The staff at E.A.T. or the Extraordinary Artisan Table Marketplace & Eatery as well as the rest of the chefs and bartenders of California can start legally handling food with their bare hands under a bill headed for the governor that wards off an unpopular regulation.

The bill called AB2130 passed its final legislative hurdle on Thursday with a full vote in the state Senate, preventing the implementation of a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year that requires restaurant employees to use gloves or utensils to handle food going straight to the plates of diners. The prohibition which is in place in 41 other states has been recommended by regulators to stop the spread of illnesses which are food borne.

Leah Delyte Di Bernardo, who is the chef and co-owner of E.A.T said that all restaurants need to champion culinary staff cleanliness, personal hygiene and also a better understanding of how to prepare and handle food. "My staff is very fastidious", she said. "We're washing our hands constantly".

Though the original legislation had no opposition from chain restaurants but the independent and high-end chefs and bartenders said that they were caught off guard by the rule. They say that the ban disrupted well-established routines of washing hands, generates unnecessary waste of disposable gloves and also restricts them in their work.

Diane Chittasenee who is the owner of Zen Street in Riverside said she will probably insist that her staff continue wearing gloves at her Asian fusion restaurant: "We're very conscious of handling food. We would never consider gloves as a replacement for frequent hand washing".

Sen. Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles told lawmakers on Thursday that the ban would not have been approved if their concerns were raised earlier.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found that workers touching food gave the most common transmission pathway for norovirus outbreaks which originated from food between the years 2001 and 2008.