LCBO Monopoly - good article

[Belgian]

But no one needs liquor so they are competing with everyone else for my disposable income. And because of that they in order to make profits they need to convince people to spend their money on bottles of liquor, and not movies or video games, or dinner at restaurants or drinks at bars..

"Drink responsibly" - but drink more? Hmm.

It may be a bit much to imply people won't drink enough already without LCBO encouragement (advertising) - drinking is hard-wired in most people's minds as a particularly enjoyable thing to do anyways. It's a no-brainer to sell to it. At any rate it might be good if we could prove or disprove the necessity of advertising alcohol to a captive market.

In fact - using my favorite comparison of Buffalo - alcohol seems to advertise itself. There are these obvious Buffalo wine and liquor stores, people stop there, they spend money. There is an attractive beer display at Wegmans, people see that & put those products in their carts.

We don't need the Province to promote playing video games or buying potato chips - so then why alcohol? None of those things are 'necessities', nor are they worthy of special promotion as a business interest.

2¢

[Kel Varnsen]

We don't need the Province to promote playing video games or buying potato chips - so then why alcohol? None of those things are 'necessities', nor are they worthy of special promotion as a business interest.

2¢

I agree with you there, that we don't really need a government run liquor business. The government seems to have decided that they do. And if we are stuck, at least for now, going down that road, I would prefer it if the LCBO at least tries to maximizes their profits, and not just run the most bargain basement warehouse store they could possibly make. Because I still believe that a lot of alcohol purchases are impulse purchases and if you don't have a nice store that people want to walk into they are going to spend their impulse purchase money on something else. Sure they might still by their regular case of beer or bottle or wine or vodka. But without promotions and nice looking stores and all of that, how do you get people to people to buy the things they wouldn't normally buy?

Basically my feeling is I don't think there needs to be an LCBO. But if there has to be, better to run it like a real business then to do a half assed job of it.

[Bytowner]

It may be a bit much to imply people won't drink enough already without LCBO encouragement (advertising) - drinking is hard-wired in most people's minds as a particularly enjoyable thing to do anyways. It's a no-brainer to sell to it. At any rate it might be good if we could prove or disprove the necessity of advertising alcohol to a captive market.

Belgian you know perfectly well that these promotions exist (including air miles) to increase sales of specific products that may be more profitable or have other important implications (say Ontario products). It's silly to suggest that advertising has no implication on how much, or what, people drink. I don't think there's much to be 'proved' with regards to the benefits of advertising.

You can argue all you want about social responsibility, but I think that's a bit disingenuous coming from this crowd.

[JerCraigs]

To me this argument is still problematic. Why aren't public assets allowed to provide quality service? The numbers would seem to suggest that we're getting pretty good value for our money. An ROI of, what, 40%? An increase in profit of the same amount over the past 15 years or so?

Yea I don't really get the too nice comments either. I mean yes the LCBO has a monopoly on liquor sales in the province so I can kind of see how people would think they shouldn't need to advertise or do promotions or have nice stores. But the thing is that liquor isn't a necessity for anyone. .... But no one needs liquor so they are competing with everyone else for my disposable income. And because of that they in order to make profits they need to convince people to spend their money on bottles of liquor, and not movies or video games, or dinner at restaurants or drinks at bars.

The central purpose of the LCBO is not to generate profits. Their job is to CONTROL liquor sales in the province of Ontario. It is not the Liquor Marketing Board of Ontario, nor should it be. The LCBO store system is a mechanism of control, rather than the end goal. Or at least its supposed to be.

I don't disagree with the idea that big shiny stores are enjoyable shopping experiences, and there should be a certain minimum quality of service expectation, but once that is met what is the rationale to go beyond that as a public entity?

There comes a point when the generation of actual profits (not "profits" that stem from taxation etc.) potentially conflicts with the ostensible goals and raison d'etre of the LCBO in the first place. The government of Ontario would probably make a ton of profit by "nationalizing" bottled water for example, but they don't because there is no social gain to regulating bottled water sales in this fashion. (Whether or not there is a social gain to regulating the alcohol market is another debate altogether.)

[Bytowner]

The central purpose of the LCBO is not to generate profits. Their job is to CONTROL liquor sales in the province of Ontario. It is not the Liquor Marketing Board of Ontario, nor should it be. The LCBO store system is a mechanism of control, rather than the end goal. Or at least its supposed to be.

I don't disagree with the idea that big shiny stores are enjoyable shopping experiences, and there should be a certain minimum quality of service expectation, but once that is met what is the rationale to go beyond that as a public entity?

There comes a point when the generation of actual profits (not "profits" that stem from taxation etc.) potentially conflicts with the ostensible goals and raison d'etre of the LCBO in the first place. The government of Ontario would probably make a ton of profit by "nationalizing" bottled water for example, but they don't because there is no social gain to regulating bottled water sales in this fashion. (Whether or not there is a social gain to regulating the alcohol market is another debate altogether.)

That's a wider issue. A debate over what the government should and shouldn't do goes far beyond the LCBO. I prefer to just take the ideology out of it and ask what works best. If I'm given the choice between the LCBO in its current incarnation and a sell off of all LCBO assets with the goal of a completely private system, I'll pick the former. I think changes need to be made, notably the creation of boutique stores like they have in BC, and an easier time for agents, but having Olde English in corner stores and cases of Canadian at Walmart just doesn't get me excited, and "freedom" and slightly cheaper beer isn't enough of a justification for me.

I don't think there's any doubt that the LCBO has gone beyond its original mission, but that's not particularly bothersome to me if that original mission was highly flawed.

[kwjd]

The central purpose of the LCBO is not to generate profits. Their job is to CONTROL liquor sales in the province of Ontario. It is not the Liquor Marketing Board of Ontario, nor should it be. The LCBO store system is a mechanism of control, rather than the end goal. Or at least its supposed to be.

I don't disagree with the idea that big shiny stores are enjoyable shopping experiences, and there should be a certain minimum quality of service expectation, but once that is met what is the rationale to go beyond that as a public entity?

There comes a point when the generation of actual profits (not "profits" that stem from taxation etc.) potentially conflicts with the ostensible goals and raison d'etre of the LCBO in the first place. The government of Ontario would probably make a ton of profit by "nationalizing" bottled water for example, but they don't because there is no social gain to regulating bottled water sales in this fashion. (Whether or not there is a social gain to regulating the alcohol market is another debate altogether.)

That's a wider issue. A debate over what the government should and shouldn't do goes far beyond the LCBO. I prefer to just take the ideology out of it and ask what works best. If I'm given the choice between the LCBO in its current incarnation and a sell off of all LCBO assets with the goal of a completely private system, I'll pick the former. I think changes need to be made, notably the creation of boutique stores like they have in BC, and an easier time for agents, but having Olde English in corner stores and cases of Canadian at Walmart just doesn't get me excited, and "freedom" and slightly cheaper beer isn't enough of a justification for me.

I don't think there's any doubt that the LCBO has gone beyond its original mission, but that's not particularly bothersome to me if that original mission was highly flawed.

You didn't take ideology out of it, you just don't share the same ideology. It is your ideology that forms your definition of "what works best". My definition of "what works best" is complete freedom among consenting adults to buy and sell alcohol like any other product in Ontario. Yours is different, which is fine, but don't pretend we don't both have some type of ideological reasoning behind this.

Why did you put "freedom" in quotes? Is not the ability to buy and sell products without restrictions an increase in freedom? You may not think this is a freedom people should have, but it still would be an increase in freedom to stop restricting people from doing this.

I do agree that just because the LCBO has gone beyond its original goals that it isn't justification for getting rid of it. However, I do not agree with its goals, past or present.

[Bytowner]

You didn't take ideology out of it, you just don't share the same ideology. It is your ideology that forms your definition of "what works best". My definition of "what works best" is complete freedom among consenting adults to buy and sell alcohol like any other product in Ontario. Yours is different, which is fine, but don't pretend we don't both have some type of ideological reasoning behind this.

Why did you put "freedom" in quotes? Is not the ability to buy and sell products without restrictions an increase in freedom? You may not think this is a freedom people should have, but it still would be an increase in freedom to stop restricting people from doing this.

I do agree that just because the LCBO has gone beyond its original goals that it isn't justification for getting rid of it. However, I do not agree with its goals, past or present.

Okay fine, ideology is always part of any policy argument, but I think there's something to be said for objective analysis of any situation over an argument that always comes down to "I don't like public servants selling alcohol". In and of itself the government selling alcohol is a pretty neutral proposition, in theory there's no reason that it can't do as fine a job as a private citizen. The reason I suggest that the debate has become overly ideological is the inconsistency in the arguments made. The argument we're most often exposed to is that the LCBO should be done away with because it doesn't do as good a job as the private sector would. Yet here the argument is turned on its head and the same people, I'll generalize here, make the argument that the LCBO is doing too good a job for a government agency. We're coming at it from two positions, your ideology prevents you from ever accepting the LCBO as a government asset, no matter the evidence. I, on the otherhand, like to consider these things on a case by case basis, neither private nor public are always right nor wrong in my book, they just are. So yeah, when the only outcome that matters to you is absolute freedom of government interference, I'll consider that more ideological than decisions based on a balancing of many different outcomes.

If you're going to have an ideological battle over it, fine do that, but in this specific case we're talking about evidence put forward of the alleged nastiness of the LCBO that doesn't seem to hold much water if you approach it with an open-mind.

As for "freedom", I think there are different degrees of importance for freedom, and I think some people tend to lump all freedoms together, so that the freedom of religion becomes just as important as the freedom to buy beer wherever you want. I'm just not a fan of blowing up a relatively small issue, where we buy alcohol, to something it isn't.

[shintriad]

Bytowner: There just happens to be both ideological and practical reasons why the LCBO has no right to exist, and they coincide neatly and predictably. They're inextricably linked and neither argument can be ignored.

Ideological: The government is not, by definition, designed to be in the business of selling booze. We don't allow the government to hold a monopoly on firearm or tobacco sales, either. There's also the argument that monopolies are inherently wrong, which is why we have laws against them.

Practical: The government is not doing "too good a job." They are running a business that cannot possibly fail, and they are spending exorbitant amounts on marketing and interior design precisely to impress naïve rubes who would otherwise be howling for privatization. Yet, according to their own shelved $600,000 study, we would receiving significantly more tax revenue per year if we were to privatize. Like many other government operations, the LCBO proves to be wasteful and inefficient.

[Belgian]

You could have warned us that there is a whole page missing. Just read the first 2 pages, go to page 3 and the follow on doesn't make sense. Seems Page 3 (or 22 of the magazine) is missing.

You aren't missing it. Apparently the omitted page 22 was just an ad page, so the disconnected sentence must be a copy error in the printed edition.

[Belgian]

... Because I still believe that a lot of alcohol purchases are impulse purchases and if you don't have a nice store that people want to walk into they are going to spend their impulse purchase money on something else. ...

Fair opinion Kel, let us agree to disagree.

Alcohol is THE ritualized social drug in our society. We'll buy it. ( << the short version of my opinion.)

I think our governments must be well aware that alcohol is, like the state lottery, a no-fail cash cow they can ride to the bank any day. Lipstick or no. Same cow.