Maybe Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne does not like beer. Sometimes when you get together over a bottle or so of beer, you can solve this type of problem. It simply does not work when a major participant in the problem does not drink beer. Or maybe it is her partner Jane who does the beer runs. Maybe we would be better off talking to Jane.
But we have to do something about the beer problem in this province. Sure we also want to do something about the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The only reason that we emphasize the Beer Stores today is that LCBO stores do not stink as bad as Beer Stores. Our olfactory senses have had enough.
Do you know that one of those awful Beer Stores near us is being rebuilt? They are actually rebuilding the new store around the smell of the old store. You would think that the smell of the old store is an historic site! We have to hope that the local police do not accidently bring a cadaver sniffing dog to that Beer Store. The poor dog might go crazy and the dumb cop might have to go without his beer.
We thought we had solved the beer problem by buying our beer at the LCBO but the LCBO only carries six-packs. With company coming who drink my beer what we really wanted the other day was a 12-pack. We even tried to argue with the clerk that if the Beer Store did not have the larger pack they would give us two sixes for the price of a 12. The clerk looked directly at the ceiling surveillance monitor and gave us the company line. It boiled down to something like “Tough beans buster.”
It sure would be nice to go to either a Beer Store or an LCBO store and be treated like a valued customer instead of an incipient bother. They will, of course, be nice to you if you make a point of being nice to them and not ask stupid questions.
But as much as we think highly of the nice people in Japan who bottle Sapporo beer while owning half of Sleeman Brewery and thereby owning a share in the Ontario Beer Stores and Brewers’ Warehousing, we wonder why they do? Why do we countenance a foreign-owned cartel that runs smelly Beer Stores controlling our beer sales?
How about it Ms. Wynne? Do you or your partner really like those smelly Beer Stores?
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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