Discount restaurant gift certificate

Q: Restaurant gift certificates

I thought I read that restaurant gift certificates do not have an expiration date. Can you find out one way or the other and let me know?

-- FRED MILLER

San Pedro

Restaurant gift certificates may not include an expiration date, according to a state Attorney General's Office opinion issued Oct. 3, 2000.

Some exceptions are allowed under state law.

If the gift certificate is freely given or unsolicited as part of an awards, loyalty or promotional program, it may have an expiration date.

A second exception allows an expiration date on gift certificates "sold below face value at a volume discount to employers or to nonprofit and charitable organizations for fund-raising purposes if the expiration date on those gift certificates is not more than 30 days after the date of sale."

In each of these exceptions, the expiration date must be printed on the front of the gift certificate in at least 10-point type and must have been sold after Jan. 1, 1998.

-- Stephanie Walton

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