The Bar Towel

$ wrote:I notice on the bill they charged bottle deposit. So I'm safe to take these empties to the beer store and they won't tell me they don't take American bottles?

You can definitely take them back for the deposit - just point out the little white sticker if the beer store guys give you crap.

Bobsy wrote: You can definitely take them back for the deposit - just point out the little white sticker if the beer store guys give you crap.

There's actually no sticker on these guys..., doesn't matter, I always sneak in a bottle or two of my non-Ontario bottles. I'm taking the system down 10 cents at a time!!!

$ wrote:

Bobsy wrote: You can definitely take them back for the deposit - just point out the little white sticker if the beer store guys give you crap.

There's actually no sticker on these guys..., doesn't matter, I always sneak in a bottle or two of my non-Ontario bottles. I'm taking the system down 10 cents at a time!!!

You're right - I got home and checked the bottles and no sticker. They should still take them though.

At my local BS I have never had problems returning any/all of my LCBO and private order bottles. They've even taken bottles I've bought out of province or in the U.S. So it's really a case of finding the right store or right employee who either doesn't give a rats ass or who realizes there are a lot of beers being sold through the LCBO and it's better to just take what comes in than nitpick.

Finding a BS employee who does not act like the fate of the world depends on bottle returns is hard.

Every time I bring in a pile of ST IPA empties I am told I can not return American bottles. I have managed to fight with them and get the deposit back, but it is exhausting/annoying to be fighting for a few cents.

I don't even try sneaking in a few road trip bottles. I just throw them in the recycling.

Go to a busier TBS location. Try one that's next door to an LCBO.

The traffic in my local TBS has more than doubled since they started taking the LCBOs botle returns. Most times I'm in there there are many more people waiting in line to return empties than to buy beer. The guys who work there have enough trouble keeping up with the volume - they never bother to look what's being brought in other than to count the bottles, and they don't even do that if you tell them how many you've got.

I've taken in all kinds of bottles (bought at TBS, the LCBO, out of province, etc.) and never had a second glance.

Actually, once, they convinced me to try the automated bottle return thingy. I figured I'd be able to just dump a bunch of bottles in and it'd count them up. No - you need to scan the barcode on each bottle, then it searches a database to see if it's in the system, then it gives you a slip of paper that can be redeemed in store. It didn't work very well - the database didn't find half of the bottles I put in, even the ones I'd paid a deposit on. Lots of bottles didn't have barcodes, etc. The guy was very nice about it though - took me back to the counter and gave me my deposit on all the "illicit" bottles.

-Josh

$ wrote:I notice on the bill they charged bottle deposit. So I'm safe to take these empties to the beer store and they won't tell me they don't take American bottles?

I'm enjoying the Gemini and Uber Sun I ordered. Thanks!

You can certainly return your empties to the Beer Store. We do it quite often, with all kinds of strange bottles and labels. Nothing has ever been refused, although here and there a bottle or two received a careful examination like it was suspected of being a container for some dangerous and harmful liquid. Anyhow, it is a great feeling to be able to return these empties to the BS and not just from an environmental viewpoint. It feels good to know that somewhere at the Beer Store a lone bottle of Mikkeller Jackie Brown or De Struise Pannepot sits along all that other... beer. An empty one, but this is just the beginning.

Roland + Russell wrote:

$ wrote:I notice on the bill they charged bottle deposit. So I'm safe to take these empties to the beer store and they won't tell me they don't take American bottles?

I'm enjoying the Gemini and Uber Sun I ordered. Thanks!

You can certainly return your empties to the Beer Store. We do it quite often, with all kinds of strange bottles and labels. Nothing has ever been refused, although here and there a bottle or two received a careful examination like it was suspected of being a container for some dangerous and harmful liquid. Anyhow, it is a great feeling to be able to return these empties to the BS and not just from an environmental viewpoint. It feels good to know that somewhere at the Beer Store a lone bottle of Mikkeller Jackie Brown or De Struise Pannepot sits along all that other... beer. An empty one, but this is just the beginning.

Strangely enough, the only bottle i have ever had refused was an Un*earthly bottle from the last case i bought from R+R in amongst a number of other ST Bottles purchased in the states, for some reason the dilligent Beer Store Employee felt that the Un*earthly bottle was not purchased in Canada while all the others they paid out on were...so i just rolled with it and figured for one bottle, i was more than ahead.

My logic is, i paid a bottle deposit somewhere, and just because that somewhere may not be here where my money is going to support a flawed system of government and anti-competitive corporate monopolies, doesn't mean i shouldn't take their money in exchange for my bottles.

Since they started deposits on everything at the LCBO, then returning them to the Beer Store (I won't ever start on how dumb that is, but anyway), what has been happening, and my local TBS anyway, is people are trying to bring all kinds of things back, especially high end vinigar and olive oil bottles, which look like wine bottles, but of course never had a deposit paid on them. So to decide if the bottle has deposit paid on it, TBS employees check the lable for the abv statement. And I've noticed that US microbrews, with home market lables, rarely show the abv, and as such, that is likely why they wouldn't take the Gemini bottle.

I suppose we could print out fake LCBO stickers to get 20 cents on all sorts of bottles...or any fake label really.