You know it is a slow news day when the Toronto Star gives front page space to beating on Ontario’s awful Beer Store. It is one subject Babel-on-the-Bay and the Toronto Star certainly agree on. The point is that times have changed and the Beer Store has not. This smelly, maybe corrupt, badly merchandised and out-of-date monopoly has to be put out of its misery.
But the mercy killing is not to please this writer or the Toronto Star. It is just that it is the decent thing to do. And after all, when something starts to smell that bad, it deserves a quick but proper burial.
And it is the causes of the smell that need to be understood. First of all, there is the smell of corruption. We need to stop snickering about any possible financial payoffs to Ontario politicians. These are foreign companies that own the Beer Store operations and the act of giving money to our politicians to do your business is defined in the U.S. as a corrupt act. Any politicians who accept money from Brewers Retail or the Beer Store are being bribed. There is no other name for it.
Next, we need to recognize that the Beer Store operations encourage binge drinking. The stores encourage the purchase of larger cases of beer through their pricing practices. Customers will purchase the larger package rather than the smaller packs because of the price differential and the inconvenience of a return trip.
And if you want to return your empties, just get in line. Your shoes will soon stick to the floor because of the flood of beer, liquor and wine dregs that the returns spill. Maybe some day, we will realize recycling is a separate business from selling product.
If customers do not know what they want before they get to the Beer Store, there is no help for them in the store. There is unlikely to be anybody working in that store who has a clue as to the best beer to enhance a stew or to make a shandy. These people have no appreciation for the product they are selling, its merits, its fat and caloric content, or what is a good buy today.
Ontario citizens need to rise up and say “enough is enough.” We have allowed the stupidity of the Beer Store monopoly for almost 100 years. Just who do the politicians think it serves? Them? Or us?
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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