Cohn: Never mind the LCBO — The Beer Store is an embarrassm

[The_Jester]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/poli ... arrassment

[Cass]

Yep. I just wish that it wasn't tied to someone like Hudak. TBS should be killed for the good of consumers in Ontario, regardless of who the government is.

[midlife crisis]

Excellent article. While we can disagree reasonably on the LCBO (I think I would tend to keep it, though I go back and forth on this), can anyone make a cogent argument for The Beer Store? How does it even continue to exist? Is it pure lobbying and political donations? The facile "recycling" argument?

[MatttthewGeorge]

The government cannot "kill" TBS, as it is a private business and they cannot simply stop its operations. TBS would still exist but would have competition with convenience/grocery stores, which is the way it should be, IMO.

[JeffPorter]

I'm glad that TBS is carrying Muskoka's Honey Lager again.

[midlife crisis]

The government cannot "kill" TBS, as it is a private business and they cannot simply stop its operations. TBS would still exist but would have competition with convenience/grocery stores, which is the way it should be, IMO.

Yes, that's what I meant, obviously. They can repeal the legislative framework that provides it with a beer-selling monopoly (duopoly, I know) in Ontario. If they did that, I doubt it's continued existence would be economically viable.

[sprague11]

Like a friend who worked for Labatt's told me: The Beer Store is already splitting the pie with Them, Molson, and Sleeman. Why would they want to sell Sierra Nevada and cut into their own sales? He compared it to Domino's Pizza offering Pizza Hut and Pizza Nova without a trace of irony.

When I mentioned the corner store possibility, he figured that the parties involved in TBS would heavily lobby for distribution rights to private owned stores. That is more my worry if this thing gets opened up to private retailers - The big 3 monopolizing the distribution.

I think the ideal situation (for me at least) would be to keep the LCBO and their seasonal programs, and have some private retailers set up relationships with independant distributors so they could bring in Stone, DFH, etc. Oh, and keep the Beer Store as well - I like being able to exchange my empties for 6 packs of La Fin du Monde.

[Derek]

It really is a monopoly as they control pricing (along with the government). And why can't the LCBO ring through 2x12 with the 24 discount? And why can you buy macro-swill across the boarder, pay all the duty, and still come out WAY ahead than a TBS purchase? Are you paying for the TBS atmosphere?

Open up to other retailers... Build a new LCBO warehouse(s) and use that as the distribution centre... government maintains control for taxation purposes, you get the economy of scale, and there's no middle-man/3-tier distribution.

The private distributor in Alberta is making a killing. It's just another monopoly. I wouldn't want to see TBS or anyone have that monoply either.

Costco took down Washington liquor. Costco has their own distribution system... but prices elsewhere have really increased.

Be careful what you wish for!

[mintjellie]

The government cannot "kill" TBS, as it is a private business and they cannot simply stop its operations. TBS would still exist but would have competition with convenience/grocery stores, which is the way it should be, IMO.

The government couldn't force the Brewers Retail to sell locations off in order to break up their monopoly?

[Kel Varnsen]

Are you paying for the TBS atmosphere?

Speaking of atmosphere, the beer store is totally set up so that it's customers spend as little time in there as possible They do the returns at the front of the store, so the stores always smell like the stale beer from those plastic containers. Plus even the open environment stores, most product is just on the floor, and the aisles are super narrow, so browsing is difficult. Hell last time I took empties back the store had maybe 3 people doing returns, but the way the returns were set up the line up was totally blocking the entrance to the store. Of course setting the store up so you want to spend as little time in it as possible is a total benefit to 1) the people who own the store, since they can put there products in the prime impulse buy location and 2) the people who spend the most on advertising since they want you to make your mind up on what to buy before you even walk in. Coincidentally the people who spend the most money on advertising are the owners of the beer store.

[ercousin]

I sent a tweet to each of the provincial liberal leadership candidates asking their opinion. It would be great if someone other than Hudak was open to change....

[Cass]

The government cannot "kill" TBS, as it is a private business and they cannot simply stop its operations. TBS would still exist but would have competition with convenience/grocery stores, which is the way it should be, IMO.

Sorry, bad choice of words. For all I care the gov can keep TBS and LCBO running as is. Just let others open new beer stores. Not Beer Stores

[mintjellie]

Open up to other retailers... Build a new LCBO warehouse(s) and use that as the distribution centre... government maintains control for taxation purposes, you get the economy of scale, and there's no middle-man/3-tier distribution.

I don't see how that isn't a three tier system. It's a three tier system with the LCBO as the monopoly distributor.

[The_Jester]

I sent a tweet to each of the provincial liberal leadership candidates asking their opinion. It would be great if someone other than Hudak was open to change....

I'd love to know what you hear back from any of them. I spoke to Gerard Kennedy about this years ago at a conference I was attending, and while he was non-committal, he seemed open to the idea.

[Derek]

I don't see how that isn't a three tier system. It's a three tier system with the LCBO as the monopoly distributor.

True. Adding the middleman/distributor would make it a 4-tier system! (unless they cut out the LCBO and changed the processes for testing and taxation).