LCBO / The Beer Store

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Liqourguy:

Free enterprise should be the backbone of a democratic society....All this leads to higher liquor prices, less selection, less locations.

Actually, without economies of scale and the ability to withstand the cost of providing products without high levels of demand, chances are you are more likely to have a reduction in selection and location, and perhaps even and increase in price.

AoD

 

[Liquorguy]

Wrong

Liqourguy:



Actually, without economies of scale and the ability to withstand the cost of providing products without high levels of demand, chances are you are more likely to have a reduction in selection and location, and perhaps even and increase in price.

AoD

Over 15,000 products available in Alberta at over 1000 locations all cheaper then any of the 1,500 products available in ON.

I lived in Alberta for 6 years before moving here and am in the business so I know of what I write.

I don't know how you can even suggest with competition prices go higher. It is called supply & demand. LCBO controls it all, and even thou the liquor suppliers charge less in AB and want to charge less in ON the LCBO won't let them because their roughly 200% in taxes would be reduced. They force suplliers to charge more, that is what floor pricing is all about.

Like someone mentioned earlier you can buy a bottle of rye in AB for $16.00 and a bottle of Irish cream for $13.00. Better check out your prices at a LCBO store and report back to the rye & Irish creams you found lower than that?

I think you meant to have that comment reversed? A monopoly setting its own prices with no competition and $60,000/year ++ stock persons versus the "Mom & Pop" stores in Alberta?

 

[Whoaccio]

Actually, without economies of scale and the ability to withstand the cost of providing products without high levels of demand, chances are you are more likely to have a reduction in selection and location, and perhaps even and increase in price.

The economies of scale with something like alcohol distribution are negligible. If you have a convenience store, you pretty much have all of the scale you need to effectively compete. I also don't understand why deregulating alcohol sales in Ontario would lead to lower levels of demand.

What you probably would see is a decline in choice at some locations. I doubt convenience stores would bother stocking vintage wines or every beer brand under the sun, for example. That doesn't mean over all choice would go down though. Instead of concentrating liquor sales into a couple dozen liquor supermarkets throughout the City, more sales would probably move into corner shops (vastly increasing locations) for stereotypically common beverages. Overall choice would go up, but the current situation where '100% of retailers stock 100% of beverages' would decline as retailers found what niches work best.

 

[lordmandeep]

Free enterprise should be the backbone of a democratic society. Government control of liquor sales leads to higher profits for government, higher-paid jobs for union employees and more money for union coffers. All this leads to higher liquor prices, less selection, less locations.

I still do not like the Idea of seeing mountains of beer at every convenience store and Gas station like I did when I was in Pennsylvania.

 

[W. K. Lis]

If the LCBO is owned by the citizens of Ontario, how come I didn't get my copy of the Annual Report in the mail, and where the next Annual General Meeting is to be held? Other private corporations have an annual general meetings where even if I held a single share, I could ask the board of directors a question of the operation.
Instead, we have to shut up and don't question. I still think the shareholders of the LCBO would like to attend.

 

[lordmandeep]

why do you not ask the same question about Via and Canada post???

 

[Whoaccio]

why do you not ask the same question about Via and Canada post???

I certainly say the same thing about Canada Post, which is ridiculous. The rest of the world (USA excluded) manages to get by without a government monopoly on postage. It is yet another government monopoly that funnels money from urban areas to rural areas for political gain.

A lot of people do thin Via should be privatized, but at least with rail travel you can make an argument that it is a public good (which doesn't mean the good is socially important, it means it would be impossible for a private market to exist).

 

[afransen]

If the LCBO is owned by the citizens of Ontario, how come I didn't get my copy of the Annual Report in the mail, and where the next Annual General Meeting is to be held? Other private corporations have an annual general meetings where even if I held a single share, I could ask the board of directors a question of the operation.
Instead, we have to shut up and don't question. I still think the shareholders of the LCBO would like to attend.

Because the citizens do not. It's the government, quite obviously. Did you have a point beyond that?

 

[lister]

Ideally I'd like to leave the LCBO as is. It serves most of the general public very well. Let the Ontario Craft Brewers (OCB) open up OCB stores much like what the Ontario wine industry is allowed to do. Then let private boutique liquor stores open up to carry what the LCBO, TBS and OCB don't carry. Steamline the process for those private stores to get product into the province. (Some breweries won't deal with the LCBO for it's jackassery labelling, shipping, testing, order sizes, one off orders, etc nonsense.)

Yes, I have been to places where private liquor stores are and convenience stores are allowed to sell booze. In some markets it works wonderfully and in others it's awful.

 

[gabe]

LCBO workers prepare strike vote

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...9/05/08/lcbo-workers-prepare-strike-vote.aspx

LCBO workers prepare strike vote
Posted: May 08, 2009, 12:41 PM by Shane Dingman

Canwest News Service

Ontario drinkers may find it more difficult to find liquor this summer if talks don’t pick up between the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and the union representing 6,000 of its workers.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union announced Friday that it has asked its members to deliver a mandate for it to call a strike.
Union members will vote between May 20-22 and a strike could take place as early as late June, OPSEU spokesman Randy Robinson said.

The LCBO has never gone on strike.

The main issue is the breakdown between full-time and part-time jobs, said Robinson, who added that 60% of LCBO workers fall into the casual worker category and earn an annual income of less than $20,800 per year.

“The central issue is what kind of jobs do we want in Ontario?†he said. “ Do we want ones with decent pay and benefits, or insecure part-time, throwaway jobs?â€

Robinson said 88% of unionized LCBO workers who have joined the company in the last 10 years and 96% who came on board less than five years ago are classified as casual workers, meaning they don’t qualify for full-time benefits.

“Thirty years ago, (the LCBO) had all full-time jobs. Now we’re down to 40%.â€

Workers have been without a contract since March 31 and their union has been in talks with management for about four weeks, Robinson said.

Should its membership vote to give the union a strike mandate, it would have to continue to negotiate in good faith before filing dispute documentation with the province. A strike could take place approximately three weeks afterward, Robinson said.

Calls to the LCBO were not immediately returned.

 

[Brian69]

Damn, can't the government legislate the LCBO into being an essential service?

 

[Therion]

The Beer Stores are worse, and about the most car-centric businesses in the province, apart from gas stations, car dealers and repair shops, even downtown.

Have you tried carrying home a 2-4? I have, but only once. Hence the car-centric-ism (what?).

Upside of the LCBO: huge selection of stuff that doesn't necessarily move lots of cases. LCBO buyers are allowed a lot of leeway to find interesting booze all across the world.

Downside: much more expensive than in the States. Sometimes you can see deals advertised in the U.S. for two bottles of Yellow Tail Shiraz for $5 each. At the LCBO, the deepest discounts are usually pennies on the dollar. Also, when the dollar had that big run-up last year, California wine never dropped in price. Where did that extra 30% profit go to? Gee, I wonder.

All in all, I don't mind the current setup of the the LCBO, but I wish they had better pricing. They often brag about being the single largest buyer of alcohol in the world, but their prices don't reflect it. I wonder how much fed/prov. taxes have to do with it.

 

[nfitz]

Have you tried carrying home a 2-4? I have, but only once. Hence the car-centric-ism (what?).

Have you tried buying smaller containers?

Frankly, the inconveniently located Beer Stores, really only encourage me not to bother to buy beer. Even when driving, they are never really near anything I pass regularily - and I can't think of one conveniently near transit off-hand. Given how badly the convenience stores have been hurt by declining cigarette sales, I'd think it would help the local communities a lot to have the local stores selling beer.

 

[Whoaccio]

Have you tried buying smaller containers?

Maybe if Therion had claimed that everybody needed to drive to a BeerStore because it is impossible to carry back a keg by yourself that would be a fair response, but it isn't unreasonable at all to want to buy a 2-4.

 

[gabe]

http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/can...ario-liquor-workers-fired-for-air-miles-fraud
Ontario liquor workers fired for Air Miles fraud

OTTAWA - The Ontario liquor board has fired at least 10 workers in the last year for scooping up Air Miles meant for customers.

The employees were nabbed after the Liquor Control Board of Ontario gained access to their Air Miles accounts and found they were using personal cards to accumulate points on customer sales.

The 10 incidents identified in 2008-09 are a sharp rise from a single instance detected the previous year, and six cases in total the year before that.

An internal audit, obtained by The Canadian Press under the province's freedom-of-information legislation, suggests the increase in fraudulent behaviour is linked to the recession.

"Given the current economic conditions, many retailers are expecting an increase in the amount of inappropriate behaviour by front line staff," says the document.

The audit, dated October 2008, urged LCBO managers to be extra-vigilant during the Christmas holiday season as more temporary workers came on staff.

The board developed a protocol with LoyaltyOne Inc., the company that runs the Air Miles program, in August 2006 that allows LCBO auditors access to private card information if fraud is suspected.

"The Air Miles program provides collector information ... only after an organization has exhausted all of its own methods for identifying potential fraud," said LCBO spokesman Chris Layton. "Air Miles follows strict internal guidelines."

The protocol adheres to federal law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, intended to protect the privacy of Canadians, he added.

Any personal information turned over to the LCBO by LoyaltyOne must be destroyed or deleted within 180 days under the arrangement.

The internal audit indicated that fraud has a "potential monetary impact" on the LCBO because of the cost of providing Air Miles, but Layton said beverage alcohol suppliers actually absorb most of the costs of issuing rewards.

The liquor board's staff guidelines for issuing Air Miles, which date back to 2004, forbids the rewards from being used on any but the customer's card.

"Staff are ... prohibited from using the purchase by any customer to issue reward miles to their own personal account or the account of other staff, family, friends, other customers or any other person," says the policy.

Cashiers intercepting reward miles fraudulently can simply swipe their own card at the time of purchase if the customer does not present a card.

Layton noted that Air Miles fraud is committed by only a small fraction of the LCBO's 7,000 employees, and that the audit indicated that current surveillance and enforcement measures need not be changed.