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Ontarians want booze at corner store: Poll
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| kotsy |
| quote: | Originally posted @ http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/2...rner-store-poll
Ontarians want booze at corner store: Poll
The push for Ontario to loosen its liquor laws and allow local corner stores to sell booze has been brewing for more than 20 years.
And now armed with the results of a new Angus Reid poll that suggests two out of three Ontarians favour such a change, the Ontario Convenience Store Association is urging the provincial government to listen to the people.
“This is what the public wants,” OSCA president Dave Bryans said Wednesday. “It’s a no-brainer.”
He said the idea of allowing Ontarians to buy a six-pack, some premixed coolers or a bottle of wine at variety stores first surfaced in 1988.
But 23 years later, it’s still just an idea.
So the OCSA commissioned a poll which was conducted in February, asking 803 people over 19 if they supported private retailers selling beer and wine.
Overall, 60% of those polled said the laws should be changed. That number jumped to 67% among regular customers of the LCBO and Beer Store.
And in a regional breakdown the poll found that in eastern Ontario, where residents routinely jump across the border to buy alcohol from convenience stores in Quebec, a whopping 70% felt it’s time for a change.
On the streets of Toronto, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like the idea.
“I agree totally with that,” Ron Grant said, after stopping by The Beer Store in Cabbagetown.
It would be great to be able to buy some pints at the corner store this Monday, when The Beer Store and LCBO will be closed, he said.
Maurice Shadrack, who is visiting the city from Spain, said alcohol is already far more expensive in Ontario than it is in Europe and the least the government could do is make it more accessible.
“When you’re spending good money for something, why should you be told like a little child how and when you (can buy it)?”
Ontario’s current leader has no plans to loosen the liquor laws.
“That is not something we’re looking at,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said.
Bryans said if Premier Dad isn’t willing to listen to the people, then Ontarians need to vote in someone who will when they head to the polls this fall.
However, the Conservatives refuse to commit to such a change if Tim Hudak is elected in October.
“I would simply say to you our plan is to increase access and how that would
be accomplished obviously would become more apparent,” PC MPP Elizabeth Witmer said.
Bryans said if beer and wine were sold in variety stores it would not only be “convenient”, it would also be a major boon to small businesses.
And currently, much of the revenue from sales at The Beer Store leaves the province because the majority of the company is owned by businesses from Belgium, the U.S. and Japan.
Only 5% of those polled in the Angus Reid survey were aware The Beer Store is actually privately run by foreign multinational alcohol distributors.
Nearly half, or 48%, wrongly believe The Beer Store is publicly owned like the LCBO. And 29%, thought The Beer Store was run by large Canadian breweries.
The OCSA is urging people over 19 to visit freeourbeer.ca to register their support.
— With files by Jonathan Jenkins |
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| Magnetonium |
Alcohol is a serious issue. And especially when it comes to distribution, if you make it easily accessible then it will result in problems. How are you going to monitor it? I definitely would not want it become like in Russia, where until very recently beer wasn't even considered to be an alcoholic beverage, where alcohol is easy to find at most corner stores, and there are TENS OF thousands of deaths related to alcohol every year.
Keep liquor high quality, well priced, and very controlled. Or we will see an increase in alcohol related violence and accidents/deaths. Let's not make a problem out of it!
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| Yohan |
how about we start treating people like adults?
does it really make a difference whether people drive to LCBO or Beer store to get alcohol than local convenience stores? |
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| I_Am_Vince |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yohan
how about we start treating people like adults?
does it really make a difference whether people drive to LCBO or Beer store to get alcohol than local convenience stores? |
+1
I also didn't know the Beer Store was owned by foreign businesses. That's crazy! |
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| I_Am_Vince |
| Forty-nine percent of the company is owned by the Labatt arm of Anheuser-Busch InBev of Belgium; forty-nine percent is owned by Molson Coors Brewing Company which has headquarters in both the United States and Canada; and the remaining two percent is owned by Sleeman Breweries, an arm of Sapporo of Japan. |
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| CMR |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
Alcohol is a serious issue. And especially when it comes to distribution, if you make it easily accessible then it will result in problems
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You're right - thats exactly what happened when Europe and the US and Quebec and even good ol' conservative Alberta eased restrictions on alcohol. Total anarchy! Everyone just drinks all the time and they all crash their cars and all the children are dying there thanks to the liquor!
Instead, we should take after Somalia and Afghanistan and just ban alcohol completely, it'll surely rid of us all the evils caused by booze. |
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| kotsy |
| quote: | Originally posted by CMR
You're right - thats exactly what happened when Europe and the US and Quebec and even good ol' conservative Alberta eased restrictions on alcohol. Total anarchy! Everyone just drinks all the time and they all crash their cars and all the children are dying there thanks to the liquor!
Instead, we should take after Somalia and Afghanistan and just ban alcohol completely, it'll surely rid of us all the evils caused by booze. |
:haha: |
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| kotsy |
| quote: | Originally posted @ http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/2...ne-a-few-tricks
LCBO could teach Capone a few tricks
TORONTO - If only Al Capone could have got some advice on how to run his bootlegging racket from the LCBO.
On a 750 ml bottle of rye, rum, gin, scotch or vodka the markup is obscene. A chart from distillers, secured by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, reveals a $25 bottle known as a 26er without all of the middlemen and taxation starts out costing the LCBO $5.52.
And that includes the distillers’ production, delivery costs and their profit, too.
Ontario’s alcohol markup numbers are so staggering no wonder the Ontario government will never give it up.
But how does it get to $25?
The first ding on that bottle is $3.51 for federal excise. Then the LCBO marks it up $12.72 and there is a 29-cent bottle levy and a nine-cent environmental levy. Now the price of a bottle is $22.12.
Next comes the 13% HST — $1.11 for the GST part, then another $1.77 for the PST.
It’s almost 400% more than its original cost.
Capone would blush in his grave. He never made those kind of numbers and he had more competition and risk, too.
“A crook is a crook, and there’s something healthy about his frankness in the matter,” the gangster once said. “But any guy who pretends he is enforcing the law and steals on his authority is a swell snake.”
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest from the attorney general in taking a look at this price fixing.
Meanwhile the publicly owned LCBO, the largest purchaser and retailer of alcohol in the world, is overloaded with freeloaders, many of whom with familiar names are connected to power players in government.
Just look at this year’s $100,000 a year sunshine list club and you will find 256 LCBO executives on it — topped off by president and CEO Bob Peter’s $431,402.58 to go with $16,263.46 in bonuses.
But even some of the cash or stock people at the stores are earning with benefits, night and Sunday premiums and overtime close to the same money as some cops and teachers.
This is a tough time for most in retail. Not for the LCBO. In the 2010/11 fiscal year the LCBO celebrated on the backs of its sucker and unfairly gouged customers a record profit with revenues of $4.55 billion which after taking out its fat costs turned over $1.55 billion to the incompetent government led by orange-juice drinking Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Now these would be impressive performance numbers if it wasn’t a monopoly which punishes Ontario wineries in favour of foreign products where they can get higher yield.
It means these LCBO fatcats regularly travel and get literally wined and dined by the vineyard, spirit and beer companies and yet in communist style won’t stock popular Ontario and Newfoundland product Crystal Head vodka because it’s in a skull bottle.
“These guys do all right everywhere, I can guarantee you,” said one Toronto LCBO store manager who said most stores brings in profit margins of 40 cents on every dollar.
“The government’s taxation is drinking us under the table,” said Canadian Taxpayers Federation national research director Derek Fildebrandt. “It’s nothing but a heist.”
CTF federal and Ontario director Gregory Thomas pointed out that “Ontario drinkers pay a lot more for liquor than New Yorkers” and what he’d like is transparency where “all the taxes are itemized on every receipt, including the markup charged by the LCBO.”
Capone at least eventually did some prison time. So what is going to be done about this?
Nothing. If McGuinty wins the fall election it will remain as is and it likely will if Tory Leader Tim Hudak becomes premier. He had plenty of opportunity to comment on a poll that shows Ontarians want beer and wine in corner stores but stayed away from it.
Hudak should win the election because of how rotten a premier we have in McGuinty but afraid of making a John Tory mess-up is playing it safe.
Whether it be through privatization or allowing more competition, what he should be saying is he would give back the excess hundred of millions stolen from LCBO consumers.
Even Capone didn’t ding his customers this abusively. |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| I say just ban the sale of alcohol altogether |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by CMR
You're right - thats exactly what happened when Europe and the US and Quebec and even good ol' conservative Alberta eased restrictions on alcohol. Total anarchy! Everyone just drinks all the time and they all crash their cars and all the children are dying there thanks to the liquor!
Instead, we should take after Somalia and Afghanistan and just ban alcohol completely, it'll surely rid of us all the evils caused by booze. |
:wtf:
You think you're a funny guy, eh? I lost friends and a relative to alcohol, so at least for me this issue is not a joke.
You see, when you make alcohol consumption "fashionable" and "easily accessible", then you WILL have problems! In Somalia and Aghanistan, they kill each other with guns, in places like Russia they kill each other with vodka. I lived there, I can tell you that first-hand.
Alcohol consumption should be discouraged, not otherwise. Usually its the dumb people that end up hurting other people. And themselves. And there's never a shortage of dumb people out there, so regulation of such things as alcohol is important.
Or else it will not be long before someone you know working a shift at Sobeys or another convenient store will be able to buy some vodka while on his break. And then drive home. Many people just wouldn't be able to pass up alcohol when shopping for groceries at the same time! You see one, you want one. Doesn't that seem to be wrong to anyone? How about instead just keeping it separate and buying one when you need it, for a party or whatever, from a specific licensed store?
First totally random article. I can actually find more precise stuff if you want me to. Remember, it was only until last week that beer wasn't even considered to be alcoholic beverage in places like Russia. At least in Canada alcohol is not that easy to get ...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle1647475.ece
| quote: |
Russians have gone on an alcohol binge remarkable even by their own formidable standards, according to the country’s chief public health officer.
The average Russian consumes almost three times as much alcohol as he did 16 years ago. A report by Gennadi Onishenko, head of the consumer protection agency, found that Russians drink 15 litres (26 pints) of pure alcohol per year, or half a pint a week, compared with 5.4 litres in 1990. That far exceeds the estimate of 9.7 litres made in 2005. The study calculated that at least 2.3 million people in Russia were alcoholics, and blamed rising mortality rates, particularly among men, on drink.
It voiced alarm that more children were becoming dependent on alcohol, noting that the age at which juveniles started to drink had slipped from 16 to as low as 13. “The ever-higher consumption of alcohol by adolescents and women is especially worrying,” Mr Onishenko said.
While Russians’ love for vodka is undiminished, beer consumption has risen sharply, encouraged by advertisements portraying it as fashionable, the study notes. The popularity of beer among the young created further potential for “mass alcoholism”.Sales of beer and other lower alcohol drinks have tripled since 1998 and accounted for 75 per cent of the 12 billion litres of alcohol sold in Russia last year. Vodka represented 16 per cent of sales by volume, double the level for wines.
Deaths caused directly by alcohol poisoning fell but alcohol-related illnesses continued to account for one in eight of all deaths in Russia.
Alcohol dependence is seen as central to the country’s demographic crisis; the population is declining by 700,000 a year and male life expectancy has fallen to less than 59 years, compared with 72 for women. Russia also suffers significant economic damage because of alcohol abuse among workers.
Round of drinks
Annual alcohol consumption, litres per head
15: Russia
11.2: UK
9.8: Australia
8.4: US
7.6: Japan
1.5: Turkey
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| VDub |
I have ZERO issue with going to the LCBO or Beer Store...
It's the lazy people that want it in corner stores.. |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by VDub
I have ZERO issue with going to the LCBO or Beer Store...
It's the lazy people that want it in corner stores.. |
+1 |
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