LCBO / The Beer Store

[Mr.Colley]

Narrowly avoided... But not matter, It worked anyways. I hope this and CUPE are the last strikes we see over the next year or soo.

 

[clash]

I voted no.

But before I contribute to an old thread I should just say that I really only care about this as it applies to beer. And that I love craft beer. And the craft beer scene in Ontario is abysmal when compared to what is going on in the States and Quebec, and I think a lot of this has to do with the way beer is distributed in this province.

Also I didn't read all of this thread. But I love that I'm getting Coors Light ads as I skimmed through it. Because who doesn't love a beer that wants you to completely anesthetize your taste buds before you drink it?

Anyway. The LCBO is a government monopoly. As such, they make selling beer a bureaucratic nightmare of labyrinthian proportions.

The Beer Store is owned by Molson, Labatt's and Sleeman's which are in turn all owned by foreign interests, as ShonTron pointed out. They're set up to sell their own beer first and foremost and they make it incredibly difficult for small breweries to sell their beer.

So basically it's a pretty pathetic situation in this province when your two options for buying beer is a government owned monopoly or a retail entity controlled by the three major players in the market.

Having said that: Keep the LCBO. It has a lot to offer. It's imperfect, sure. But I don't think it should be sold. Remember, the LCBO is one of the largest single purchasers of beverage alcohol in the world and one of the largest retailers and I don't think the Ontario government is going to let go of that too easily.

And keep The Beer Store. It's a good place to buy popular brands of beer (if that's your thing). Plus where else are you going to return your empties? I think we take it for granted that we can take back empties and that many of them are reused. This isn't true in most of the world.

I would just like it if restrictions were relaxed and there were other options besides these two and that the LCBO didn't have so much control over importing. It would be nice if there was some competition from local specialty bottle shops who could import beer or sell locally brewed craft beer.

Some of the specialty bottle shops I have been to in America are mind blowing with the variety of beer they offer. While it's slowly improving, the LCBO absolutely pales in comparison. I'd urge anyone who says the LCBO has a good selection to drive down to Buffalo and check out Premier Gourmet or The Village Beer Merchant to see what good beer selection is. There are so many styles of beer that you just can't find here. There's few IPAs and not a single Imperial IPA in Ontario and yet the American market is completely saturated by these styles. Saisons...nope. Märzens? Nope. Imperial Stouts. Nope. Gueuze? Nope. Maibocks? Nope. Rauchbier or quadrupels? None that Know of. Etc. It's mostly very traditional English style brewing in Ontario, and the last thing the LCBO needs is another mediocre Euro lager.

Anyway, as I see it, the current LCBO/The Beer Store set up has stifled Ontario craft brewer's and made it incredibly difficult for American craft brewers from entering the market. Basically you need to have a lot of money to sell your beer in Ontario. According to Peter Chiodo of Flying Monkey Brewery (formerly Robert Simpson) in Barrie:

"The Beer Store is very expensive to get into. In fact, it would cost us about $20,000 to get listed in 20 stores selling the usual 6-pack, 12-pack and 24-pack. Furthermore, if we don’t meet sales targets, the Beer Store takes back the listing and bans us from selling in that store."

What kind of a system is it where you have to pay someone to profit from selling your beer?

And yeah, no. I don't think selling beer at gas stations and convenience stores is the way to bring more choice to beer drinkers, but reputable grocery stores might be a good start.

http://freeourbeer.org/

 

[urbandreamer]

Indie's could band together and open a "beer boutique"--smaller main street stores peddling their brews. Will the gov't of Ontario get on board?

 

[lordmandeep]

I went to Quebec and the stuff is everywhere!!!

I never knew that???

Is it true??

 

[Brian69]

Didn't know much about their import selection but overall Quebec makes the best beer in Canada, particularly the Belgian-style ones.

 

[lister]

Indie's could band together and open a "beer boutique"--smaller main street stores peddling their brews. Will the gov't of Ontario get on board?

That's what the OCB should do. The government allows that for the Ontario wine producers so I don't see why the brewerys should be treated any differently.

I'd love to be able to get some bottled Church Key, Beau's and Grand River products here in Toronto.

 

[lister]

Didn't know much about their import selection but overall Quebec makes the best beer in Canada, particularly the Belgian-style ones.

The import selection is pathetic. It's just the big macro stuff that's available as far as what I've found. I was really hoping that Montreal would have beer from New York, Vermont, Maine, etc. Nothing.

 

[lister]

I went to Quebec and the stuff is everywhere!!!

I never knew that???

Is it true??

Yes. For Montreal, most corner stores carry the LCD (lowest common denominator) beers: the big boys nationally in Canada, USA and in Quebec. Bleah. Some stores carry some Quebec micros. An even smaller number have an excellent selection of Quebec micros. I usually go to two places, one is Rahman on Laurier near the fabulous brewpub Dieu du Ciel. I usually do the trifecta of Schwartz's, Rahman and DDC in one afternoon. The other is further east in a convenience store called Boni Soir. The beer is at the far back and is called Peluso. Great selection, friendly owner. The walk up to the place from the subway is tough (up hill!) so transfer to a bus if possible.

 

[afransen]

Realistically, I think wine could be relaxed. The LCBO should be able to franchise wine shops (though I don't think we should encourage those buy-one-get-one-free wine depots like they have in western NY). Perhaps they should also permit mail-order wine into Ontario. I do see the case for allowing more international wine selection.

 

[Hank]

Is mail-order wine illegal? I ordered some mail-order mead from an apiary in Ontario last year...wonder how that's legal.

 

[Northern Light]

A better LCEEB

Having had the opportunity to visit a number of places outside Ontario, I can say that the LCBO is not, on the whole a bad retailer.

Its stores look nicer, its selection is better than many a wine-selling establishment, public or private, elsewhere.

That said, there are some things it could do better.

PRICE:

The LCEEBs excessive pricing is largely a result of government taxes/fees/regulations etc. but needless to say this should be addressed.

Its not so much the price of your average mid-range or high-end wine that's at issue.

Rather its a lack of table-wine at affordable prices. In Europe where its commonplace to have wine with dinner most nights, the average family can afford this by purchasing bottles/double bottles/cases etc. at cheaper prices than one can find in Ontario.

An Average Parisian grocer might have wine starting at (equivalent to) $4.00 a bottle or $5.00 a 2L jug). You might also get a discount for buying a case.

Here the LCBO has a minimum retail price (regardless of what a wine costs them) of $6.50 and won't allow case-incentives.

That must change!

Hours:

This is another thing that annoys me, while I don't want or need a wine/liquor store open at 2am on a Monday, I strongly object to no service after 5 on a Sunday.

Surely on the LCBO's second busiest sales day, and highest sales per hour day, they could at least extend open hours through dinner time (say, 8pm).

It would also be nice if there were some late-night service on the weekends. I have a friend who doesn't get off shift till midnight, and he works a 12-hour day on Saturdays. He's not about to get a bottle on the way into work. I remember when Summerhill (pre-reno) was open till midnights on the weekend. Why did they ever get rid of that?

Locations:

Either the LCEEB needs to allow more competing wine stores OR it needs to serve more areas. In my own area, not far from Danforth, the nearest store to the east is a 10min walk (not so bad); but to the west, the nearest store is Greenwood, almost a 45min walk away! That's absurdly inconvenient!

 

[Whoaccio]

Just say no to the LCBO

No Torontonian can visit Montreal, as I did last weekend, without feeling a little envious. Montrealers can pop into the grocery store for a case of beer or visit their corner dépanneur for a bottle of wine then bring it to a neighbourhood bistro. It’s easy, it’s civilized and it gives a whole different feel to life in the city.

Back home in Toronto the Good, we still have to troop to the cleverly named Beer Store for a two-four or visit the government-run LCBO to commit the subversive act of buying wine. It’s unnecessary, it’s backward and it draws attention to the uptight side of our civic nature, the schoolmarm underneath the Caribana plumes.

It is embarrassing for a city that calls itself progressive and world-class to plod along under a Depression-era liquor-control regime. Montrealers find it laughable. No other country I’ve visited leaves the retailing of liquor exclusively in the hands of a state-run monopoly. Even China, where they censor the Internet and jail dissidents, lets its citizens buy booze at corner stores.

Alberta started letting private retailers sell alcohol in 1993, breaking up the government monopoly. The sky didn’t fall. Alcohol consumption and alcoholism failed to soar as critics claimed they would. With their business on the line, private liquor retailers work hard to enforce rules against underage drinking and other offences.

Alberta now has more than 1,200 liquor stores, four times the number in 1993. They employ three times as many employees as the old government liquor stores. They range from big chains like Liquor Depot to mom-and-pop corner stores to specialty boutiques with highly trained staff selling fine wines or high-end liquor. As a result, Albertans can choose from more than 15,000 liquor products, up from about 3,000 before privatization.

Yet Ontario’s Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty, has made it clear as a dry martini that he won’t be following Alberta’s lead. When a government-commissioned panel recommended privatization in 2005, he rejected the idea out of hand. He rejected it again in the 2007 election campaign (when Conservative Leader John Tory said he would consider trying out corner-store sales). There hasn’t been serious talk of freeing up alcohol retailing since a previous Liberal government promised to bring Ontario “into the eighties†by allowing corner stores to sell wine and beer.

As a result, Ontario retains what the Beverage Alcohol System Review panel called “an artifact of the post-Prohibition era of the 1920s.†In 1927, the provincial government created the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to control the sale of liquor. At the same time it negotiated with the brewing industry to create what would become Brewers Retail Inc., today owned by three big breweries: Labatt, Molson and Sleeman. Eighty-two years later that system is intact, “neither open nor competitive†as the panel put it.

Then why do we keep it? Supporters of the current, dual monopoly give two reasons.

First, to control liquor abuse. “It’s much easier for us to maintain security through the [LCBO] and The Beer Store than to give that power to thousands of convenience stores,†Mr. McGuinty said in 2007. But the review panel argued that the government could keep a hand in by licensing, inspecting and educating private liquor retailers without seeing drinking controls crumble.

Second, to help pay for social needs. Supporters of the status quo say the LCBO brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to fund health care, education and other priorities. But the review panel said that the government could earn even more by auctioning off the rights to sell alcohol. The estimated take: $200-million annually, enough to build a new 300-bed hospital every year.

The government would of course keep collecting liquor taxes if sales went to private hands. Alberta has seen its liquor revenues grow to $660-million as of 2008 from $424-million at the time of privatization.

The real reason for keeping the current system may be that we’re simply used to it. Ontario has had its monopoly on alcohol sales for so long that they seem normal to people who live here. They are not. As the review panel says, “This is not a line of work that government should be in.â€

If the provincial government could find the wisdom to break up monopolies, it would give retailers a shot in the arm in the midst of hard times and lend a new, more open dynamic to life in Canada’s biggest cities. It works in Montreal. Why not here?

 

[Dan416]

I wouldn't mind a system like Montreal. They still have the SAQ, and I go there like I'd go to the LCBO here. I really don't mind the LCBO monopoly.

 

[Therion]

One thing I like about the LCBO is that at least at the bigger stores, they do seem to go out of their way to get selection. The beer selection at the Summerhill location, for example, is continuously being rotated, depending on the seasons. New beers that I've never even heard of (and I'm a beer snob) show up all the time.

The downside is that a 6-pack of Leffe Brun costs probably double of what it costs in Europe.

 

[gabe]

Unless you go the summerhill LCBO or out to one of the LCBO's in the suburbs, finding a LCBO with large selection of wines and micro beers is impossible in most cities in Ontario. Thankfully Buffalo isn't that far away and those super sized liquor outlet stores carry thousand of brands in one store and often have 2 for 1 one sales. Even in Quebec you can get a 24 Corona Light at Costco for 25 bucks! That's about $41 bucks at the beer store and $12.95 at the LCBO!!! yet some people say they don't mind the LCBO monopoly, i guess they don't mind being robbed!