British Columbians appear to be eager to pick up some beer with their bread and milk.
The B.C. government recently released preliminary results of a liquor policy review that showed 80 per cent of liquor review respondents citing access to alcohol in grocery stores as a top priority.
The public input on this issue has been one of the most responsive ever conducted in the province, with more than 76,000 visits to the website and 4,300 comments.
Grocery store sales are already permitted across the border and in Quebec, familiarizing many consumers with the convenience of one-stop shopping. That being said, a significant shift in government policy was made in 2009 when B.C. joined its Alberta neighbours and introduced private liquor stores into what had previously been the exclusive domain of the province.
With the introduction of these private liquor model, places like Salmon Arm have seen a huge increase in the number of locations to obtain liquor.
Does Salmon Arm really need additional places to buy booze? There are liquor outlets uptown, downtown, east, west and at every mall.
It’s doubtful that anyone would have to walk more than a few blocks from any retail business in town to purchase liquor.
It seems adding liquor departments to grocery stores will offer a minimal increase in convenience to the consumer and would simply result in a musical-chairs style relocation of the current liquor outlets.
And who really benefits from that?
