The Beer Store: Exposed as the crooks that they are!

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:06 am

OK, it's not quite that dramatic, but there's an interesting pair of articles on The Beer Store in the Star today:

The real reason your beer costs more than it should

Cornering the beer market

Scary stat: 6 out of 10 people surveyed thought that the Beer Store was owned by the gov't/LCBO.

Derek · Post by **Derek** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:22 am

"I can't think of another government anywhere in the developed world that would lie down and give foreign-owned multinationals a retail monopoly."

Nice.

We really need to stop referring to reform as "privatization" though. It's not at all accurate and it certainly doesn't help our cause.

Magni · Post by **Magni** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:56 am

It's an interesting article, I enjoy that it provides that lovely 6/10 statistic.

The_Jester · Post by **The_Jester** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:02 am

Great article.
I can't wait to see their solution on Monday.

Bytowner · Post by **Bytowner** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:21 am

That really brightened up my Saturday morning, thanks Greg. I'd like to see a little more investigative work into why the Liberals are so in favour of Brewer's Retail and against OCB Retail.

Dana's e-mail
dflavel@thestar.ca

But as much as I loathe the Beer Store, at least they can make me laugh

As for profits, The Beer Store doesn't use that phrase. Newton says the stores operate on a "cost-recovery" basis, meaning the fees are supposed to cover its costs. When the fees exceed the costs, the store issues a rebate – but only to The Beer Store's owners. If costs exceed the fees, the owners make up the difference.

See everyone, the Coors and Inbev are doing us a favour!

EDIT: Also, e-mail sent to Dalton and my local MPP. Won't change much, but at least I have the satisfaction of letting them know we're not all sheep.

MattB · Post by **MattB** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:46 pm

Seeing that The Toronto Star is the "official" newspaper of the Liberal government, there might be something afoot ...

Also, the Speaker recently had a tasting and introduced official beers of the Legislature. There wasn't even one Molbatts piddle on the list, just OCB beers.

I'm crossing my fingers that changes are coming.

sstackho · Post by **sstackho** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:00 pm

Great articles.

Within one week, we get solid articles in two major papers that start to ask some questions about our retail set-up in this province.

How very strange. As MattB mentions, is there any chance of changes being afoot? I doubt it, but there's a glimmer of hope.

Hopefully these article continue and keep this issue in the public eye.

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:31 pm

sstackho wrote:Hopefully these article continue and keep this issue in the public eye.

I didn't see this when I posted the links this morning since I was reading online and it's only mentioned in the paper version, but these articles are part of a three-day series that will be running in the Star under the umbrella title "BAD BREW: A three-part series on Ontario's Monopolistic beer policies".

Tomorrow, the theme is "Small brewers struggle", and Monday, it's "A better way". Awesome!

bujubanton · Post by **bujubanton** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:38 pm

Looks like some editors at The Star were reading the National Post earlier in the week and decided to focus on The Beer Store.
Nothng wrong with that...the more information for the public (and different newspaper readers) the better.

I like how The Beer Store spokesman talks about "open access"...I guess it's open access to the big warehouse out back and only room for their preferred beers at the Ice Cold Express..front of the store.
By the way...anyone have any idea about the various fees charged by TBS?
I have heard that it's cheaper for craft brewers to go the LCBO route..which is why many of them do..
Would TBS take something like a Southern Tier or charge an arm and a leg?

bujubanton · Post by **bujubanton** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:40 pm

whoops..meant to write "equal access" instead of "open access"...
not sure TBS really has either though..

tuqueboy · Post by **tuqueboy** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:50 pm

bujubanton wrote:Looks like some editors at The Star were reading the National Post earlier in the week and decided to focus on The Beer Store.
Nothng wrong with that...the more information for the public (and different newspaper readers) the better.

I like how The Beer Store spokesman talks about "open access"...I guess it's open access to the big warehouse out back and only room for their preferred beers at the Ice Cold Express..front of the store.
By the way...anyone have any idea about the various fees charged by TBS?
I have heard that it's cheaper for craft brewers to go the LCBO route..which is why many of them do..
Would TBS take something like a Southern Tier or charge an arm and a leg?

Hey Buju.
You make some good points. But to respond to your first one, a feature series like the one Dana Flavelle has done would take a lot longer to put together than a week. This was most certainly not a copy-cat series or anything like that. Probably more like a coincidence. Editors like seasonally themed stories, and for many folks, summer is beer season. As far as the TBS and Southern Tier goes, they would accept it, but it would be prohibitively expensive for ST. TBS charges roughly $500 per store to list a product if you want to cherry-pick certain stores, or $50,000 for their whole system. In other words, too much money for all but the biggest brewers. The LCBO may have their flaws, but they don't charge a listing fee, per se. Theoretically, it's open access. It's just expensive. But there's no reason a smaller brewer couldn't cherry-pick 10 ``good'' beer store locations, pay $5,000 and get it listed. Whether they'd trust TBS to take care of their products well or not, who knows.
Cheers,
Tuqueboy
Josh Rubin, Toronto Star

JerCraigs · Post by **JerCraigs** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:07 pm

tuqueboy wrote:TBS charges roughly $500 per store to list a product if you want to cherry-pick certain stores, or $50,000 for their whole system. In other words, too much money for all but the biggest brewers. The LCBO may have their flaws, but they don't charge a listing fee, per se. Theoretically, it's open access. It's just expensive. But there's no reason a smaller brewer couldn't cherry-pick 10 ``good'' beer store locations, pay $5,000 and get it listed. Whether they'd trust TBS to take care of their products well or

I think thats basically what most of the smaller microbrewers do with TBS, I'm not sure how many have the whole system listing?

Belgian · Post by **Belgian** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:49 pm

"(Government) tolerates what is essentially a private monopoly."

I can only assume:
- they may like the tax yield even though they know it's sort of a wrong situation
- they may do the same for all fast & loose business activity that they may indirectly benefit from financially.
- they may fear losing the status quo by upsetting the flawed Beer Store situation
- they may be lazy in their ethics because... they can be?

Bears some speculation.

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:56 am

The series continues:

Small brewers struggle - The hidden story

Bytowner · Post by **Bytowner** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:02 am

The owners of The Beer Store say the new store format addresses the problem of how to cost-effectively handle the exploding number of new brands on the market. The chain, which can't refuse any qualified brewer access to its stores, now carries mores than 300 brands made by 75 different brewers.

Does this make sense? I'm "lucky" enough to have a self-serve store (I haven't actually stepped foot in for two years) and they certainly don't seem to have gone nuts with the interior decorating. Why would putting beer front of store be more expensive than keeping beer back of store?

Also, love the part where the spokesperson asks why craft brewers would even want a stake in Brewer's Retail. Again, this PR blowjob of "we've taken this horrible inconvenience on ourselves."