My dad used to tell me stories about buying alcohol when he was younger (older than 19 of course). He said you’d have to fill out a card indicating the bottle you’d like and wait as the clerk went into the back and brought it out to you. There was nothing on the shelves to entice you.
It’s hard to imagine this pharmacy-style approach to buying alcohol, but I guess it did the trick. There must not have been as much choice back then – no bacon flavoured vodka or lime and ginger gin, which I think you need to see the labels of to be sold on (actually that bacon vodka sounds delicious).
Anyways, will I be telling my kids the same story about the Beer Store? That I went to a place with my empty bottles and they went into the back and brought me a bunch of full ones? It was called…get this…The Beer Store. You ordered it at the counter, and they brought your case out on rollers for you after they took away all your empty bottles.
Could it be that we’re saying goodbye to this way of buying our beer? Will we have to start carrying our own cases of beer to the counter? Say it ain’t so!
Yup, ol’ Dollar-a-Beer Dougie might be putting the final nails into the coffins of our iconic brewskie depot. Not only are locations closing in Toronto, London, Sudbury, and Ottawa, but even closer to home here in Markdale, Sauble Beach, and Wiarton. Is it only a matter of time until the Beer Store brand goes the way of such iconic retail outlets as Mac’s Milk and Radio Shack?
To be honest, my relationship with the Beer Store has always been a little conflicted. Much more conflicted than my relationship with Mac’s Milk. I straight up loved that place: I got my banana popsicles, Hostess chips and Friday movie rentals all in one place, a short bike ride from home. Epic.
When I first learned The Beer Store was owned by multinational corporations a number of years ago, I was a little perturbed. I had always thought it was a sister to the LCBO, which is a crown corporation.
I incorrectly assumed that the money I spent at The Beer Store (too much mind you), went into the provincial coffers to be spent on infrastructure and social programs. They say that when you assume, it makes an ass out of u and me. I was most certainly an ass for a long time (still am according to some).
When I found out it was owned by foreign corporations, I voiced my discontent (with my actual voice but also with my dollars). I didn’t want my hard-earned Lauriers going to “a privately owned, joint-venture chain” as Wikipedia points out. See forty-nine percent of the company is owned by the Labatt arm of Anheuser-Busch, 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 (Thanks again Wikipedia). That’s a whole lot of money leaving Canada, I thought.
So, I began shopping more at the LCBO. It worked in my favour too as the LicBo was offering more local craft beer options that suited my taste. I was gravitating more to the Three Sheets and Black Bellows than the Labatt Wildcat and Crystal I used to drink in my younger days, although I do still love a cold Crystal any day of the week.
But after all my perturbedness (not a word) subsided, something soon struck me. If they’re a private company, why do they look after all the bottle returns? Even empties from the LCBO? I realized how important of a practice that was, both as a little personal financial boon and an environmentally-friendly model. Consider that a win for The Beer Store – I started to soften up to them again. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to spend a few dollars there.
It is also just very convenient to do your recycling and purchasing in one place. They even put out some nice carriages for you and wash them down every day. To be clear, the Beer Store in Ontario takes in 1.6 billion empties each year to be recycled. So far, it’s not clear to me that this system is going to be replaced to the same extent or ease. And if it ain’t easy, people won’t do it en masse. That’s the realist in me coming out. If you want something to work, it’s gotta be easy. The grocery stores will need to adopt the service, but I’m skeptical they’ll run it as well. It seems like a messy hassle that has little return on investment. Are we ready to say goodbye to it?
When you think of it, the Beer Store has a pretty slick system set up that I sure took for granted.
But this brings me to my most concerning point about Dougie’s new plan for booze. As I walk the grocery store aisles now in almost every locale, I see the beer and wine on full display, even given a dedicated aisle where food used to be (where did it go?), I put myself in the place of many Ontarians who suffer from addiction and are trying to get or stay sober. For those who would plan their day avoiding encounters with alcohol, they’re now faced with it every time they shop for food. That tall can of beer is just a reach away, a few steps from the toilet paper. That bottle of shiraz is staring you in the face as you pick up a jar of pickles. In some grocery stores, the section of booze is passed every time they come down an aisle. There’s no escaping it now, it seems.
So, when we’re all slapping ourselves on the back for bringing profits back to Ontario grocers and convenience stores instead of multi-national corporations, let’s at least recognize what we’ve lost. What the costs have been. Addiction and substance abuse is an issue that really needs to be addressed in this province. Dollar beers and easier access to alcohol, maybe not as much. And does Galen Weston really need more profit? Sure, he’s Canadian, but what Canadian actually wants to see more money line his pockets. Ugh.
I guess my relationship with The Beer Store is still just as complex as it ever was.
Some might say that things were better back in the day when you had to fill out a sheet of paper to order your booze, wait patiently, and pay in cash. But on the other hand, maybe real progress in this country is being able to buy booze when and where you want it. The ability to give a quick eye-contactless tap of your bank card at a gas station and be back outside, bottle-in-hand in 30 seconds flat.
If that’s progress, then I guess we oughta thank the sweet lord we’ve finally achieved utopia in this province. The kind we used to only dream about while we sat back in our affordable apartments staring out our windows wondering how things might look in the future when all the promises made by politicians finally came true. We’ve made it, folks. Real freedom.
Let’s tilt a cold one to that and say cheers to our success. I just don’t know where to put our bottles after.
Hey Loblaws – you taking empties yet?
Words and photos by Jesse Wilkinson
