Apparently I’ll have a little bit more to celebrate on my birthday this year as the Ontario government’s glacially slow-to-change alcohol sales rules are being liberalized as of September 5th to allow all the province’s convenience stores to begin selling beer and wine:
“The Beer Store” by Like_the_Grand_Canyon is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Premier Doug Ford promised Ontarians beer in corner stores, supermarkets and big-box stores, and by God he has delivered. As of Sept. 5, all Ontario convenience stores meeting eligibility criteria will be allowed to sell beer, wine, cider and pre-mixed drinks. As of Oct. 31, the privilege will be extended to all grocery and big-box stores. The province says it expects as many as 8,500 new booze-procurement sites to come online under the new regime. By Ontario standards, it’s absolutely revolutionary.
The new regime is also, of course, hilariously complicated. And absurdly, offensively expensive.
It is fair to describe the new regime as somewhat more competitive, and certainly more convenient. In addition to offering potentially thousands of new locations, supermarkets (including the roughly 450 already licensed) will be able to offer volume discounts on beer — i.e., a 24-pack will cost less per bottle than a six-pack. This was a privilege hitherto reserved for The Beer Store, the American-, Belgian- and Japanese-owned conglomerate that dominated beer sales in Ontario from the end of Prohibition until fairly recently.
Private retailers will even be able to set their own prices, which until now has been considered blasphemy.
It is not fair to describe the new regime, as the government does, as an “open” market.
Near as I can tell, Ontario will by 2026 have the following retail environments in place:
- The Beer Store. Smelly, surly, and the best-available value. Only beer — no cider or mixed drinks. It’s in the name.
- LCBO locations. Government-run liquor stores retain their near-absolute monopoly on hard liquor sales, in addition to selling beer (especially craft beer, in which The Beer Store’s owners aren’t so interested), wine and everything else.
- LCBO- and/or The Beer Store-branded “agency stores” in rural areas, which sell everything the LCBO does, but operate inside of convenience stores, small supermarkets and other local businesses, and are staffed by non-government employees.
- The existing supermarkets licensed to sell beer, cider and wine (and in rare cases all three!), plus scores of new outlets — the new 8,500 new locations.
The Beer Store maintains a monopoly (in urban areas) on wholesale for bars and restaurants and on refunding cans and bottles, although its new “master framework agreement” (MFA) doesn’t even oblige it to maintain its current number of locations — which in urban areas have been dwindling rapidly. I’m a 17-minute walk from my nearest Beer Store. The house I grew up in, in the heart of midtown Toronto, is a 45-minute walk. I’m not schlepping a leaky garbage bag full of empty cans either distance.
Ontarians are so used to the province’s post-Prohibition regulations on the purchase and sale of alcohol that many appear to be utterly surprised to hear that beer and wine sold in convenience stores might be priced higher than they are in existing sales channels.
Quick! To the fainting couches!
Comment by Nicholas — May 30, 2024 @ 17:26