111–117 of 117 posts
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.
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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…
"Blame the union" Hmmmmm. If only there was a way for stores to not all be owned by a single entity that is forced to have all of their employees be part of a union. We could call it privatization.
I'm a Toronto native. These are the forces driving this decision: 1. Provincial government is cash poor. The LCBO is a huge source of cash, what government would give up another source? This isn't taxes, this is profit. "Isn't this just another tax?" One might ask, but no it's not. The reason is that Ontario has fewer alcohol distribution centres than a free market would provide. Most people just do a bigger alcohol…
It is important that the LCBO not be the only source. It needs to be opened up from the get-go and not have to follow the mini-step half measures that we have to go through to get alcohol in grocery stores. The sourcing of alcohol is still controlled by the province. It is a govt sponsored racket and monopoly.
The LCBO has been playing this role pretty well and the profits go towards quality jobs and government investments for the public good. I struggle to see the societal benefit from gifting the profits to established corportations, providing more product than is necessary (or at a lower price), and letting private businesses make the right choice between effective regulation and more sales.
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I think costing more and making the government more money are intended features of this system, not side-effects. 'vice' dispensaries are not meant to provide the best service to their customers. They are meant to fill a need well enough to prevent black market competitors, while at the same time making the vice inconvenient enough to discourage its use as much as possible. At the same time, they want to maximize rev…
is taxation not a simpler and more direct way to achieve higher prices without granting practically irreversible monopoly rights?
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> The union at the LCBO is huge and powerful. The jobs, even seasonal ones, pay well [...] And oddly enough I'm perfectly happy with that. Ontario's strategy with booze is responsible consumption (or whatever it's called)... essentially price it sufficiently high that we don't get too many drunks on the street. Given how badly alcohol abuse can mess up lives (not just the abuser but their family and friends too, not…
> Ontario's strategy with booze is responsible consumption (or whatever it's called)... essentially price it sufficiently high that we don't get too many drunks on the street. Sin taxes are actually composed of two distinct effects: the effect of increasing price and therefore reducing negative externalities like you mentioned. In addition, a well structured sin tax should use it's gross profit to fund support servic…
I live on the border of New York and Ontario/Quebec and I can't see how this won't spur legalization here. The border is already incredibly porous and the smuggling routes already exist. This will just make it even easier.
Smuggling a case of beer across will result in you losing the beer. Smuggling marijuana will result in a felony and never being allowed to cross the border again. It doesn't make sense to illegally transport marijuana across the border just so you can buy it legally from a store.
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> I think they are really blowing it by making the stores government owned. Why? The largest chain of BC liquor stores is government-owned and operated. They do a pretty decent job of it.
The BC Liquor stores are not well run. In my experience, the service is slow, the people are not knowledgeable, and you will often have a huge lineup of people waiting at the only cashier that is open. The employees have 0 incentive to change this because they are protected by a powerful union. On top of this, as mentioned in other posts, we have some of the most expensive alcohol in the world. I have travelled to se…