{"id":38481,"date":"2017-05-12T03:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T07:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38481"},"modified":"2017-05-11T09:32:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T13:32:06","slug":"maybe-this-is-creeping-privatization-after-all-its-certainly-worth-a-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/05\/12\/maybe-this-is-creeping-privatization-after-all-its-certainly-worth-a-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"“Maybe this is creeping privatization after all. It\u2019s certainly worth a shot”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley<\/a> on the neither one thing nor the other state of alcohol retailing in Ontario:<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the government enumerated 76 new Ontario supermarkets where, by Canada Day, you will be able to buy beer. That will make a total of 206 Ontario supermarkets where you can buy beer \u2014 an artificially limited selection of beer, only in six packs and singles and only during the same bankers\u2019 hours as the LCBO and Beer Store. But still. That\u2019s about one-third as many supermarkets selling beer as there are LCBO outlets selling beer; add in the 212 rural agency stores that sell wine, liquor and beer, and you\u2019ve got almost two-thirds as many private enterprises selling beer as you have government bottle shops.<\/p>\n

This could help prove several useful concepts that deserve much wider acceptance in Ontario. One is that it\u2019s very easy for the government to make money off liquor sales without retailing liquor itself. Indeed, it\u2019s easier; that\u2019s why so many governments do it. The supermarkets buy the beer wholesale from the LCBO; the LCBO doesn\u2019t have to worry about paying civil servants to sell that beer or running the stores.<\/p>\n

Another is that the private sector can be counted on to keep liquor out of children\u2019s hands. Indeed, with inspections and draconian fines in place, it can probably be trusted more. My observations suggest LCBO employees certainly card everyone who should be carded, but it\u2019s nothing like it is in the U.S. I\u2019m almost 41, not in especially good nick, and I still get asked about half the time.<\/p>\n

Might Ontarians develop a taste for all this convenience? The hard cap on beer-in-supermarket licences is 450; having doled them all out, including agency stores, that would mean about half the liquor outlets in Ontario were privately run. And people might start to notice the bizarre inconsistencies: why can the Walmart on Bayfield Street in Barrie sell only beer, and only in six packs, while the Walmart on Hays Boulevard in Oakville can sell beer and wine, and meanwhile Hope\u2019s Foodland in Novar, Mac\u2019s Milk in Craigleith, Redden\u2019s campground in Longbow Lake and Lac des Mille Lacs Bait and Tackle in Upsala can sell beer, wine and hard liquor \u2014 and smokes and fireworks and beef jerky and bread and eggs? Why can scores of convenience stores sell everything alcoholic as agency stores, but other convenience stores aren\u2019t even eligible to apply for the new wine and beer licences?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Selley on the neither one thing nor the other state of alcohol retailing in Ontario: On Tuesday the government enumerated 76 new Ontario supermarkets where, by Canada Day, you will be able to buy beer. That will make a total of 206 Ontario supermarkets where you can buy beer \u2014 an artificially limited selection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,6,131],"tags":[210,104,395,87,394],"class_list":["post-38481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-cancon","category-wine","tag-beer","tag-booze","tag-lcbo","tag-ontario","tag-privatization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-a0F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38482,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38481\/revisions\/38482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}