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Cracking open a cold one on a hot day is one of summer’s simple pleasures.
Before that frosty beer came out of your fridge or ice-packed cooler, it was bought at one of the province’s 106 liquor stores, 54 agency stores or four private stores.
But there is a movement brewing in this and other provinces to make beer, and wine, more widely available by allowing convenience and grocery stores to sell those libations.
The Atlantic Convenience Stores Association released a survey in New Brunswick in early July that suggested 68 per cent of adults support, or mostly support, the idea of allowing convenience stores there to sell alcohol.
Association president Mike Hammoud said there may be something similar done in Nova Scotia, where he said there are more than 1,100 convenience stores.
“It’s a no-brainer (for government),” said Hammoud. “No expense, but yet, you still make a large margin.”
Not enough of a no-brainer, though, for the then-Progressive Conservative government to make the move after declaring in 2000 that selling liquor was not a “core function of government.”
That government hired consultant PriceWaterhouseCoopers to model different options of privatization, from getting out of wholesale and retail altogether to the “Alberta model” of privatizing all aspects of retail liquor to the “Quebec model,” where beer and wine could be sold in convenience and grocery stores and spirits through government stores.
In modelling seven scenarios, including the status quo, the Quebec model ended up ranked sixth in terms of the estimated 10-year return to government, about 20 per cent less than the top-ranked (by a small margin) liquor corporation-plus-agency stores model that the government adopted.
Current Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie said it’s time to take another look at expanding the availability of beer and wine to corner stores. He and Hammoud see it as a job creator.
“It’s time to join the 21st century,” said Baillie.
Since 2000, other provinces and states have allowed beer and wine in grocery and corner stores, and seen government income increase with more people working and paying taxes, he said.
“They exist alongside of liquor corporation stores now who have the full range of products. That is a business model that creates jobs and makes Nova Scotia a more modern province.”
Baillie released a discussion paper on the issue in the spring. The caucus office reported that 63 per cent of the 64 email responses favoured updating laws around the sale of beer and wine.
A chronicleherald.ca online poll in January found 70 per cent of the 25,000 respondents said the province should allow the sale of alcohol in grocery stores and corner stores.
Baillie has also criticized the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. for allowing its expenses to double over a decade, ending in 2011-12, while the sales volume rose 11 per cent. The corporation responded that it had reinvented itself as a modern retailer, requiring investment in systems and people.
Joan Jessome represents about 1,000 unionized liquor store managers, clerks and warehouse and clerical workers. She’s skeptical of the expansion being a job creator, saying stores don’t need an extra clerk to handle a customer picking up a bottle of wine with their milk and cigarettes.
Jessome said unionized store clerks — paid $20.34 an hour — would face layoffs, while minimum wage workers with no pension or benefits would be in the corner stores. She said those current decent-paying jobs strengthen smaller communities like Guysborough, Oxford and others across the province.
“We want to keep it in the public hands and deliver it professionally, and with product knowledge and safely sold,” said Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union.
Hammoud said there’s training available for store owners on selling age-restricted items, and they have experience with tobacco and lottery products.
He also said a system for convenience stores would include criteria, such as having an age-verification program. He said retailers would be careful to follow the rules.
“If you’re a convenience store retailer, that’s your livelihood, right?” said Hammoud.
“Whether it’s 14, 16 or 18 hours a day. That’s what you do; that’s your job. So you’re not going to take the risk or the chance to lose your livelihood.”
In Ontario, Tim Hudak, that province’s Tory leader, announced in December that he’d open up liquor retailing to corner and grocery stores if he became premier.
The issue also got some media coverage in the early summer when the Toronto Star reported on results of a study by University of Waterloo economist Anindya Sen, which he did for the Ontario Convenience Store Association.
That analysis suggested blending government-run and private stores, like the system in British Columbia, would result in a five to nine per cent increase in liquor sales, while competition would drive down prices.
Think-tanks, which usually lean away from the political centre, have opposing views on private sales.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Saskatchewan released a study last fall that compared British Columbia’s public-private system with Alberta’s private one and the public model in Saskatchewan.
Of those products checked, it found prices overall were cheaper in the publicly owned stores. The study also found a decline in the tax revenue Alberta collected through liquor sales.
But the Fraser Institute said price comparisons between Alberta and its neighbours often don’t take into account the cheaper prices at big-box stores. The institute’s Mark Milke has also argued that those big-box stores keep prices competitive elsewhere, and that privatized retailing led to a big expansion of stores and products.
Back here, Finance Minister Maureen MacDonald has said the government doesn’t see any reason to move beer and wine into convenience stores.
And Health and Wellness Minister David Wilson said he thinks there are enough stores selling booze in the province now.
“Studies have shown that increased access to alcohol equals increased consumption, and there are better ways to boost our rural economy that won’t hurt our communities and our kids,” Wilson said.
Local brewer Brian Titus said he’s pretty well neutral on the convenience store issue. But the president of Garrison Brewery said he’s got enough on his plate, including deals with 130 draft licensees, without worrying about trying to negotiate with more retailers.
“Dealing with the centralized liquor corporation as we are right now, the NSLC, it greatly simplifies the process for me,” he said.
“That actually is a lot easier than going to individual corner stores and having to kind of negotiate over a barrel some kind of a deal, and being told that the last guy who was in was able to offer a slightly sweeter deal.”
If there weren’t options for consumers beside the corporation, Titus said he’d definitely call for change.
But, he said the current system isn’t that bad, with the agency stores, private stores and the liquor corporation’s willingness to work with local brewers and wineries.
Hammoud said his group isn’t interested in selling rum and other spirits. He said they’re looking at beer for the person on the way to a barbecue, or wine for someone on the way home to dinner.
He said he wouldn’t expect beer and wine to be a cash cow for retailers. The big thing is getting people in the store.
“Our business is 100 per cent dependent on foot traffic,” he said, noting that the biggest draws for convenience stores — tobacco, lottery and gas — are all government-controlled or regulated.
“They’re the smallest margin on everything that you make in your store. But they’re still traffic generators and we need traffic to sell product.”
“That actually is a lot easier than going to individual corner stores and having to kind of negotiate over a barrel some kind of a deal, and being told that the last guy who was in was able to offer a slightly sweeter deal.”
