LCBO employees bring out the rhetoric

[Mississauga Matt]

... at http://www.ourlcbo.com/. TV commercials too.

Seems to me that the phrase "our LCBO" really means their LCBO ...

[rabbit]

If you visit the propaganda site, there's a poll of privatization. The NO's are winning by a huge margin...I don't suppose for a second that LCBO employees are doing most of the voting. At the very least, all bartowellers should visit the site and register their YES votes!

[joey_capps]

Let's be careful before we jump on this privatization bandwagon. While I agree that beer and liquor sales should be out of the hands of the government--not a common view given my generally socialist convictions--I don't want to see another non-government run monopoly à la The Beer Store. Let's not fool ourselves, the libs will not simply open up the marketplace; they will sell the monopoly. This is not about ideology or political philosophy; this is about balancing the books. Only selling the LCBO lock, stock, and barrel would maximize the monies going into the provincial coffers.

Joe

[esprit]

Although I have mixed emotions abou t the soll-off of the LCBO. stongly disagree with your contention that selling it lock, stock and barrel will maximize return. Alberta sold off their stores one at a time and wouldn 't let anyone buy a lot of stores. By doing so they maximized return. People in smaller towns with one liquor store thought they'd made an incredible investment...boy, were they wrong. Once all the stores were sold, lo and behold, the government decided that 200 stores in the province weren't enough and that another great money maker would be to license more stores. Before you know it, Alberta has 600 stores (as many as in Ontario) and the guy in the small town who had a monopoly now has 3 competitors.
The bottom line is, Ontario could make a lot more money by selling the LCBO piecemeal, licensing many more new stores and sitting back anc counting the money as the Alberta goverment does. The bottom line to the consumer would be a dramatically expanded selection of product, although you'd have to travel to specialty stores in major centres to get them, increased prices, and significatly poorer selection of products at most stores....but the government would be raking in the cash.
Finally, an employee of a liquor store would no longer be paid a brain surgeon's salary but rather something comparable to what a Loblaw's employee is paid....and irghtfully so! It's no wonder their union is spending a fortune on commercials and websites....they've got this goose laying golden eggs for them and they're terrified of losing it.

[joey_capps]

Selling the LCBO piecemeal and licensing new stores makes sense, and ultimately might maximize return; however, I can't see it happening now. The libs want a cash infusion. The can coast through their upcoming budget blaming the Tories for the mess (and I don't necessarily disagree), but a year from now they'll want the books to be as close to balanced as possible. Selling the LCBO piecemeal and licensing would spread that money over too many years. It might make sense, but it is not politically expediant, especially if consumers will see higher prices two, three years down the road running into the next election.

They need a big, big payoff. That's the only way they could sell the idea, especially considering that the LCBO adds $100 million to general revenue every year.

That being said, it won't happen. The libs don't have the stomach for hard decisions. Watch how quickly they'll back off the tax exemption for meals under $4.00.

Another consideration would be The Beer Store and how such a sale might affect them. I'm sure it was not not considered in the sale.

Proudly Partisan,

Joe

[JerCraigs]

I agree with what I think is Joe's core point, that the sale of the LCBO is and will always remain a political issue much more than economic, and definitely NOT about getting the best beer out.

In Toronto terms, I have long that that simply having a single gourmet beer (and wine/liquor?) store in downtown would do famously well. They could afford to stock a single case of something (and possibly charge an arm and a leg for it but hey).

[mustang3]

I have a few things to sy in defense of the LCBO, but first I have 2 things to say: I am constantly disappointed at the lack of selection of liquor stores and I work in one part time in the summer and over christmas. They seem to be cutting back on seasonal releases, witnes the spring one with already listed British beers, but the LCBO does have 1 thing going for it; price. I was down in Pittsburgh over easter weekend and 22oz Unibroue bottles were going for $11 american, compared to $5.75 here. As for LCBO employees I can't speak for all of them, but the temp wage is $10/hour and I think most of the people you deal with are around $18/hour. They also tend to have a much greater product knowledge than virtually any other set of retail employees I've ever dealt with. The problem is with the organization which puts virtually no emphasis on beer in its product knowledge courses. I'm too young to remember vintages selling beer, but I think the ideal solution and I'm not holding my breath, would be a return to Vintages releasing beers every month. We'd have all those beers we'd love to be able to buy at LCBO prices. The idea of having specialty beer sotres would also be extremely profitable, say one in Toronto and one in Ottawa.

[Wheatsheaf]

If it was just about the LCBO selling off their assets (real estate, warehouses, etc.) and creating a free market in wine/liquor/beer sales, we'd all be better off in the long-run. But I also agree that political considerations and big payoffs would be the driving factors behind any proposed privatization. Plus you have the added wrinkle of another party with a huge vested interest in the process, namely the Beer Store. Maybe we would end up, at the end of the privatization process, with a store like Whole Foods in Toronto saying "we want to be just like the store in Vienna, VA." But there are plenty of other scenarios in which we could actually end up worse-off (if the BS took over all beer sales, for example).

but the LCBO does have 1 thing going for it; price. I was down in Pittsburgh over easter weekend and 22oz Unibroue bottles were going for $11 american, compared to $5.75 here....I think the ideal solution and I'm not holding my breath, would be a return to Vintages releasing beers every month. We'd have all those beers we'd love to be able to buy at LCBO prices.

Pricing is one of the things that the Ontario market has going for, but I think it's better to look at prices here being very low than US prices being high. Domestic prices seem to be pretty comparable. The difference in price between, say, Mill St and McAuslan on one hand, and Brooklyn and Southern Tier on the other, isn't too big. Something like Unibroue should cost more in the States than it does here because it's an imported beer. But in Ontario that doesn't hold. The cost of a bottle of Storm King at the LCBO was about $0.60 less than in Buffalo (and that's not even counting duty). The low prices are nice, but they're not exactly rational.

If prices rose after privatization I assume that it would due to one factor: shipping costs. I imagine that the current situation is a bit of a double-edged sword: the LCBO ships in bulk, so costs are low, but timely delivery isn't always guaranteed (Cantillon, anyone?). If the LCBO ceased to provide this service the situation would reverse and the consumer would pay more. Maybe esprit would have more to say on this.

As for a return to Vintages-style releases, I wouldn't hold my breath either. The days of seeing stuff like Hair of the Dog on LCBO shelves are long gone, I think.

[Manul]

As far as prices go, a bottle of imported specialty beer usually goes for about twice the price in US. And prices in BC/Alberta are about 1.2-1.5 higher than Ontario at the moment.

[Mississauga Matt]

Did anyone catch the flip-flop the LCBO performed this week?

On Tuesday the National Post had a little blurb saying that the LCBO was dropping Newfie Screech. They quoted Chris Layton as saying its sales didn't justify its existence.

Then one day later, there's another blurb in the NP saying that the LCBO changed its mind. Seems that screeching Newfie Marilyn Churley (or Marilyn Churley-NDP, if you'd rather) threatened to bring up the subject in the legislature.

Talk about folding like a cheap suit.