You can imagine the kindly old editor explaining to Toronto Star scribe Martin Regg Cohn: “Now get this right Martin. We hate the foreign-owned Beer Store monopoly and we love the government-owned liquor store monopoly. Now go give us another 800 words screwing the Beer Store people.”
And that is why Martin started this morning’s column with: “Back by popular demand. The Beer Store, part II.” He hardly needed to be very creative to come up with more reasons to get rid of the Beer Store monopoly. It is a hundred years out of date and he has found that most Beer Store customers want out.
Would it surprise you to learn that letters to the editor can prove just about anything if you decide which letters to publish and do a bit of editing on the ones you do use? This must be why Martin can write: “Surprisingly, most readers grudgingly agreed that we should leave the LCBO alone—at least for now.” Obviously “now’ must be as long as the Toronto Star editorial board think we should keep the liquor monopoly.
The difference between the two monopolies is that the Beer Stores are disgusting and out of date. The Liquor Control Board stores are just out of date.
The only real difference between the two monopolies is that the LCBO knows a bit about marketing and is not in the bottle returns business. That gives the liquor business a leg up on the non-disgusting side of things,
Martin pads his story with quotes from a former Beer Store insider whose ten-year non-disclosure agreement must have expired. This person reports that Labatt’s Blue and Molson Canadian do not sell as well in self-serve stores where all brands are available. And what else would you expect than the Beer Store pushing the larger owners’ brands?
The reality is that both beer and liquor monopolies must go. They are archaic and bad business models. Beer and wine and liquor are best sold along with food. They complement each other. Beer and Ontario wines should also be available at the corner convenience store. And there is a marketing rationale for specialty liquor and wine stores. Selling the liquor stores might be a one-time capital gain for our province but the taxes on alcoholic beverages will more than make up for the LCBO revenues.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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