Unlawfully restrictive covenants: grocery stores and supermarkets

The law creates a path to remove private land-use barriers to grocery retail where a store has closed or no longer operates in a shopping center. It preserves ordinary zoning, permitting, and health-and-safety requirements.

What the law does ​

• Makes qualifying restrictions on grocery-store or supermarket use unenforceable after an approved covenant-modification document is recorded.
• Lets owners, lessees, prospective buyers or tenants, and certain grocery-store permit applicants seek a recorded modification through the county recorder and county counsel.
• Requires county counsel review of the restriction, supporting evidence, notice, exemptions, and eligibility before recordation.
• Bars new qualifying restrictions beginning January 1, 2027.
• Preserves certain active-store exclusivity clauses, limits on the number of grocery tenants, public-development restrictions, and non-use-related design or common-area obligations.
• Leaves local zoning, building, fire, food-safety, licensing, and other required approvals in force.

Who it affects ​

• Grocery stores and supermarkets seeking to operate at properties where a grocery store previously closed or no longer operates in a commercial project or shopping center.
• Property owners, landlords, tenants, prospective purchasers, and parties holding grocery-store lease or purchase rights.
• County recorders and county counsel reviewing and recording covenant-modification documents.