Do you have beer in your grocery store? Are you one of the favoured few in Ontario? Here in Barrie we are being discriminated against. We are being denied a proper university here in central Ontario and we cannot even drown our sorrows in grocery-store beer. It is not as though our Liberal MPP can do anything about it. We still have to go to those awful recycling places called Beer Stores to get beer. And that is no fun at all.
Ontario residents are usually stoical about our out-of-date Beer Stores. They assume that there is little that can be done about it. You can ask your local MPP how much money is given by the foreign owners of the Beer Store to the Ontario Liberals and Conservatives and how much the brewers retail union gives to the NDP each year? That might help figure out the answer.
The very fact that foreign companies can give money to our politicians is a disgrace that many jurisdictions do not allow. They consider it a corrupt practice. In Ontario we are behind the times in more than selling beer.
Obviously grocery companies are also allowed to give our politicians money. It got them to a point where they can bid on opportunities to sell beer under very stringent rules.
But many in Ontario thought times were changing. It took more than a year for the government to get organized for beer in a few grocery stores. The bureaucrats had to make new rules just for grocery stores. Stores had to be invited to apply for licensing. Bidding took place by eager grocery groups. The first few licenses were granted for beer. Wine will come later. Much later.
Some people thought: Wow, we will have good merchandising, weekly specials and competition for our beer dollars. Forget it! The price is fixed folks. No specials in beer. The best you are going to get is PC Points or Air Miles on your six-pack.
And all you can get to buy is six packs. Two-Fours and 12-packs are still the exclusive province of the Beer Store recyclers. It is the same deal as the LCBO.
But the one hope we had was that good merchandisers such as experienced grocery chains would figure out how to properly merchandise beer. We thought they could really show up those simpletons at the Beer Store. No such luck. Civil servants are making the rules here and do not forget it.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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