It's a vintage battle over should who get to sell wine and beer in Ontario, and today convenience store owners launched their latest campaign to get a piece of that big business.
Consumers and the premier are weighing in but the public seems split over this issue. A lot of people want the added convenience of being able to buy beer and wine at the corner store while others worry about making alcohol too accessible. The latest pitch: only sell Ontario wine and beer in convenience stores.
Keeping it local is the latest pitch from the Ontario Convenience Stores Association as they continue to lobby the government to stock beer and wine on corner store shelves. The problem is the makers of the products the store owners want to sell don't necessarily want their products there.
“We found out about it same as everyone else on the news this morning, so we were surprised about it,” says Lake of Bays Brewing Co. owner Darren Smith.
In just five years, Lake of Bays brewing company has grown from four employees to 45. Smith is all about expansion, but he doesn't think selling his beer in corner stores will help.
“Basically you're adding three or four-times the number of distribution points but you’re not going to sell a ton more beer. So it would increase the cost and result probably in higher beer prices.”
Wine makers aren't convinced either. Both the Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario and the Wine Council of Ontario are opposed to selling wine in convenience stores. The council was especially perturbed by today's announcement, telling CTV News: “They might have consulted with us to see how it would work and because of that it feels improvised and uniformed.”
Either way, the pitch was dead on arrival.
“What we have envisioned in the immediate term is to continue with what we have,” says Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa.
But that doesn't mean convenience stores will stop pushing. There is demand for expansion.
While the province has no plan to expand into convenience stores, they are in the process of launching a pilot project that would see 10 express LCBO outlets put into grocery stores. There's no immediate timeline for when that will happen.
