Gov. Jerry Brown scrapped a law that was passed last year which forced food service workers to make use of gloves when preparing and handling food.

Brown signed AB2130 on Saturday which repeals the law that in part required handlers of food and beverage to change gloves every time they switched tasks or even when they touched other food.

When the law went into effect in January, it was repelled by workers of the food industry and restaurateurs who argued that it was expensive, wasteful and not valuable to public health.

Some food service workers were also concerned that during multitasking, the food handlers might resist or completely forget to change gloves repeatedly.

Moreover, the law was also viewed as counterproductive to environmental legislation like ban on plastic bags. Remy Nelson, owner of Mojo Bicycle Cafe in San Francisco, said that he estimated his business would go through 50,000 gloves in a year which would be used just for preparing bagels.

After a lot of opposition, restaurant workers as well as bartenders can now go back to preparing food with their bare hands legally.

The purpose of the bill was to prevent food-borne illnesses.

Big restaurant chains did not put up a fight but the smaller restaurants and independent chefs argued that washing hands is just as effective as wearing gloves.

The manager of Sojourner Cafe in Santa Barbara agrees to this. Naomi Bralver said, "There's more likely to be cross contamination when people wear gloves because they are less likely to change them out and they touch all different types of food. We just wash our hands more frequently and I think that is more sanitary".

Had Governor Brown not signed the repeal measure on Saturday, the local health agencies would have started enforcing the law on July 1.