Ontario Premier Doug Ford pours beer from the tap at Lake of Bays Brewing Company on May 19, 2018 in Baysville, Ont.Cole Burston/Canadian Press
The Ontario government is expected to announce it will make good on a five-year promise to allow beer sales in corner stores and end the province’s quasi-monopoly of beer store retail chains owned by major beer companies.
Premier Doug Ford’s government will announce plans late next week to expand the number of places where alcohol can be sold, including allowing beer sales in corner stores, government officials told The Globe and Mail. It is said that The Globe did not identify the source because it was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The province is also expected to formally announce its future intentions for the agreement with Beer Stores, known as the Master Framework Agreement, signed by the previous Liberal government in 2015. The agreement allowed for limited beer sales in 450 grocery stores. , but retained exclusive rights for beer stores to sell 12-packs and 24-packs of beer.
The new plan will allow independently owned beer stores to remain as involved in beer distribution as restaurants, bars, grocery stores and company-owned retail stores currently do, officials said.
The sources did not provide a timeline for when the changes would take effect. The change means the government-monopoly Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) stores, which also sell beer, will remain in place, the people said.
The unfulfilled promise to immediately allow beer sales in corner stores dates back to the first election of Premier Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party in 2018. The campaign also saw the populist PC leader promise “one beer at a time” and temporarily lower the minimum price for frothers. However, only a few beer companies offered beer at such deep discounts.
A major plan to further relax Ontario’s post-Prohibition-era rules on alcohol sales comes after a dispute erupted with a foreign-owned multinational beer company that operates more than 400 beer stores in the province. was abandoned early in his first term.
They have warned that breaking a 10-year agreement with the government to allow sales at corner stores could lead to lawsuits, and industry officials say breaching the deal could cost the state up to $1 billion. He said there is a possibility of compensation being paid. Mr. Ford backed away from a move to legislate away state liability for compacts and compact violations, and the issue went to the back of the beer fridge.
The Department of the Treasury, which also controls alcohol sales in the state, secretly began talks with the alcohol and convenience store industries earlier this year as states approached a year-end deadline to declare whether they intended to eliminate or renegotiate alcohol sales. It has restarted. The contract with Beer Store expires in 2025.
Dave Bryans, CEO of the Ontario Convenience Store Association, welcomed the announcement. He has been promoting beer sales for years as a way to revive the industry, which has suffered from declining tobacco use and lottery sales. He said the changes will be transformative.
“This is the biggest change convenience stores have seen since the invention of cigarettes,” Bryans said.
Bryans said he has no problem with beer stores retaining their distribution role. But he would like to see rules in place to give Ontario craft brewers more shelf space and allow them to ship product directly to local stores.
Ontario has eased rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing thousands of restaurants to sell alcohol to-go. American convenience chain 7-Eleven also received a license to sell alcohol in its stores in the state, allowing it to serve alcohol with food sold for in-store consumption.
Mr Ford said last month that the government remained committed to allowing the sale of beer in corner stores and that consultation with breweries would result in a system that would preserve the role of beer shops. said.
Neighboring Quebec and New York states, as well as other parts of the United States, have long allowed beer sales in corner stores. It can also be purchased at convenience stores in Newfoundland. In Ontario, some local convenience stores also sell beer and alcohol with a special license.
Critics of beer store monopolies often point out that their owners, once domestic beer companies, have long been controlled by foreign multinational corporations.
In recent years, many small Ontario-based breweries have been allowed to become shareholders in Beer Stores. However, Molson Coors Brewing, a major foreign company headquartered in Denver and Montreal, and Labatt, part of Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, still appoint a majority of directors to the company’s board.
