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Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

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Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#101

Post by macspoofing »

criddell wrote: post #30
macspoofing wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Other people have already mentioned how the government runs the alcohol stores and (IMHO) they do a pretty good job of it. No. They don't. I was recently at an Ontario beach on a long weekend - all the stores on the strip leading up to the beach were open because of the tourists and cottagers flocking into the area...except for the LCBO. The LCBO was closed because it was a stat holiday. No business would close on t…

On non-holiday weekends, the stores are open Sunday. If you aren't happy about the stores closing for holiday weekends, blame the union. That's something they protect for their members. > The liquor is marked-up and expensive too. That's just taxes. Anybody else selling alcohol would have to add their profit on top of that. It might seem expensive, but don't forget that you are helping to pay for government provided…

>If you aren't happy about the stores closing for holiday weekends, blame the union. That's something they protect for their members.

What are you talking about? Unions don't care about stat holidays. They care about making sure their members are paid. Plenty of people would work over a long weekend for 1.5x or 2x wage. To me seeing the LCBO closed while every other place on that strip was open and full of shopping tourists means the LCBO is completely immune to market forces. They just don't care.

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#102

Post by dade_ »

jakef wrote: post #36
criddell wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of assumptions about how they will run the stores. Other people have already mentioned how the government runs the alcohol stores and (IMHO) they do a pretty good job of it. I live in Texas now and when I go back to Ontario to visit my family, it does seem weird that I can't buy beer in a 7-11 or a grocery store or in a drive through shop (not sure these are a good idea). Being the sole seller als…

The LCBO doesn't negotiate. The vendors set their price, LCBO adds its automatic markup and thats it. Of course, they will only stock your product if people are buying it.

They are one of the largest purchasers of alcohol in the world, of course they negotiate.

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#105

Post by dade_ »

macspoofing wrote: post #24
criddell wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of assumptions about how they will run the stores. Other people have already mentioned how the government runs the alcohol stores and (IMHO) they do a pretty good job of it. I live in Texas now and when I go back to Ontario to visit my family, it does seem weird that I can't buy beer in a 7-11 or a grocery store or in a drive through shop (not sure these are a good idea). Being the sole seller als…

>Other people have already mentioned how the government runs the alcohol stores and (IMHO) they do a pretty good job of it. No. They don't. I was recently at an Ontario beach on a long weekend - all the stores on the strip leading up to the beach were open because of the tourists and cottagers flocking into the area...except for the LCBO. The LCBO was closed because it was a stat holiday. No business would close on t…

Aside from the hours of operation which really has nothing to do with the LCBO (complain to your MLA), yes they do. They are well stocked, very clean, their employees are trained and treated maybe too well, they run tasting bars and even offer loyalty points.

As for the price, "wines and spirits sold in Canada is subject to the Excise Act, 2001,[36] which contributes greatly to the cost of beverage alcohol, although most liquor tax is provincial."

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#106

Post by dade_ »

gyardley wrote: post #81

This entire thread is a great example of how many if not most Canadians will passionately defend any old goofy policy, as long as it's different from how the Americans do it. I've lived in a variety of American states as well as Ontario and I really can't believe what I'm reading - anyone defending the selection, knowledge of the staff, price, hours, pretty much anything relating to the LCBO vs. a privatized but regu…

The LCBO is a business, government run liquor stores and distribution is a policy. LCBO is a well run organization, government run liquor stores is an absurd policy in my mind. Painting both with the same brush is disingenuous.

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#107

Post by giarc »

aphextron wrote: post #88
giarc wrote: post #87

The one thing missing from most comments I see here is price parity and equality. I've lived in Ontario (government liquor stores) and now live in Alberta (private liquor stores). The big perk about Ontario liquor is that it's the same price no matter what store you walk into. Doesn't matter if you are in a small town of 1000 people with one liquor store or in Toronto with 500 stores. In Alberta, if you are in a smal…

>I suspect the same will be true for marijuana. Same prices regardless of what LCBO you walk into. You'd be surprised how self regulating the market is for marijuana though. People always want to make the alcohol analogy, but it's a totally different thing. Marijuana has a long tradition of home cultivation and use, as well as a thriving well established black market which will always pick up the slack. Prices tend t…

Here's the government run liquor store in Moosonee, Ontario [0] Moosonee is a town of 2000 people in northern Ontario. It is an 8 hour train ride away from Timmins Ontario (train or plane access only). Timmins is an 8 hour drive away from Toronto. I can't imagine a situation where the marijuana prices in this town would be comparable to downtown Toronto given the amount of labour needed to transport the marijuana to this remote location. And I'm not really speculating, we see this all the time. Citizens of our northern territories (YK, NWT, NT) are used to paying $25/L of milk and so on.

Sure this is a bit of hyperbole, but it points to one of the perks of government run/controlled distribution, namely those in the cities can help to subsidize the price for those in smaller towns across Ontario. Is this government controlled model the best? Probably not but let's remember this is unchartered territory. We can look to the individual states for learnings (ie. Colorado, Washington) but Ontario is 1 million km^2 and California is half that with a much greater population density. They are different in many ways.

0 - https://goo.gl/iFNkaC

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#108

Post by vidarh »

JPKab wrote: post #62
ontarioborn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not anymore. Beer, cider, and wine are available in some supermarkets since 2016. see https://www.ontario.ca/page/beer-wine-cider-sales-grocery-st... . But it's not like the USA, where cigarettes and beer are the first things one sees when walking into a 7-11.

FYI: The USA isn't a monolith. Walking into a 7-11 and seeing alcohol and cigarettes everywhere is dependent upon the state you are in. In Colorado, the only alcohol that can be purchased outside of a regulated liquor store is "Mormon" beer. This is beer whose alcohol content is less than 4%. In Virginia, liquor can only be purchased at stores run by the state government. Same goes for North Carolina and several othe…

> My experience with private liquor stores vs. the state run ones has been that the private ones were better stocked, had significantly better variety, and lower prices. However, that can vary depending on the state.

But that is often a direct side effect of the purpose of government alcohol monopolies, which is rarely to sell the most alcohol possible, but to provide a sufficient outlet to minimise black market sales yet seek to at least to some extent shape and reduce consumption.

So this is what one should expect with them. Whether or not that's what one wants is a separate issue.

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#109

Post by vidarh »

ericzawo wrote: post #59

Lifelong Ontarian. I always thought our logic of having a provincially run liquor store was limited in practice. Like, why aren't LCBO stores open 24 hours? Generally, most are open from 10 am to 9 pm. Making them 24 hours could nearly double their workforce. I've been watching closely the way government will carry this out, and its unfortunate they aren't choosing to franchise dispensary permits out to small busines…

I don't know about Ontario, but in Norway the reason for having limited opening hours (shorter than the ones you gave), and restricting the number of outlets, and pricing things high is that the government monopoly on these products is not there to maximise sales, but to minimise them. They're only open in the first place because prohibition didn't work and drove sales under ground.

So they provide a compromise - limited outlets, restrictions on opening hours etc. - that stave off attempts open up for wider sales and that is "good enough" to prevent most (but not all) black market sale of alcohol.

I believe that is the motivation for most alcohol related government monopolies.

Re: Ontario unveils plan for government chain of marijuana stores

#110

Post by vidarh »

PoachedSausage wrote: post #103

Meanwhile, over here in the UK we're still in the "drugs are bad, mmmKay." dark ages. I really hope a major political party runs with a cannabis decriminalisation policy at the next election.

The Lib Dems do [1] have a reasonably enlightened drug policy. Labour is lagging, but I think there's hope of that changing - Corbyn has in the past sponsored a bill for decriminalisation of weed (in 2000) and stated he wanted to decriminalise medicinal use (in 2016).But Labour spans very social liberal and quite socially conservative groups so can't afford to go as far as the Lib Dems on that subject.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/all-drugs-shou...

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