Beer Store needs a Lifetime Achievement Award

[gabe]

Yes the big breweries Labatts and Molson control the beer store, That's why the selection is so terrible. The small local micro breweries can't afford the ridiculous fees the Beer Store charges them to carry their products in the store, They also wont allow them to set up displays or advertise, that space is reserved for Molson and Labatts products. It's nice to see the grocery stores and Beer Depot's in Buffalo pushing all the micro beers from around NY state.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The Beer Store is ridiculous, especially considering its owners aren't even Canadian companies anymore. If we're going to limit alcohol sales at all, I'd much rather we did it more like Nova Scotia and have the LCBO offer an expanded beer section with cases of 24, etc. Do away with the Beer Store concept entirely.

 

[andomano]

From the Beer Store Website:
http://www.thebeerstore.ca/AboutUs/Corporate.asp

Operated on a cost recovery basis with a standard service fee schedule, The Beer Store is a unique retailer. Unlike other retailers, including the government owned LCBO, The Beer Store does not pick and choose the products it sells, nor does it set the prices at which those products are sold. These choices are made by individual brewers. The Beer Store system is open to any brewer in the world with common rules for users and service fees based on volumes sold.

he Beer Store does not refuse access to any LCBO approved beer product. Brewers also select The Beer Store retail locations that they wish to sell in. Brewers can be in one store, 50 stores or all 440 locations of The Beer Store – it is their choice.

It does sound like although the beer store is a privately owned company, it's actions are heavily controlled by the public sector through the LCA.

 

[waterloowarrior]

It's a government-sanctioned foreign-owned (Anheuser-Busch InBev, Molson-Coors, Sapporo) private sector retail monopoly for most beer products...

The wine market is also bad... the "Wine Rack" stores and most of the prominent LCBO shelves are controlled by Constellation Brands, an American company that owns brands like Jackson Triggs, Inniskillin, Naked Grape, and Sawmill Creek. And while being promoted as Canadian, a lot of these wines are just "Cellared in Canada" meaning they use up to 70% foreign grapes from Califorinia, Chile, etc

 

[Archivist]

I'm totally in favour of blowing up the current system of beer retail in Ontario. Explain to me in three sentences why foreign-owned private companies need to have a near-monopoly on beer sales in the province.

I also think that the practice of having a relatively small number of retail outlets thinly scattered across the city is poor public policy - I think you end up with frequent clusters of the kind of people who don't want to be very far from a beer store congregating around them. More outlets would reduce this problem.

I just don't get it. Blow them up.

 

[Dilla]

The monopoly also gives the brewers some perverse powers over pricing. Last year a motion tabled to the LCBO to raise the minimum price for a case of beer, the motion was passed with only a few minutes of debate. The province said it was to curb alcoholism, which is a crock. It is using the power of government to increase the profits of these vast conglomerates, as well as the government itself.

I understand there's no specific evidence of influence or tampering with the LCBO, but the LCBO can't (and doesn't even try to) explain why these price hikes are necessary.

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/557097