toward our interests.”

“For example, in 2022 and 2023 we donated to The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside. In 2023, the Cheech Center exhibited a local artist who depicted an Amazon facility on fire, and the artist then gave an interview expressing hostility towards Amazon. We will not donate to The Cheech.”

In March, the Southern California News Group published an interview with the artist behind “Burn Them All Down,” which was on display at The Cheech.

“Toni Sanchez’s print has a stylized Amazon warehouse in flames depicted in triplicate,” columnist David Allen wrote. “Around each picture is the same message, also in triplicate. ‘Burn Them All Down.’”

In an emailed statement, Drew Oberjuerge, the Riverside Art Museum’s executive director, wrote: “This is the first time we are learning of any concerns Amazon has had with The Cheech for an artwork in our community gallery, and to date, they have not communicated with us.”

Amazon supported The Cheech’s inaugural gala with a $5,000 in 2022 and “an unsolicited duplicate $5,000 payment” was sent a year later, Oberjuerge said.

“Neither payment was designated for an exhibition and the company has not communicated any questions or concerns about an artwork or requested the return of its donations,” she added.

“At The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, we invite all to support our mission, which includes presenting thought-provoking exhibitions. We believe in supporting artists and curators who challenge, surprise, delight, annoy and anger. It’s through this dialogue we better understand our shared experience.”

The memo also appears to describe Perris Mayor Michael Vargas — referred to in the memo as “Marty” — as “an influential elected leader that we have cultivated through (personal protective equipment) donations to support the region, touring him and his team, and ongoing engagement. He also influences the governing body of (Amazon’s San Bernardino air hub).”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon donated 600 COVID-19 testing kits and six pallets of disinfectant wipes to Perris, city spokesperson Stephen Hale said via email.

In an emailed statement, Vargas said: “I vehemently oppose claims that I have been ‘cultivated’ by Amazon through PPE donations and have been courted as an influential governing member of (the San Bernardino air hub), which is not in my jurisdiction.”

“My relationship with Amazon is no different than any other business within the City of Perris, and in no way am I being used to influence legislation or provide preferential treatment to large scale businesses,” Vargas said.

“We are one of several cities with Amazon fulfillment centers and this document aims to paint myself and the City of Perris as an example of a manipulated municipality for future development.”

Under the heading “Dogs Not Barking,” the memo notes a reluctance from some unnamed elected leaders “to accept directly Amazon’s political contributions. Similarly, I learned of an effort by labor to discourage a local significant non-profit to not accept our charitable contribution.”

The memo cites Amazon’s efforts to oppose legislation by Assemblymembers Eloise Reyes, D-Colton, and James Ramos, D-Highland, to require distance buffers between new warehouses and homes, schools and other sensitive uses.

Reyes “continues to advocate (a) warehouse moratorium, and environmental legislation that would be detrimental to Amazon’s interests,” the memo read.

In a news release, Reyes said being mentioned in the memo is “a badge of honor for being recognized for standing up for both environmental justice and workers.”

Reyes said the memo “reveals Amazon’s strategy of funneling funds to non-profit groups to oppose crucial legislation protecting our communities from the impact of warehouses and hindering labor organizing.”

She added: “It’s disheartening to see Amazon by passing direct community engagement and the requested community protections to instead (prioritize) financial incentives to advance their business objective.”

Ramos also referenced the memo in a Tuesday news release describing revisions to his warehouse buffer bill.

“It is crucial that we work toward a (compromise) in the Inland Empire to ensure we protect local jobs and address environmental concerns — especially after learning today of an active effort by Amazon to halt a balanced approach to this issue,” he said in the release.

A new California law seeks to make those pollutants — and the companies emitting them — more visible to the public.

SB 253, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Oct. 7, is billed as a first-in-the-nation requirement for large corporations to publicly disclose their airborne pollutants on an annual basis.

“We need the full picture to make the deep emissions cuts that scientists tell us are necessary to avert the worst impacts of climate change,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said in a news release about SB 253, also known as the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act.

The bill, which previously faltered in the Assembly, passed the Senate 27-8 and the Assembly 49-20 in September despite staunch opposition from business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce.

“To be clear: This bill will not reduce emissions,” The chamber argued in a document posted on its website. “It is a costly reporting requirement that does not help us meet our climate goals.”

SB 253 “may result in large businesses ceasing their partnerships with small and medium-sized businesses, leaving these companies without the contracts that enable them to grow and employ more workers,” the chamber added.

The law applies to U.S.-based companies doing business in California that have annual revenues of $1 billion or more.

Starting in 2026, those companies — about 4,000 in total, according to California Environmental Voters — will have to disclose their emissions, which are broken down into three categories:

• Emissions from company-owned sources.
• Emissions caused indirectly by a company through its use of electricity.
• Emissions by outside sources doing work on a company’s behalf.

Businesses “are responsible for a large share” of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, with research showing that since 1988, 100 fossil fuel producers are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to a nonpartisan state analyst’s report on SB 253.

Disclosing the third category of emissions, such as diesel exhaust from trucks ferrying goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Inland Empire warehouses, is “one of the reasons why I care so much about SB 253,” said Matt Abularach-Macias, deputy campaigns director for California Environmental Voters.

Diesel exhaust is blamed for the region’s poor air quality and is linked to cancer, asthma and other health problems.

“There hasn’t really ever been full transparency about … how much of a burden the Inland Empire is currently shouldering for the rest of the country’s economy because of the goods and logistics movement,” Abularach-Macias said.

“I think this will bring about the needed transparency to demonstrate the burden that we’re carrying in the Inland Empire.”

He added: “So much of the propaganda from the big polluters has made … the climate crisis an individual problem and has told the public that, you, individually, your consumption is responsible for the crisis.”

SB 253 can help change that narrative by putting the emphasis on corporate pollution, Abularach-Macias said. “If everyone believes that this is an individual problem, then policy solutions are going to reflect that,” he said.

“Whereas if we come to understand that this is a problem with certain people who are responsible for creating it, then I think policy solutions should shift and reflect that as well.”

Because the law only applies to businesses located in California, “this means that out-of-state and international companies can opt to simply ignore SB 253’s requirements,” CalChamber argued.

“Therefore, the burden of this bill will fall squarely on California-based companies, giving out-of-state and foreign companies a market advantage, driving production out-of-state and increasing the cost of goods for California residents.”

It’s also hard to accurately measure the third type of emissions, the chamber said.

Responsibility for enforcing SB 253’s reporting requirements will fall to the California Air Resources Board, which will develop regulations on those requirements between now and 2026.

A new law passed unanimously passed by Perris’ City Council earlier this year bans junk food from being sold at supermarket checkout aisles. Instead, no later than 2024, grocers will be limited to selling healthy snacks and drinks near the register.

Perris is the second city in the United States to enact rules on what’s sold at grocery checkouts, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. Berkeley was the first.

Perris officials hope the ordinance encourages healthy habits.

“This was driven by our community,” Perris Mayor Michael Vargas said. “It’s not a mayor’s thing, it’s not a council thing.”

But the head of San Bernardino-based Stater Bros. and the California Grocers Association — an industry lobbying group — say the law is unfair, especially because it exempts convenience stores and other junk food retailers.

“Why don’t you let the people in the food business help you and show you better ways to accomplish what you want as opposed to a city council who’s not in the food business, they’re not in the health business, mandating and dictating things they know nothing about?” said Pete Van Helden, Stater Bros.’ CEO and board chairman.

Concerned about what other rules the city might impose, Stater Bros., which has one supermarket in Perris, shelved plans to spend $20 million on a second Perris location, Van Helden said.

“Today is (about) health. I get it. We could say that’s not a big deal. We could move on,” Van Helden said. “But what’s next? What other items in the store are they unhappy with us selling that they will tell us that we can’t sell and Wal-Mart can?

“… I’ve got five other cities begging us to come with a store and none of them are telling us how to merchandise our stores. We’d much rather go there.”

Ronald Fong, California Grocers Association CEO, said via email: “It’s saddening the City of Perris risks losing out on a healthy shopping destination and community anchor due to the fact city leaders failed to collaborate with its grocery community and offer equal and fair treatment to all retailers.”

Vargas said the second Stater Bros. supermarket is part of a larger development that’s never been formally submitted to the city.

“That shopping center has been sitting there (for 15 or 20 years) and it’s just dirt,” he said.

Home to about 80,000 people, Perris is younger, more diverse and poorer than the rest of Riverside County. The city’s median age is 30.3, compared to 36.6 countywide and it’s 79% Hispanic compared to 52% for the county as a whole and its median income is $22,303 compared to $33,609 for the county, according to census data.

Like much of Riverside County, Perris grapples with poor public health indicators. One in 10 Perris adults is diabetic, about one in four is sedentary and almost four in 10 are obese, county public health numbers show.

Research indicates that changing where food is sold in supermarkets “makes healthier choices easier for consumers and leads to consumers purchasing more healthy foods,” said Karen Gardner, senior policy associate with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which worked with California-based Public Health Advocates to help Perris officials write their ordinance.

“It’s not that shoppers can’t make healthy choices in the grocery store,” Gardner said. “But we’re often being pushed towards unhealthy options … The biggest (food companies) in the game spend billions of dollars to place their products in the most prominent places in the grocery store.”

She added: “That maximizes their profitability. It also influences our purchases. So when highly marketed products have lots of sugar and lots of sodium, it can sabotage our efforts to eat healthier.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Vargas said the city council passed an ordinance requiring water to be the default drink for kids’ meals in fast food restaurants. The supermarket checkout ordinance, the mayor said, fits with the city’s “Live Well Perris!” initiative that encourages residents to live healthy lifestyles.

“We just wanted to start promoting more healthier options and the parents were behind it. The schools were behind it,” Vargas said, adding that Public Health Advocates approached the city about the ordinance in 2020.

First passed in February 2023, Perris’ ordinance forbids grocery stores of at least 2,500 square feet in size from selling snacks or drinks that are more than 200 calories per package, contain trans fats, derive more than 35% of their calories from total sugars or have more than 200 milligrams of sodium.

Nuts, seeds and legumes are exempt from the ordinance, which forbids junk food from being sold within 6 feet of a cash register. The distance requirement helps, Van Helden said, because “our refrigerated beverage coolers that sold the majority of the items that were going to be eliminated are just beyond 6 feet” from the register.

The ordinance also doesn’t prevent sugary, high-calorie and salty snacks and drinks from being sold elsewhere in a supermarket.

The ordinance applies to 15 stores in Perris, according to a city report. They include Stater Bros., Cardenas Markets, Food 4 Less, Aldi, WinCo Foods, Wal-Mart Supercenter and two Dollar Generals.

Cardenas experimented with offering healthy food at checkout lanes in 2016. Spokesperson Marisa Kutansky couldn’t determine Friday afternoon, Sept. 1, whether the Ontario-based grocer still has those types of checkout aisles.

“While we support the Perris elected officials who are seeking healthier lifestyles for their residents, we also strongly support the ability to choose what to merchandise in a manner that reflects their residents/our customers’ product preferences,” Kutansky said via email.

“Further, we urge Perris elected officials to advocate for healthy lifestyle initiatives in a fair and equitable way.  The fact that the (ordinance)  only applies to full-service grocery stores sends mixed messages to consumers and ultimately discriminates against grocers.”

After getting feedback from the grocers association, Perris officials recommended changes to the ordinance, including giving grocery stores until Jan. 1 to comply and allowing a maximum 20-ounce size for fruit and vegetable juices. The city council gave preliminary approval to those changes Tuesday, Aug. 29.

Van Helden said the changes are an improvement, adding that Stater Bros. would have been forced to lay off an employee due to the original ordinance’s costs. But he said it’s not fair, and contrary to the ordinance’s goals, to apply the rules to grocery stores and not convenience stores or mini-markets.

“It’s one thing to have to deal with an ordinance,” Van Helden said. “It’s another thing to deal with it when your competition doesn’t have to. And if they think for a moment that these other stores are not our competitor, they’re wrong.”

Gardner said U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows two-thirds of Americans’ calories are bought at grocery stores.

“To have the greatest potential public health impact, grocery stores and superstores are the most important place for policies to be focused,” she said.

Van Helden said the best place to teach children healthy habits “is probably not while they’re standing in line at the grocery store.”

To that end, Stater Bros. Charities supports California’s “Taste & Teach” program for schoolchildren to learn about healthy foods. Taste & Teach gives teachers $100 Stater Bros. gift cards to buy California-grown produce and curriculum to teach children about healthy eating, said Nancy Negrette, Stater Bros. vice president of corporate affairs.

“It’s a way of changing behavior through education … instead of just things being taken away at the checkout,” Negrette said.

Since 2018, Stater Bros. Charities has invested over $230,000 in Taste & Teach, reaching more than 200,000 students, Negrette said, adding that the program is offered at five schools within 10 miles of the Perris Stater Bros.

Van Helden said Stater Bros. is taking a wait-and-see approach to the ordinance.

“I’d be interested to see what they’re going to do between now and the 1st,” Van Helden said. “When the 1st comes around, we’ll just have to look at our options.”

Gardner said her organization has heard from “folks across the country,” including Northern California, about implementing their own checkout rules.

“(Perris’) city staff really did amazing work in both hearing from the community and the community members (said) ‘We want healthier options (at) checkout. We want a significant change in the checkout aisles in our grocery stores,’” Gardner said.

Tribes with casinos and online sportsbooks have spent at least $400 million — enough to give every Californian $10 — to support or oppose Props. 26 and 27, measures on the Nov. 8 general election ballot that could legalize sports betting in California.

RELATED: Why are tribal casinos and California’s cardrooms at odds over Prop 26?

A coalition of tribes, among others, supports Prop. 26, saying it would enhance a system that fuels the local economy and tribal self-sufficiency. Sportsbooks, including BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel, are backing Prop. 27, which promises to raise hundreds of millions annually to give homeless people housing and services.

As it deluges TV screens and social media with ads, the sports betting showdown is already the most expensive ballot measure fight in U.S. history, the Associated Press reported. At stake is who controls what would be the nation’s biggest legal sports betting marketplace, according to the American Gaming Association, an industry group.

Legal sports wagers generated $4.3 billion in revenue in 2021, up 177% from the year before, the association reported. As the most populous U.S. state, California, with more than 20 pro sports teams, promises to add to that.

The Southern California News Group sought to interview officials from several Southern California tribes with casinos, including the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Cahuilla Band of Indians.

Most didn’t respond. A spokesperson for the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which runs a casino near Cabazon in Riverside County, declined to comment.

The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which operates the Yaamava’ Resort & Casino near Highland in San Bernardino County, considers Prop. 27 an “infringement on tribal sovereignty (and) the ability for tribes to make their own decisions and determine how to roll out gaming,” said Frank Sizemore, San Manuel’s chief of staff.

Online betting “is the Trojan Horse,” Sizemore added, accusing sportsbooks of “trying to sneak into California to get an online casino.”

The battle over sports betting is another example of tribes having to fight for what’s theirs, said Jacob Coin, executive advisor to San Manuel’s tribal chair.

“Any time tribes had something of value, somebody was coming up with ways to take it away from them,” Coin said. “(Before) it was timber, wool, land, water, gas and oil or whatever resource tribes had control over.”

He added: “The only way that we can build economies, generate revenues and do what governments do is because of the success (we’ve had) with tribal gaming … It took three decades to build up to where we are today beyond the reservations and that’s what is at risk here if there is a significant change in public policy regarding gaming here in California.”

Nathan Click, a Yes on 27 campaign spokesperson, rejected the argument that Prop. 27 would siphon business from casinos.

“It actually hasn’t made a dent in in-person casino traffic” in states with online gaming and casinos, he said. “Those entities, we have two very different customer bases.”

Attacks on Prop. 27 are hypocritical, Click said, because tribes are pushing for a 2024 ballot measure that would allow them to offer online sports betting.

RELATED: Prop 26 & 27: Fact checking ads for California’s sports betting propositions

“The hundreds of millions in revenue generated each year by Prop. 27 to help solve homelessness will create thousands of jobs — funding more case workers, substance abuse counselors and construction jobs for new housing,” Click said.

The Pechanga Band of Luiseňo Indians, which runs a casino outside Temecula, supports Prop. 26 because it “builds on the voter framework that voters have continued to support to enable tribes towards tribal self-sufficiency while also contributing to our regional economy,” said Jacob Mejia, the tribe’s vice president of public affairs.

Prop. 27, Mejia said, threatens the economic model that helps tribes support themselves.

The road to Props. 26 and 27 started in the U.S. Supreme Court with a 2018 ruling that opened the floodgates for legal sports wagers. Today, 31 states allow sports betting with five more set to join them, the American Gaming Association reported.

In California, talks in the legislature to set up a legal betting marketplace broke down in 2020.

“We looked at the playing field about a year and a half ago and said ‘It looks like this conversation’s going to be happening on the ballot and we can either be part of that conversation or not,’” Click said.

The key difference between Props. 26 and 27 is how wagers on sporting events would be placed.

Prop. 26 would require that bets be placed in person at a tribal casino or one of four horse racing tracks, such as Santa Anita Park in Los Angeles County. Under Prop. 27, bets would be made online.

Prop. 27 would restrict online gaming licenses to larger companies. It would allow tribes to offer betting, but they’d have to relinquish some of their rights under federal law — an unacceptable condition for tribal leaders.

No on 27 ads warn of children getting hooked on online betting. By limiting wagers to in-person bets, it “enables people to feel comfortable that only adults are betting because you can check IDs,” said Kathy Fairbanks, spokesperson for the Yes on 26 campaign.

Click said a regulated sports betting market “actually does a good job of preventing kids from accessing (gambling) platforms and only Prop. 27 fines an operator that knowingly takes (money) from a minor. None of those protections are in Prop. 26.”

A coalition that includes taxpayer advocates and unions along with veterans, small business and social justice groups is fighting Prop. 26, arguing it will lead to more underage gambling and addiction while allowing five wealthy tribes to expand their monopoly on gaming. But most of the money and advertising is centered on Prop. 27.

“It’s possible that this incredible negative spending against 27 will ultimately sink both propositions, especially if voters lump them together,” said Isaac Hale, an assistant professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“But I think defeating 27 is goal No. 1 for the major gaming tribes … and if the side effect is 26 goes down too, I think they can live with that.”

Besides legalizing in-person sports betting, Prop. 26 also would let casinos offer roulette and dice games.

“I think this is just a case where these two items have been on their wish list for a long time and propositions are very expensive so (the tribes thought) why not roll it into one,” Hale said.

Fairbanks said Prop. 26 would give tribes “the opportunity to expand and offer more games to patrons.”

The measure also allows casinos to take cardrooms to court over alleged violations of gaming rules. For years, tribes have argued that cardrooms skirt the law in how they offer poker and other card games.

I. Nelson Rose, a professor and gaming law expert, said via email that the provision “would destroy the card club industry” and a major source of tax revenue for cities.

“The tribes … let their personal antagonism toward the state’s card clubs, small (and) almost inconsequential competitors, add a nasty little provision to Prop. 26,” Rose said via email.

Legitimate cardrooms “have nothing to worry about” from Prop. 26, Fairbanks said.

“The cardrooms however have taken this opportunity to blow this out of proportion and fearmonger,” she said. “The provision is there to give tribes an opportunity to take a very specific penal code to court and get a ruling one way or the other.”

Polls show homelessness is a top concern for most Californians. While money for homelessness is a key theme of Yes on 27 ads, “(they) seldom seem to mention what the proposition actually does,” Hale said.

“Voters should be aware that a vote for 27 is a vote to legalize online sports betting and how you feel about that should probably be the main determinant of how you vote.”

Click said the Yes on 27 campaign has “always been upfront about what our measure does. It creates hundreds of millions of dollars each year that help solve homelessness by legalizing and regulating online sports betting.”

Yes on 27 ads also promise more money to less well-off tribes that don’t have casinos. Gaming tribes already send millions of dollars annually to non-gaming tribes, but Click said Prop. 27 would double that amount.

If he lived in California, Rose said he’d vote against both measures.

“Both have major defects which outweigh whether you are pro- or anti-gambling,” he said, adding that Prop. 27 “blatantly locks out all competitors of the companies which wrote and paid for the initiative, giving them a multi-billion-dollar oligopoly.”

A Berkeley IGS poll conducted in late September found just 31% of likely voters backing Prop. 26 and 27% saying they’d vote for Prop. 27.

If both pass, Prop. 27’s backers have said online betting run by sportsbooks can co-exist with in-person betting at casinos and racetracks. Prop. 26 supporters don’t see it that way.

If a judge rules the measures are incompatible, the measure with the most votes would win, Hale said. Otherwise, both would be enacted and California would have in-person betting at casinos and racetracks and online betting through sportsbooks, Hale added.

Cerritos resident Mike Wada, who regularly visits two casinos, said he supports both ballot measures.

Wada would like to see craps and roulette offered at tribal casinos the way they are in Las Vegas. While he’s concerned Prop. 27 would send money out of California and potentially make it easier for kids to gamble, he said it’s easier to place a sports bet from home.

Wada said he’d still frequent casinos if Prop. 27 passes.

“I’m entertained by the spinning of the wheels, the colors of the machines and there is something more entertaining in that than sitting around waiting for the outcome of a bet you placed, whether it’s a sporting event or horse race,” he said.

If Prop. 26 and 27 fail, both sides might be back before the voters in a few years with new ballot measures, Hale said.

“There’s just too much money (in sports betting) for this to be the last word.”

Now imagine someone trying to breach it 411,000 times a day.

That’s what Riverside County’s government deals with 24/7 while protecting a $6.9 billion budget and a mountain of sensitive data from hackers. San Bernardino County, which has a $7.6 billion budget, is also inundated by cyber intruders, although officials there were reluctant to put a figure on the volume of attacks their county faces.

“This is a way of life now where people are trying to find vulnerabilities and exploit those vulnerabilities,” said Tony Coulson, a professor of information and decision science at Cal State San Bernardino and director of its Cybersecurity Center.

“It is better than robbing a bank … You can steal 100 credit cards, put them on the dark web and sell them for hundreds of dollars each and probably never get caught.”

In a presentation to Riverside County supervisors in September, Anthony Chogyoji, the county’s chief information security officer, said the county’s cybersecurity center watches for threats around the clock. County spokesperson Brooke Federico declined to reveal the center’s location.

“In 2020 alone, (the county’s IT infrastructure) prevented over 150 million cyber attacks on our network and stopped over 40 million spam, phishing and infected emails from reaching our 23,000 employees,” Chogyoji said in a brief video aired at a Board of Supervisors meeting.

In San Bernardino County, “cyberattacks occur consistently throughout the day – every second of a day, which are typically unsuccessful attempts,” Robert Pittman, the county’s chief information security officer, said via email.

There’s no shortage of money or data in county government.

Besides overseeing billions in federal and state funding and local tax revenue, Riverside and San Bernardino counties handle everything from building permits and marriage licenses to applications for public benefits, medical records and voter registration data in a region of 4.5 million people.

Large-scale cyberattacks, like the one that temporarily shut down a southeastern U.S. oil pipeline in May, make headlines, but much more common are smaller-scale intrusions. The city of Torrance was among hundreds of local governments beset by hackers in 2019 and 2020, the International City Manager Association’s PM Magazine reported.

In 2019, ransomware attacks targeted 113 local and state governments and public agencies, the magazine reported. Ransomware denies access to digital information until a ransom is paid.

Hackers also go after elections. In 2017, Time magazine reported Riverside County’s voter registration database may have been an early target of Russian hackers seeking to sow chaos in the 2016 presidential election.

Rebecca Spencer, the county’s registrar of voters, took issue with the word “hacked” and said her office found most voters who said their registration was changed without their knowledge forgot they had changed their party affiliations. Officials in both Inland counties have said voting and vote-counting machines can’t be hacked because they’re not connected to the internet.

In recent years, ransomware attacks by overseas hackers targeted small municipalities and school districts, Coulson said.

“That’s weird from an American perspective,” he said. “But in a country where someone thinks the government holds all the wealth, they would think going after schools is going to get them the riches they want … they were sorely disappointed that as they attacked school districts, they didn’t get big payouts.”

In 2019, hackers placed ransomware in servers used by the San Bernardino City Unified School District. Staff and faculty couldn’t access their emails and WiFi and other technology couldn’t be used.

Both counties have information technology departments tasked with cybersecurity, IT troubleshooting, maintaining servers and other duties. Riverside County Information Technology’s budget is $112.2 million, while San Bernardino County’s Innovation and Technology Department has a $110.7 million budget.

In 2013, the county bought The Press-Enterprise building in downtown Riverside for $30 million and converted it to an IT hub.

The most common cyber threats to Riverside County government are “phishing emails written by malicious actors designed to trick users into giving confidential access to information,” Federico said via email.

“These bad actors are most often from foreign countries attempting to access funds or confidential data by going around any security systems in place.”

Pittman was less forthcoming about his county’s cyber threats.

“The county would prefer not to discuss this,” he wrote when asked what the biggest threats and targets are, though he said the county has not been the target of a ransomware attack.

Later, San Bernardino County spokesperson David Wert said the county receives phishing emails daily.

Riverside County’s IT defenses include systems to detect and prevent breaches and employee training on avoiding phishing scams, Federico said. Riverside and San Bernardino counties also work with local, state and federal law enforcement on cybersecurity, Federico and Pittman said.

To prevent cyber crimes, public agencies need to work together and clear IT standards must be established, Coulson said.

“The county could have an IT department defending its network. But what about a small place that provides food to your school district?” he said. “They could be infiltrated, which leads to an infiltration on your side.”

Gregg Crawford received a religious vaccine exemption from Trader Joe’s, but was barred from a key leadership meeting despite his willingness to be tested for the virus beforehand or attend the meeting remotely, alleges the lawsuit filed Sept. 7 in federal court by lawyers for the Pacific Justice Institute, which describes itself as a conservative legal defense nonprofit group.

“Trader Joe’s mandate that employees inject themselves with experimental vaccines while building an empire on giving customers natural, healthy options is hypocritical,” Brad Dacus, the institute’s president, said in a news release.

Trader Joe’s did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week. Headquartered in Monrovia, Trader Joe’s has more than 500 stores nationwide that mainly sell the company’s brand of products and cater to health-conscious consumers in search of unique items not found in conventional supermarkets.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, according to a wide range of public health experts and medical professionals.

The lawsuit describes Crawford as a devout Christian and a Trader Joe’s employee for 26 years who worked as a captain, or store manager, at the company’s Rancho Cucamonga location.

Crawford’s lawsuit alleges the following:

Trader Joe’s president announced that all captains must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by July 16 “unless they have a medical or religious accommodation.”

Crawford got a religious exemption from the vaccine requirement. But on July 15, he received a call from a regional manager who told him only vaccinated people could attend an Aug. 24 “Leaders Meeting” in North Carolina.

The regional manager said all captains must attend “and Mr. Crawford’s non-attendance was going to negatively affect his performance review. Mr. Crawford pointed out that he was being penalized for his religious convictions. (The regional manager) told him that this decision was from the president and he was just relaying the message.”

Through his lawyer, Crawford contacted Trader Joe’s human resources director July 27 to point out that barring him from the meeting and penalizing him for it was discriminatory. Crawford suggested ways he could take part, including attending the meeting via Zoom or being tested for COVID-19 shortly before the meeting.

Trader Joe’s general counsel replied and said Crawford would be given “a summary of (the meeting’s) relevant information” and that his vaccination status would “not be the basis for any negative performance evaluation.”

Crawford met with the regional manager July 30 at Riverside Plaza, where Trader Joe’s has a store.

“When (the regional manager) arrived, he asked how Mr. Crawford was doing (he knew Mr. Crawford’s brother had passed away unexpectedly a few days ago, shortly after taking the COVID-19 vaccine),” the suit states.

“Mr. Crawford said it was a tough week. (The regional manager) then read an ‘Employee Incident Report’ telling Mr. Crawford he was fired from Trader Joe’s” in part for disregarding an “Open Door Policy” by going to HR instead of taking up his concerns with his superior, “(approaching) the issue from an ‘adversarial perspective’” and “(acting) in conflict with the interests of the company.”

The lawsuit alleges Crawford’s religious beliefs “were a motivating factor in his termination … Mr. Crawford’s income and health insurance ceased immediately and unexpectedly after 26 years of service, placing a large burden on him to support his family.”