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20 YEARS: Early Days on the UrbanToronto Forum
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LCBO / The Beer Store

Should the LCBO be deregulated?

  • Total voters
    169
  • Poll closed .
evandyk said:
Yeah, we buy plastic bags now for kitchen garbage. Probably makes carrying my own bag mostly meaningless. We should focus on making it possible for people to walk to stores. 15 minute cities, anyone?
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I find walking any distance with disposable plastic bags is far riskier than with reusable bags or a cart.
 
Northern Light said:
Simplest, fastest effort there (near instant results) is letting every supermarket sell beer and wine.

Then moving to cap store size so we get fewer behemoth stores and more local ones.

After that, you work on resolving key walking challenges (crossing 401 as an example) by both offering more connections and making the existing ones safer and more pleasant to use.
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I think banning Costco would be politically difficult.
 
afransen said:
I think banning Costco would be politically difficult.
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It might be; but I think I would anyway. (though, let's be clear, any store cap size would not be retroactive, so an over-sized store would become a legal, non-conforming use that could not be rebuilt as-is.)

But really, Costco is a bit of an abomination in that people really think it's a good value, but I've methodically priced out a host of items on very few are they any cheaper than a regular discount supermarket; when
you then factor in the membership fee, I'm not sure you're saving anything at all.
 
In a democratic, capitalist system, it would be interesting to know the legal foundation for making an otherwise legal business corporation, illegal by banning it. Building size can be controlled by zoning bylaws, to a degree. I'm not defending Costco - I've never been in one, but a choice to shop there, or not shop there, seems to be a cornerstone of our system.
 
The membership can be purchased for 60 dollars for the year (and usually singing up gives the member a gift card rebate of half that amount). Costco is definitely a cost savings for families, maybe not for singles/couples, though. The cost per unit (or cost per gram/100ml) is definitely cheaper at Costco than at discount grocers, there are a ton of websites that show this and have comparisons.
And it's probably not the best choice of an example to pick as the ultimate "big box bad guy", it does provide great health benefits to its employees, pension contributions, etc. The people who live around a given Costco (and work for it) are probably better off than employees of small businesses who can't afford to provide those things to the people who work for them, so it's not as clear cut as the posts above make it seem. I'd say Walmart is probably the better example of the bad big box giant to fit the narrative.
 
I have always boycotted Costco because of the package sizing. It's a symbol to me of how our culture nudges you towards bigger houses, bigger cars, urban sprawl.

Many cities in Europe have public squares in residential neighbourhoods where there is a line of patios that adults relax on while their kids play together in the square. We don't really do that in North America, but that's a choice, not a necessity.
 
lenaitch said:
In a democratic, capitalist system, it would be interesting to know the legal foundation for making an otherwise legal business corporation, illegal by banning it. Building size can be controlled by zoning bylaws, to a degree. I'm not defending Costco - I've never been in one, but a choice to shop there, or not shop there, seems to be a cornerstone of our system.
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Retail format size has legislated maximums in many U.S. cities and in Europe and Asia; this is not some far-out idea that's never been done, in the law in dozes of places.

You've really been big lately on discussing how impossible it is to change or enforce laws; did you change brands of coffee? LOL
 
And even if you don't legislate, density operates as a control on retail sprawl. But we don't really do density, except on King St and Yonge St.
 
Northern Light said:
Retail format size has legislated maximums in many U.S. cities and in Europe and Asia; this is not some far-out idea that's never been done, in the law in dozes of places.

You've really been big lately on discussing how impossible it is to change or enforce laws; did you change brands of coffee? LOL
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What? I thought I've always been crusty.

Different things can happen in different countries largely because of different foundational laws and different cultures. They can walk around packing open heat in many US states, but we can't here, because of different foundational laws and a different culture. If there was an attempt to legislate store size that clearly or de facto targeted one or a limited range of companies, I can imagine a decent lawyer making a good 'equality before the law' argument, particularly when large format is a certain businesses corporate model. Land use and zoning bylaws would have the best chance of success because they are of local application.


Neighbourhood shops, green grocers, butchers and bakers are more common in other countries largely because of culture - they've always been like that. My step-mother was English and quite never transitioned to 'the big weekly shop' that is common here. They might be more popular in newly developed dense neighbourhoods, so long as people don't howl. At what magic number does NIMBY turn into 'the will of the people'? A system of government that can, by fiat, impose something that someone feels is good can just as easily impose something that another someone feels is bad.


Maybe my apparent prevailing views are a counterpoint to a regular parade of 'the government should just do x' without any legal, political, financial, etc. considerations, or they do x in country y where it is so wonderful.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky and find it easier to curse the darkness rather than light a candle.
Maybe it the fact that we are trying to sell our house in a very slow market and it is just so annoying and frustrating. Our house has been clean and de-cluttered (staged/fluffed) for two months; it's just not natural.
 
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