Looking for the original Bar Towel blog? You can find it at www.thebartowel.com.
We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
GregClow wrote:I think the idea of selling craft beer in corner stores is ridiculous.
However, the idea of not selling craft beer in specialty stores that only sell beer is even more ridiculous.
I remember a glass cooler in a Manhattan "corner store" that had perhaps hundreds of beers including 750ml Unibroue ones.
There can be more sophistcated food AND beverage stores & obviously Trader Joe's and Wholesome Foods are those types of stores Stateside. But this glass cooler in Manhattan was just a mom-and-pop store who saw some walk-in potential, and people were amazed and trying new beers.
But Neustadt Lager in Mac's Milk or the extremely tacky low-rent stores, of course not, anyone can see that.
From my house in Kingston I can drive 30 minutes to either Bath or Verona Ontario and go to s grocery store and buy beer. They are LCBO/Beer Store agency stores. No signs of the end times there. Then I can drive 45 minutes to Alex Bay NY and buy beer in corner stores. My soul appears to still be in my body when I return. Two hours to the northeast I can go to a depanneur in Hull and buy beer. Limbs all intact when I return.
This is a non-issue that is only in place due to all the vested interests in the current system. People raise the unions but it is the brewers, the government and the LCBO/Beer Store management that also benefit from the nuttiness we live under. There is nothing special in relation to Ontario except that the booty other's gain from the closed booze economy is too good unless we accept over regulation as a facet of the culture.
Al of Kingston wrote: People raise the unions but it is the brewers, the government and the LCBO/Beer Store management that also benefit from the nuttiness we live under. There is nothing special in relation to Ontario except that the booty other's gain from the closed booze economy is too good unless we accept over regulation as a facet of the culture.
And I am a socialist...
The Unions that have infected the LCBO, industrial brewing and TBS also benefit from the protectionist kleptocracy.....public sector unions are one main reason Dolton is too squeemish to privatize the LCBO or even release small portions of their market to private hands...union threatens to strike when this is discussed....the LCBO retail monopoly is a make work project for public sector workers....too many people involved in a culture of protectionism and entitlement...free market ideals scare the hell out of them.
As for putting political brand names on things.....I came to realize partisan dogmatism is more civilly destructive than utopian political ideals, There are only 2 things we need to thrive as a culture/nation/individuals....a free civil society and a true free market...so far as I can see, all political brands in this jurisdiction want to put deep restrictions on both.
BTW Gary: glad you got the text book definition of a kleptocracy and you are alert enough to see we have a benign one here ( which confiscates the majority of private sector productivity)...here's another syllogism for political/civil dysfunction to look up: "dystonian"...look that up and tell me it doesn't describe the results of government micro management of a morally stigmatized consumer commodity.
Blaming it all on one faction in the clique of interests may keep you warm at night but will guarantee nothing changes. The corporation that is the LCBO needs breaking up like Ontario Hydro.
Wow. Great thread, guys. And congrats on being quoted, Cass.
Just to follow-up & clarify my original post a bit: what I really meant to say was that focussing on corner stores as the only alternative to the LCBO and Beer Store is a ridiculous idea. Perhaps I took the quotes of Tory's statements too literally, but that seemed to be what he was suggesting.
While I agree that I may have been a bit harsh and pessimistic in my statement that most people wouldn't buy craft beer in corner stores if they're macro drinkers, I still think that it would be a hard sell to convince many corner store owners to carry craft beers, especially if they also had the option to carry macros. In some neighbourhoods, it would fly. In others, not so much. This is proven in places like Quebec, where there are a handful of depanneurs with a very good selection, but most of them stick with the big sellers.
Now, if the scope were increased to include grocery stores, that might make more sense. Especially if more "upscale" places like Whole Foods got in on the action. If you've been to a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or a similar store in any US state that allows beer sales in grocery stores, you'll know that the selection is usually fantastic. I think the same thing could happen here.
And if they were allow the opening of specialty stores that could carry beer (and wine, and even spirits) that the LCBO & Beer Store aren't interested in, even better.
All that being said, I'm enough of a realist to know that this is pretty much a non-issue that will be forgotten by most voters in a couple of days, if it hasn't been already, and that the system is unlikely to change any time soon - unless we can actually get organised enough to make some noise and convince our MPPs to take the idea of opening up the market a bit more seriously. The question is: does anyone have the time and money to go up against the LCBO unions, MADD, and other organisations that would fight against any changes tooth and nail?
Cass wrote:Certainly Tory's looks like nothing good for beer fans.
Anyone heard anything?
Wow, how disturbingly liberal.
Huh?
The quote above is from Cass' first post in the thread, which refers to a Liberal press release that quotes several past statements from Tory where he essentially says that the current system is just fine and he doesn't see any need to change it.
How is it "disturbingly liberal" to say that such statements are "nothing good for beer fans"? "Completely accurate" might be a better description.
And speaking of those old quotes - they are from April of this year, and Tory comes out as pretty clearly against the idea of making alcohol available in corner stores. Now, all of a sudden, he's all for it?
This is why I'm convinced that nothing will be changing any time soon...
I guess I'll take this one opportunity to "get political" on a board that usually doesn't warrant it.
It's clear that none of the major parties are interested in reforming our system, but I would hazard a guess that some of the minor parties (such as the Greens or Libertarians) would...even if they haven't explicitly said so, I have a feeling they could be persuaded to consider it, if someone were to bother asking them.
Voting for a minor party, as most people know, is a throwaway vote. But we have a referendum coming up in the next election, in which we could decide to scrap our old system and bring in a mixed-member proportional (MMP) scheme. It would result in elections where the results are much closer to what the people have actually chosen.
I'm a big proponent of MMP, but for those of you who aren't familiar with the upcoming referendum, I suggest you read up on it...and make sure to vote this October 10.
Al of Kingston wrote:The corporation that is the LCBO needs breaking up like Ontario Hydro.
An archaic by-product of post-prohibiition policy, the LCBO now exists only by deceptions, fallacies, gainstaying of position and a whole BUCKET of "red herrings" meant to alarm us so we cling to its absurd parody of retail.
Again, eliminating the LCBO (& with it sadly a lot of nice people's jobs*) will have some 'bad' secondary consequences, but not all bad [let's be real here!] and at least the situation will have a clean, honest taste of hard-working capitalism. [*The most competent, knowledgable LC staff will find private-sector work & also get to express a greater passion in their calling.]
I believe getting rid of certain provincial-level inefficiencies would lead to a much stronger, more independent Ontario - and given where the US is headed, the more independent and less wasteful we can be, the better our collective future.
shintriad wrote:
I'm a big proponent of MMP, but for those of you who aren't familiar with the upcoming referendum, I suggest you read up on it...and make sure to vote this October 10.
I am in favour of it as well, and most of the people I have talked to don't fully understand what is involved so I second your recommendation to everyone to get educated on the issue.
Nothing new to most of us, but it's nice to see more exposure of the horribly flawed and backward-thinking Beer Store system. I especially like this quote from a BS (heh!) spokesperson about their rejection of building any more self-serve stores:
...the self-serve stores that Mr. Berchtold [President of Brick] champions were a jumble of 250 brands in various sizes and configurations; the whole store had to be chilled to keep the beer cold, and customers "didn't like being refrigerated themselves as part of the process."
So a "jumble" of 250 brands that the customer can actually pick up and look at is worse than a big wall of labels? And apparently, no-one has explained the concept of glass-doored fridges to the Beer Store...
Al of Kingston wrote:Blaming it all on one faction in the clique of interests may keep you warm at night but will guarantee nothing changes. The corporation that is the LCBO needs breaking up like Ontario Hydro.
zat so? I thought I spread the blame fairly wide.
As for keeping warm at night, partisan politics and special interest hang ups are the last thing welcome in a warm bed.
We see politicians so conditioned to state market control systems that the concept of private licenees for retail with freedom to market product from any source they chose is foreign to them.
Although some of the noises Tory makes are encouraging...at least he realizes that the 3 largest industrial brewers in his Jurisdiction are foreign owned...the REAL Canadian brewer is the local craft industry...which is starved for distribution by a foreign owned disti monopoly.....at least this is clear to him.
It seems he may be approachable....hope the OCBA can talk to him about serious alternatives to TBS.
Al of Kingston wrote:Blaming it all on one faction in the clique of interests may keep you warm at night but will guarantee nothing changes. The corporation that is the LCBO needs breaking up like Ontario Hydro.
GregClow wrote:
So a "jumble" of 250 brands that the customer can actually pick up and look at is worse than a big wall of labels? And apparently, no-one has explained the concept of glass-doored fridges to the Beer Store...
Well, they have. But apparently those fridges are only good enough for the top-selling macros.
shintriad wrote:I guess I'll take this one opportunity to "get political" on a board that usually doesn't warrant it.
It's clear that none of the major parties are interested in reforming our system, but I would hazard a guess that some of the minor parties (such as the Greens or Libertarians) would...even if they haven't explicitly said so, I have a feeling they could be persuaded to consider it, if someone were to bother asking them.
Voting for a minor party, as most people know, is a throwaway vote. But we have a referendum coming up in the next election, in which we could decide to scrap our old system and bring in a mixed-member proportional (MMP) scheme. It would result in elections where the results are much closer to what the people have actually chosen.
I'm a big proponent of MMP, but for those of you who aren't familiar with the upcoming referendum, I suggest you read up on it...and make sure to vote this October 10.
Sure, MMP may be the only way for fringe parties to be represented, but honestly, what's that going to mean? One Green and one Family Coalition seat, and a bunch more of the Big Three? MMP also means more than 20 more politicians and all the extra costs that their support staff and office space would cost. And I have yet to hear how we could prevent the parties List Members from being populated with the chosen few and party hacks being rewarded with political patronage jobs.
