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A six pack with your groceries?

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We could soon be able to pick up a six pack and some Chardonnay along with our groceries. Word out of Queen’s Park today suggests that the next provincial budget will include a plan to put beer and wine on grocery store shelves. There are no firm details yet, but the Finance Ministry says that it does have concerns about fairness surrounding The Beer Store, and that there is an opportunity to improve customer convenience.

Hundreds of large Ontario supermarkets could soon have aisles where you can put a case of craft beer or a bottle of wine in your buggy, and pay for it with the rest of your groceries. The details were leaked in a Toronto Star story, but Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid isn’t denying the report “I’m working with some of our main retailers now to make sure we’re poised to take on demands. Demands of customers are growing in retail. The reason why we’re doing this…it’s going to have a very stimulative effect on our economy.”

Shoppers seem to like the idea. “It’d be like the U.S, yeah that’s fine with me” said one shopper.
Another likes the convenience “much easier…I don’t have to run around, liquor store, beer store. One stop”

But unions like OPSEU are opposed, saying staff at The Beer Store and LCBO are trained to be responsible sellers, and keep the sales safer. NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson is setting a similar tone “if we’re going to make alcohol a legal product to consume, we have to have a certain responsibility when it comes access”. He says the Liberals talk about booze when they’re trying to deflect attention from other news. “This is not the first time I’ve seen the Government make noises on this and do nothing it’s often a bait and switch on their part.”

But the economic development minister is fairly clear. “I have no doubt whatsoever you’re going to see some significant change…I would suggest this Premier has the steel to make those decisions. She’s determined we get full value from those assets.”

Part of the reason for these changes is the rise in popularity of craft beers, whose brewers say they don’t have a fair chance to sell their products at the beer store monopoly. Ontario craft brewers say they welcome the move towards improved access to these beers, but they worry that it will be unaffordable to sell in large grocery chains, that large players can take up all the shelf space. They say they don’t want to “confer power on yet another series of monopolies.”