Demon Alcohol is back in the news again.
In B.C., liquor law lunacy is a long-standing tradition. The forces of temperance, anti-salooning and prohibition continue to course through the blood of the body politic hereabouts. For good reason, some would argue.
Look no further than the most recent Stanley Cup riot for evidence of a population that can’t handle its liquor. So some Salvation Army bass-drum pounding is warranted. However, when it’s combined with government bureaucracy, it’s less good than most folk would concede.
Recent developments in B.C. liquor control and distribution are therefore more than a curiosity.
Reasons for optimism that the current regime appreciates common sense over restrictive red tape include the provincial government’s decisions to allow movie and live-event theatres to apply for liquor licences and caterers to provide liquor at catered events, rather than continuing to require the event’s hosts to apply for a special occasion liquor licence, complete a Serving It Right responsible liquor service course and arrange the delivery of the liquor to their event themselves.
Still, the convoluted reasoning behind maintaining those laws for so long speaks to traditions of government control over B.C.’s liquor trade that have been in place since prohibition was repealed in the province in June 1921 and choruses of “Tremble, King Alcohol” from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union began to abate.
More interesting still is the government’s decision to hand liquor distribution and warehousing over to the private sector. As outlined in reporter Bob Mackin’s “Logistics giant targets lucrative LDB contract” (issue 1176; May 8-14), that portfolio is of considerable interest to major international operators.
The dollars make sense to them. The likes of Exel Logistics see much appeal in an annual $95 million revenue stream from being the province’s monopoly liquor distribution company for the next 10 years.
The switch to a private operator should, in theory, save British Columbians money on their liquor bills.
For example, the monopoly government liquor operation in this province, which generates annual net income of roughly $900 million, charges around $8.70 in taxes, fees and markup on a $15 bottle of wine. Alberta, which generates around $684 million from a liquor distribution structure that has been operated by a private company since 1994, charges a $2.60 flat fee on the same bottle.
Down in the free enterprise land of Washington state, the fully privatized open market is on the hook for a mere $1.45 in state liquor and sales tax.
But whether British Columbians would benefit from government handing the keys to the lucrative LDB larder to a single private-sector operator remains in question.
Victoria has thus far provided no cost-benefit analysis of the initiative.
But, as pointed out in Mackin’s story, an internal Exel memo speculated that providing a wider range of products would raise costs.
B.C.’s liquor minister Rich Coleman has said that the government will maintain control over pricing, revenue and taxation, but nowhere in that promise is any indication that real free market forces would become part of the equation or that current taxation levels would be changed.
Demon Alcohol has much to answer for in unravelling our social fabric in many areas, but those who use it responsibly deserve to have a competitive system that gives them the best bang for their bucks on the open market.
The current system gives them anything but, and its replacement thus far doesn’t look much better.
