New year brings new Colorado laws impacting consumers and workers statewide

Several new Colorado laws are going into effect Sunday, New Year's Day, that carry significant impacts statewide.  

One new law will charge 10 cents for every plastic bag distributed at grocery stores statewide. The law is in efforts to cut down on plastic waste.  

Another law requires all eggs sold in the Centennial State to be cage free.  Starting this Sunday, egg producers will be required to have at least one square foot of floor space for chickens. That's about the size of a vinyl record case.  

"Cage free doesn't necessarily mean they're out in the pasture roaming around and doing that kind of thing," says Roland Halpern with Colorado Voters for Animals. "It simply means they're not in a little cage." 

Halpern says the new law is a step in the right direction, but he'd like to see it go further to create more humane conditions for hens. 

"We know they can count, they form social bonds, chickens actually can recognize humans. They can identify a face and know who that person is, and in fact, sometimes they can identify whether they like that person or not," Halpern said. "So, they do have personalities, and therefore, I think they deserve some degree of respect." 

He says Colorado is now one of nine states with a cage-free law.  

But some egg producers say it will increase costs for companies and consumers.  

"That comes with millions of dollars of construction and rebuilding and reorganizing their production," said Bill Scebbi with Colorado Egg Producers. 

Another law taking effect Sunday: stronger protections for employees from wage theft.  

"It makes it so an employee or an employer can't just dock an employee for say a laptop that hasn't been returned yet or some other job related material. It gives a set time that they need to notify the employee, and then, that an employee can return the items before it's just taken out of their last paycheck," said Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who sponsored the bill.  

She says employers who don't comply will be fined.  

"The bill actually also was designed to help workers who were working overtime and weren't being paid properly," Jaquez Lewis said. "So, there's a whole set of parameters that we were trying to gain some success with, for not only keeping things fair for the workers, but also fair for the employer." 

She advises if employees are having trouble this year, they can report their employers to the AG's office or the state department of labor.