Save the Growler Update – Your Say

I think all Growler programs are great – by keeping the taxes down on this, it remains an excellent incentive for consumers to reduce waste and support local businesses in a cost effective way.
Susan Flasha

The craft brewing industry has been a huge success story in the economic and cultural development of Victoria and BC. The tax on growlers could seriously harm this industry. Please reconsider this shortsighted cash grab.
Murray Griffith

Is the draught tax level a loophole? Sure it is. But it is a great one that does a lot for promoting an industry that has traditionally been hamstrung by government. Keep the tax level where it is at, or better yet lower it. 
Bruce Atherton

The Growler is not just another way to fill everyones crave for beer in the province it also brings everyone together and interact with people that work in the industry to a face to face interaction. With everything going online we can’t lose another great face to face interaction. 
Sean Byrne

This (growlers) allows citizens to consume alcohol in their own homes without needing to plan transit options, cuts down on packaging waste and recycling costs through the use of a reusable container, and supports the local small businesses that provide this product and service. What, then, is the legitimate reason to hike the tax? This is both a business model and an alcohol consumption model that a rational government should support.
Christina Winter

As a homebrewer and microbrew lover, I’m shocked how the government can cater so much to the wine industry but ignore the wonderful microbrewers we have. Portland celebrates them right in their commercials!
The big brewers don’t sell growlers – they are used by craft brewers. A tax of this sort pin-points small businesses and gives further advantage to cheap, tasteless, mass-produced, preservative laden corporate brews that have been shipped from who knows where.
Dave MacLeod

The beer giants like Molson and Labatt’s may lobby and pressure you to because they are losing popularity, but that is because they sell inferior products. Don’t succumb to their pressure, support innovation, nano and microbreweries that depend on growler sales are a growing industry and that means jobs, by taxing specific products you lose sales and then can’t afford staff. This government is all about job growth, prove it.
Carissa Gagne

Growlers are primarily used by people in the neighbourhood, within cycling/walking distance. This cuts down on drinking and driving.
Oliver Kuehn

Minister Rich Coleman,
I’ve been using the same growler since the Tofino Brewing Co. opened, and it has saved a whole lot of 650ml bottles from being crushed after drop off at the bottle depot.
Drew Burke

I love filling up my Growler, I love speaking with the people who make the beer, I love seeing the dedication they have to their craft, I love that I’m going directly to the source – helping my beloved craft breweries (not to mention the environment) save on transportation and unnecessary packaging. I feel the government should be supporting initiatives like the Growler, helping them to succeed – all the talking points I hear from this government point to wanting to help small businesses and the environment – here’s a really easy way to do that!!!
Jessica Vivian

Really? REALLY government of BC? really.
Donald Villeneuve

This blatant cash grab is just an insult to all the hardworking people in the BC Craft brewing industry that are trying to provide quality BC made product to BC residents and beyond. Just another reason why many of my relatives in Alberta and farther east in Canada joke that BC stands for “Bring Cash”.
Jason Armitage

Just when I thought that our liquor regulators were entering the 20th Century (they still have a way to go to catch up with the 21st), the BC Liquor Distribution Board reclassification of the growler show how out of touch our provincial alcohol regulators continue to be.
Yuri Artibise

The red tape to open a brewery or especially a brew pub is insane already. growlers are available down south without the world collapsing in upon itself – why not loosen those idiotic rules and create a place where local brewpubs are encouraged not punished at every single turn. Vancouver and BC are so backwards it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.
D Robinson

The ability to buy a growler and reuse it not only reduces physical waste, it also cuts fuel emissions associated with waste transportation and management whether it ends up in a landfill or recycling factory. The ability to reuse growlers can foster strong, client relations one simply cannot find within a six-pack on the shelf at a liquor store. Frankly, it’s a no-brainer.
Carly Sewell

I, as a voter in Richmond Centre will have this and other issues important to me, in mind when I vote this May for the government of our Province.
Ashley Stotts

By allowing producers to sell directly to consumers on their own terms, breweries can operate with lower overheads enabling them to brew smaller batches of beer. They (growlers) allow a personal relationship to develop between the consumer and producer. As a consumer, I enjoy meeting the people who produce what I buy and growlers are a key part of this.
Additionally, the trend in BC Liquor laws over the past year has been towards deregulation (corkage at restaurants, special event licenses etc). This tax would seem in opposition to this.
Alexander Perkins

A real way to bring more money into BC would be instead to transfer this tax to imported major beers rather than applying another burden to local small businesses and consumers.
Doug Maclean

The smallest craft breweries, or ‘nano-breweries’ should be exempt from this tax hike.
Growlers have become a signature of B.C.’s craft beer revolution – which has become a major tourism and hospitality draw for BC (similar to our wine industry). This new point of pride for our province has been built through the hard work and creativity of our smallest, most creative, least lucrative small business breweries. These are industry artisans contributing to the social, economic and environmental well-being of a burgeoning industry. Let small business flourish.
Rebecca Julseth

How about increasing taxes on packages that contain more than 12 beer. That way they can still grab their money while targeting the problems associated with binge drinking and all of the social/economic costs associated with such mindless consumption. Wiser politicians would be working to encourage this type of grassroots economic system.
Bryan Druhan

Why is it I feel like the BC government has their hands not only in my back pockets but both front pockets as well? The things I’ve learnt about our BC government are scary, why would anyone want to start a new business here in BC?
Leanne Tegart

This tax will kill many small businesses who hire British Columbians, who support cultural events and the arts, who reinvest profits locally and who are a valued new part of the community.
Rory Crowley

It is shameful how the government (with one hand) gives BC residents hope by making long overdue changes to the provinces liquor laws, and then (with the other) imposes another wildly unpopular tax. Did they learn nothing from the HST?
Kelly Keitel

Yet another of the innumerable decisions in the past couple of years by the BC Liberal Government, LDB and LCLB designed to hurt BC residents and small businesses that are in any way related to craft beer – in short, countless BC families. You are squandering a massive opportunity to realize the development of a valuable and responsible craft brewing industry, Mr. Coleman and Ms. Ayers.
Chad McCarthy

Once again, some overbearing politician attacks our freedom of choice in a vain attempt to exploit the hardworking little guys and to promote the bloated establishment. Long live craft beers which are now taking over the market throughout Canada.
Bob Kooyman · via facebook

Growlers should stay draught! That’s the whole point of them!
Crannóg Ales · via facebook

Thanks to everyone who has signed the petition and joined CAMRA to help fight for craft beer. If you wish to have your comments removed from this post, please contact pres@camravancouver.ca

Adam Chatburn, President, CAMRA BC – Vancouver Chapter, March 17th 2013