When even the Toronto Star gets in line to support the Beer Store’s battle with Ford and Friends at Queen’s Park, you know the fight is on. Just the other day, the Star proposed on its front page that having beer in corner stores could cost Ontario taxpayers $1 billion. Which you have to realize is just bull shit.
The Ontario government and its Beer Store allies have been mistreating, inconveniencing and stealing from this province’s beer drinkers for most of the last 100 years. And this is not a ‘blue-stockings’ versus ‘progressives’ argument. The people fighting the hardest against convenience stores selling beer and wine are the Beer Store union.
If you think foreign-owned Labatt, Molson and Sleeman are going to sue the Ontario government for redress when the government is opening up millions in new sales for them, you are crazy. You never kill the golden goose that has been feeding fat profits to you.
The Ontario government, the LCBO and the Beer Store have been ripping off Ontario drinkers since the last time we had prohibition in Ontario. Why do you think Ottawa Valley residents mostly go to Quebec to do their serious beer and wine purchasing?
The arguments must be coming down to the short strokes and the more strident, the sillier. First of all, is the story that the Beer Store committed to an agreement(?) to spend $100 million per year building and maintaining its outlets. If it did not budget that much anyway, it would not be serious about doing business. They have just fewer than 450 stand-alone stores now. They have had a free ride on the liquor stores carrying their products in the most expensive packaging and recently the last liberal government in Ontario added some of the larger grocery stores.
But Ford and Friends won the last popularity contest to call the shots at Queen’s Park and they are out to show how populist they can be. They are not only lightening the liquor rules but they are opening up the distribution. If they follow through, Ontario beer drinkers are really going to catch a break.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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