Cheers to corner-store beers in Ontario

You’ve probably seen the ad by now.

The 30-second spot presents a hypothetical future in which beer and liquor is sold in Ontario corner stores. In it, a bunch of probably-up-to-no-good teens purchase a pile of alcohol from a store clerk who — brace yourselves — doesn’t even check for ID.

Horrifying, right?

The spot is the work of Ontario Beer Facts, a group that exists primarily to try to convince Ontarians that the privately-operated Beer Store chain is something we need to keep around. Without it, the theory goes, underage drinking will run rampant and teenagers will be soused on the sauce 24/7.

There are a lot of problems with this argument. Let’s start with the fact that there are a great many places — even in Canada — where alcohol is sold in corner stores, without resulting in major social ills or societal collapse. There’s no need to conjure up scary hypotheticals when we can just as easily look at, you know, reality.

And consider this: convenience stores already sell cigarettes, a controlled product much the same as alcohol. Following Ontario Beer Facts’ logic, this should imply that kids are fiendishly lighting up like existential novelists, but the teen smoking rate in Ontario has been on the decline for decades — even with corner store availability.

But what really frustrates about the Ontario Beer Facts campaign is that they present our options as binary. Either we maintain the status quo where we can only buy cases of beer from the Beer Store, a private company owned by three foreign-owned corporations, or we throw open the doors to unrestricted sales at all retailers for sheer alcohol anarchy.

It’s a false choice, and one that ignores a range of possible reforms to Ontario’s current alcohol sale regulations.

As an example, think about this: The government already maintains a licensing system for bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. Why not extend that system so that they also license retailers to sell alcohol to go?

That’d give MPPs the ability to impose all kinds of regulations, which they love to do anyway.

They could control product selection, limit the number of licenses available in an area, or control how much floor space can be devoted to alcohol sales. And neighbours would have an opportunity to object to applications in their community. Most importantly, strict regulations could be placed on making sure purchasers are of legal age.

This kind of system could be rolled out slowly, and work in tandem with existing LCBO outlets and Beer Stores. It’d increase customer choice, support retailers and — I bet — have very few drawbacks. It’s a small change, but one that’d make things a little more open and a lot more fair. Despite the fear mongering, I’d drink to that.