The British Columbia Liquor Control and Licencing Board (LCLB) is getting more stringent when it comes to granting special permission to wine store owners to take orders for wine at wine tasting events.
Vancouver-based Everything Wine owner Paul Clinton received that special permission last year at the 2010 California Wine Fair.
But that same permission was not forthcoming for this year’s March 11 California Wine Fair at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre.
Marquis Wine Cellars owner John Clerides discovered this when the event’s organizer wrote a letter to the LCLB asking if any private store owners would be able to set up a table and take customer orders.
“[Private wine store staff] are not permitted to take orders for liquor outside of their wine store,” was the response that the LCLB emailed the organizer.
Clerides thinks this is a crazy policy in an era when requests for orders can come via the telephone or an email.
“What happens if I work from home and get an email from a client for an order? It’s against the law,” Clerides said. “This is typical of their gate-keeping, prohibitionist mentality.”
Clerides has told Business in Vancouver that he would be interested in opening a large liquor store were the BC Liberals to privatize the BCLDB so the quasi-government body would get out of the liquor retail business (see “Privatized liquor retail pushed” – issue 1112; February 15-21.)
But this latest heavy handed restriction from the public liquor regulator leaves him perplexed.
“Who cares if one can open a 20,000-square-foot store. If you cannot promote your business, then what’s the point of starting one?”