Hi!
Full disclosure: I am a full time employee of The Beer Store. Of course, my views are my own, and don't represent those of the company.
In fact, there are many things my company can do better. I will get into these later (if stating them won't get me in trouble!)
TBS is certainly not perfect. The system in Ontario is not perfect. There are many weird and arcane liquor laws which hinder the growth of Ontario craft brewers. The rules about bottle shops for small brewers, and distribution for contract brewers are ridiculous, in particular. These laws were codified long before "craft brewing" was even a thing, let alone the booming industry it currently is. Laws about controlled substances are among the slowest to adapt anyway. I'll just say it: Ontario craft breweries currently get a raw deal in the system.
But things can be worse.
Opening up the market seems like a great idea. It's probably how 400k signatures got on a recent petition (not age verified or anything, but let's ignore that) to put beer in convenience stores. People buy beer in neighbouring New York, Michigan, or Quebec and love the ease of access (among other things, which will NEVER happen in Ontario, but we'll get to them later.)
People want things and don't think of the consequences. Opening up the retail market for alcohol has some small benefits. You can get it later in the day, and you can get it by traveling a shorter distance. However, alcohol sales are Pandora's Box or the Holy Grail. You cannot close that box once you have opened it, and the downsides are massive.
Opening up the market means places like this peddler of drug paraphernalia (credit: @favretto) are tasked with social responsibility. 12 out of 48 convenience stores in Barrie sell drug paraphernalia. Many of these locations are located near schools. This isn't just rogue indie shop owners: the store pictured above is a Hasty Market, a chain in good standing with the OCSA (Ontario Convenience Store Association.)
The same type of establishments that in the not-too-distant past sold synthetic weed.
If you want to go back farther, you can find lottery fraud instances that were so numerous, the OLGC had to implement anti-fraud measures like self-serve ticket checkers and an audible win confirmation (WINNER! GAGNON!) to protect consumers from shady merchants.
I'm sure that the majority of convenience stores are legitimate businesses who care about social responsibility and follow the law. However, the fact remains that there are many bad apples out there. Those bad apples ruin everything.
The above isolated instances of convenience store malfeasance are pieces of the puzzle. They provide a sketch of what Ontarians can expect if convenience stores are allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. They skirt the edges of the law and sell drug paraphernalia. They skirt the law and sell synthetic drugs up to and past the point where they are illegal. They stole lottery winnings from legitimate winners until the OLGC took measures (and spent tax dollars) to prevent it from happening again.
Also, and this is VERY important, they fail at the ONE major social responsibility they have at the moment. a recent Ipsos Reid study found that 21% of convenience stores sold tobacco to a 17 year old. That's pretty outrageous, but the failure rate in Toronto was a massive 56%. 56%! That is INSANE.
Now, minors getting their hands of tobacco is terrible. It forms the building blocks of nicotine addiction that are difficult (or impossible) to break. Tobacco smoking is a strain on society from health care costs, to second hand exposure, to foul odor of the the gross guy who smokes two packs a day standing in line in front of you at the grocery store. When you're a teenager; you are naive, impressionable, and stupid. You swear to yourself that this new habit is terrible, and you will quit by the time you're 25. You think you will become cooler due to smoking, and becoming more social after starting seems to confirm that. I know this, because I was that teenager. I started smoking at 18 (in all fairness, no convenience store ever sold to me underage. I got older friends or friends with fake IDs to buy for me. I wasn't carded on my 19th birthday, however.) and until I quit it dominated my life. Being a self-loathing smoker in a world where it is less and less tolerated is terrible.
But in all my time as an underage smoker, I was NEVER one irresponsible night away from ruining my life, or the lives of others. Underage drinkers PUT LIVES IN DANGER. The reason that they are not legally permitted to drink is because they make TERRIBLE decisions. They get in fights. They injure themselves or others. They commit sexual assault. They get into a car (where they are NOT skilled drivers yet due to inexperience, even sober, by the way) and are the pilots of weapons out on the road with you and me. This is NOT acceptable.
Why should we then put alcohol in the very same stores that have a cavalier attitude towards tobacco enforcement? A subset of Ontario convenience stores already have a cavalier attitude towards putting head shop products next to candy in stores near schools, sell not-yet-illegal or freshly illegal products, and have stolen lottery winnings. WHY should they be entrusted with alcohol sales?
They already cut corners and skirt the edges of the law to make profits now. What's to stop them from doing so once they are able to sell alcohol? The stakes would also be raised for them because they will no doubt invest a great deal in readying themselves to be alcohol retailers. They will pay for new fridges, and promise valuable floor and shelf space to brewers. The reality of Ontario alcohol taxes (we will get into this later) and OSCA's seemingly complete ignorance of such a major factor in the Ontario market, will mean that any convenience store will probably be sorely disappointed in how lucrative alcohol sales are. They will seek to recoup their expenses. They will relax their standards. They have, as a group, proven that social responsibility is not a core value to them. More underagers will be sold alcohol. More intoxicants will be sold alcohol. All to make a retail profit.
Currently, we have a government run retail outlet, and a limited private outfit who operates on a cost-recovery basis at a retail level. Opening things up will put profits above social responsibility. It will allow bad apples to become very important gatekeepers of alcohol control. It will make our roads and communities less safe. This is the cost of convenience.
This is not the Ontario I want.
