Ontario still backwards on beer sales.

Ontario residents can finally be trusted to buy beer and food in the same place, albeit still with intricate restrictions that continue to characterize the backwards booze laws of the province.

Just before Christmas, selected supermarkets in selected locations began selling beer.  The catch there is that the locations were carefully selected and limited to six packs which may only be sold during the hours of when the local locations of The Beer Store (the virtual retail beer monopoly owned by three corporate brewers) are open for business.  The government touted this move as a great liberalization of alcohol sales.  It really isn’t.  The restrictions will still have beer drinkers in southern Ontario heading to Quebec, New York, or Michigan for better prices and selection.  Wine and liquor sales, aside from sporadic distillery or winery-owned stores, are still firmly under the control of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). 

Yesterday, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission announced that non-alcoholic “artisan” products can now be sold in stores owned by individual craft breweries.  Apparently the Ontario government could not previously trust anyone to buy both a bag of cheese curd or bottle of maple syrup and beer at the same time.  Small business owners who produce these products are of course quite pleased, but there is a significant measure of irony in the commission’s decision.  For years, the owners of independent convenience and variety stores in Ontario have wanted to be able to sell beer in their shops.  Their demands have never been met and there’s no sign of that changing soon.  The argument always was that selling beer in variety stores could make it too easy to sell it to those who are under the legal age or are already drunk when making the purchase.  That argument makes no sense since just about every variety store in Ontario sells cigarettes.  It’s against the law to sell those to anyone under 19 and there is a pretty hefty body of evidence showing smoking is not a healthy activity.

Allowing a local maple syrup producer or cheese company to have its products in the shops of craft breweries is basically allowing beer to be sold in small shops with a variety of goods, but not explicitly in variety stores.  This is extremely unfair to the independent convenience store owners who want to sell beer in their shops.  Is there really any difference between selling craft beer beside locally produced cheddar or sausage and selling beer from a big corporate brewery next to jugs of milk or potato chips?  The Ontario government’s changes to regulations on beer sales are not progressive at all.  They are simply a continuation of the decades-old method of ensuring unfair competition between retailers and enforcing alcohol sales through complicated and convoluted means.