Price gouging during coronavirus emergency? Stanislaus DA wants to hear about it
The top prosecutor for Stanislaus County asked residents to report suspected price gouging during the coronavirus emergency.
District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced Friday that she is working with other county agencies to stop illegal pricing of food, medical supplies, hotel rooms and other goods and services.
The actions come as people are making runs on stores, clearing shelves of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, pasta, canned goods and other pantry staples.
Prices generally cannot rise by more than 10 percent under a state law that was activated with a March 4 emergency declaration by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“The price gouging law protects people impacted by an emergency from illegal price gouging on supplies and services,” Fladager said in a news release. “We will review any complaint carefully in order to protect our citizens in this time of declared emergency.”
Newsom held a small bottle of hand sanitizer during a news conference where he noted that this product is in especially high demand.
“We’re seeing literally small hand sanitizers like this going for $17,” he said. “I’ve seen some online for even more. We need to go after those that are price gouging.”
The law is in Section 396 of the California Penal Code. Violators can get up to a year in county jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
The DA’s office noted that a price increase “is not the sole determining factor” in whether a case is prosecuted. “Often there are legitimate reasons that may justify a price increase.”
Residents can email complaints to consumerfraud@standa.org.
This story was originally published March 14, 2020 at 12:51 PM.
