Put a cork in it TKTKTK
By: Staff Writer
27/12/2008 1:47 PM
NOW that the powers of the province’s alcohol monopoly have been successfully challenged a third time, the Doer administration cannot continue to ig*nore the logic of getting government out of the busi*ness of selling booze. That the fight was waged by a handful of private wine stores — veritable Davids battling the Goliath — makes the privatization argu*ment all the more compelling.
Six wine retailers, who must purchase their stock through the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission, recently won their second challenge to the practices of that Crown agency through a ruling of a dispute*resolution panel. That panel found the MLCC’s role as a regulator, distributor and competitor caused the problems that triggered the dispute. “It is, we be*lieve, time to reconsider this relationship,†the panel of two retired judges and a lawyer wrote.
The wine stores felt the MLCC engaged in unfair practices, including an instance in which an official informed a restaurant owner the private stores had freedom to discount the price of certain wines.
The falsity of the statement underscores the stif*ling control the monopoly holds over the retailers, of which there are eight in Manitoba — six stand-alone stores and two in grocery outlets. The number of private wine retailers has remained static through the decade. Alberta has shown that hawking hooch is a surefire business proposition, except that in Manitoba the entrepreneurial spirit is suffocated.
The MLCC decides who will get a license to compete with it, and retailers can only sell wine the MLCC distributes at floor prices the commission sets. A past legal challenge, resolved in expensive out-of*court settlements the MLCC refuses to disclose, revealed that the commission enticed large buyers to deal with it, giving benefits the private stores were barred from offering. The two grocery stores selling wine also won a settlement after challenging the commission’s pricing practices.
The MLCC believes it is the government’s job to ensure uniform prices for alcohol throughout the province — odd, given it does not subsidize the price of milk in northern Manitoba.
The NDP, which fears the wrath of the powerful government employees’ union that bargains for the liquor-store workers, warns that prices would rise with privatization. But what consumers really want is convenience, something borne out by the prolif*eration of retail liquor in corner stores and grocery outlets in the United States and Europe.
Those societies recognized long ago that selling booze is not a core government function, any more than is the sale of cigarettes or blue jeans. Govern*ment’s sole interest in booze lies in regulation. It will take an administration that has faith in the market, one not hidebound by union hegemony, to admit it.
