Once again with feelings folks! We just found out from Ontario’s official newspaper the Toronto Star that the Ontario budget will not include selling good wine in grocery stores. We have been betrayed. We have been used. We have been had. This is unforgiveable.
And what’s the excuse?
It seems there are international trade agreements and “other” challenges. Okay, it sounds like the problems are those created by politicians and that means that our present politicians will know how to eliminate them. Nobody expects the grocery stores to be stocking beer and wine until later in the year anyway. There is lots of time to fix the politicians’ problems if they just put their minds to it.
There is no rationale to have beer in grocery stores and not have some decent wines available at the same time. What kind of rubes do they take us Ontarians for?
That plonk that is being sold along with a few Ontario wines in grocery store kiosks today is a disgrace. It is for people who do not normally drink wine—and probably should not when that is what they get. There is absolutely no excuse for those cheap assembled beverages that those kiosks have been foisting on unsuspecting people who do not have time to go to the Liquor Control Board store.
After various trips around Niagara and Prince Edward County, we can tell you that there are actually some very decent wines produced in Ontario today. And we can also report that the Niagara ice wines are liquid gold that should be saved for those who can really appreciate them.
And on the subject of booze—standing at the back of an LCBO store, you realized why all this time we have hated shopping at the big LCBO stores. It is only when standing at the back where you can see the entire store you can see the region of wine you are looking for. These stores had been deliberately designed backward with the aisles on the diagonal. Going into another of the large stores the other day, they were busy changing the store around. When asked, the manager explained that the store was being changed again so that the aisles were at right angles to the cashiers. That grocery store style arrangement will work better.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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