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saints_gambit wrote:
It's always a mixture of effects. If they had rushed it to immediate conclusion people would be complaining because the only people with the volume to handle the additional outlets are established market players. This gives the little guys some time to plan. Honestly, if we get more players in the grocery side, it's going to be a lot better for everyone. If it were all Loblaw's they'd push their own brand stuff. I'm confident Metro will split theirs craft/big guys like they do in Quebec. Sobeys is sort of a wild card, but you've got to figure anyone who's willing to stock four kinds of chia seed pudding is going to lean craft. Getting Farm Boy and Whole Foods and Longo's etc in on the right terms is going to help craft's volume faster even with a couple months of delay. If that goes up small breweries influence policy more, which will help the eventual rollout gather speed.
The initial rollout will be fraught with problems. I can guarantee we will all disagree about the selection. The end result is going to be better beer in more hands and that means long term results.
There's no argument from me against having more grocers in the mix. I know this is the kind of thing that can be done very poorly, as you mentioned, and it's better to wait longer for it to be more fair. I'm resigned to the fac that it's going to take a while and that there's going to be some kind of screw-ups in the beginning. Anyways, I'm happy there were some updates on how the process is going.
P.S. Liked your article on London and the economic benefits of local beer.
As part of an upcoming agreement with the brewing industry, Queen’s Park has decreed that only 46 million six-packs will be allowed to be sold a year at 450 of Ontario’s 1,500 supermarkets by 2018.
[...]
The annual limit works out to the equivalent of 279 six-packs — or about 70 cases of beer — sold daily per store.
What kind of fucking horse shit is this!? I knew they'd find a way to fuck it up.
Edit: and just like that now they're saying no limit on quantity, just the $1 mil/year beer sales thing.
Don't bother stopping in at the grocery store on your way home from work to pick up some beer -- the rations will have already been distributed amongst the pleebs.
As part of an upcoming agreement with the brewing industry, Queen’s Park has decreed that only 46 million six-packs will be allowed to be sold a year at 450 of Ontario’s 1,500 supermarkets by 2018.
[...]
The annual limit works out to the equivalent of 279 six-packs — or about 70 cases of beer — sold daily per store.
What kind of fucking horse shit is this!? I knew they'd find a way to fuck it up.
They already had a $1 million limit per store. This is basically the same thing, if you assume a six pack averages 10 bucks or so.
There is an overwhelming amount of stupid in how the government is rolling this out, but one thing that stands out to me:
Each grocery store location will have an annual sales limit equivalent to 102,222 six-packs of beer, but it will be a “soft cap”. Sales above that limit will be allowed with a 1% penalty that the LCBO will pass on to the brewery owners of the Beer Store.
What in the everliving fuck is this for? If grocery stores sell too much beer, they're going to pay a royalty to TBS. Why? I mean if they were paying the royalty to some government monopoly or something, then at least you could find some rational basis for it. But why on earth is the government making one private entity pay royalties to another private entity just because they have a lot of sales? In this scenario it's entirely possible that a grocery stores sets itself up as a craft-only shop, does very well, then ends up cutting a cheque to Molbatt/InBev/Saporo despite never carrying or selling any of their products!
Craig wrote:There is an overwhelming amount of stupid in how the government is rolling this out
The early story from the Star (http://on.thestar.com/1KzDRMF) quoted an anonymous senior gov't source saying: "Nobody thought you could get this agreement with the beer guys.” Really? Who is in charge here?
Still, I'm happy to see it's a soft cap and that macro "crafty" options such as Creemore and Goose Island won't qualify to fill the 20% craft space quota. The changes will also help out bar/restaurant owners who were getting gauged by TBS.
The 1% is utter nonsense, also the fact that the new sellers can't compete with TBS on price (facepalm).
Total guess (but everything's a total guess with this process, it seems), but maybe the 7.1% limit was chosen to partly help ensure that business for the LCBO's "Vintages-like" craft beer zones remains as strong as they're hoping and isn't undercut by enterprising grocers, like the one who decides to stock up on Belgians, or whatever. Because higher-alcohol beers are classier and should be kept under the watchful eye of a few LCBO employees.
nickw wrote:Total guess (but everything's a total guess with this process, it seems), but maybe the 7.1% limit was chosen to partly help ensure that business for the LCBO's "Vintages-like" craft beer zones remains as strong as they're hoping and isn't undercut by enterprising grocers, like the one who decides to stock up on Belgians, or whatever. Because higher-alcohol beers are classier and should be kept under the watchful eye of a few LCBO employees.
I'm surprised they didn't just align with the federal government when picking a limit. Feds have a 8.5% ABV threshold between "Strong Beer" and "Extra Strong Beer"
Throw me a life line here. With all of the restrictions that have been reported, could a store (a mythical store that wanted to differentiate itself), stock tall boys, six packs, singles, of interesting beer from Ontario that wasn't available in the lcbo/TBS?
Also, if this were to happen, and it was a big success, would they need to pay 1% of the profits, to the TBS, via the LCBO, because they had made a lot of money selling beer that hadn't come from the usual channels.
nickw wrote:Total guess (but everything's a total guess with this process, it seems), but maybe the 7.1% limit was chosen to partly help ensure that business for the LCBO's "Vintages-like" craft beer zones remains as strong as they're hoping and isn't undercut by enterprising grocers, like the one who decides to stock up on Belgians, or whatever. Because higher-alcohol beers are classier and should be kept under the watchful eye of a few LCBO employees.
I'm surprised they didn't just align with the federal government when picking a limit. Feds have a 8.5% ABV threshold between "Strong Beer" and "Extra Strong Beer"
alsiem wrote:Throw me a life line here. With all of the restrictions that have been reported, could a store (a mythical store that wanted to differentiate itself), stock tall boys, six packs, singles, of interesting beer from Ontario that wasn't available in the lcbo/TBS?
Also, if this were to happen, and it was a big success, would they need to pay 1% of the profits, to the TBS, via the LCBO, because they had made a lot of money selling beer that hadn't come from the usual channels.
Well, I'm pretty sure they still need to bring beer in via the LCBO/TBS, so the odds are pretty overwhelming that you're just going to see subsets of the selections that the other places already carry. You *might* be able to work around that with an importers license, but that would only get you access to out of province beers.
Yes, if you sell over the cap exclusively in craft beer you're paying the 1% royalty to the owners of TBS for some reason.
alsiem wrote:Throw me a life line here. With all of the restrictions that have been reported, could a store (a mythical store that wanted to differentiate itself), stock tall boys, six packs, singles, of interesting beer from Ontario that wasn't available in the lcbo/TBS?
Also, if this were to happen, and it was a big success, would they need to pay 1% of the profits, to the TBS, via the LCBO, because they had made a lot of money selling beer that hadn't come from the usual channels.
Well, I'm pretty sure they still need to bring beer in via the LCBO/TBS, so the odds are pretty overwhelming that you're just going to see subsets of the selections that the other places already carry. You *might* be able to work around that with an importers license, but that would only get you access to out of province beers.
Yes, if you sell over the cap exclusively in craft beer you're paying the 1% royalty to the owners of TBS for some reason.
Hopefully this means the LCBO can expand SKU count though. They can now approve things without having to worry about LCBO shelf space only.
