OpenFile contributor Sarah Berman had an interesting article in the Tyee last week which explored B.C.’s often strange and archaic liquor laws. One regulation highlighted by Berman involves a B.C. restaurant or bar’s inability to host “happy hour” specials.
From the Tyee:
British Columbia is one of the most expensive places to buy alcohol. There’s a set 123-per-cent markup on every bottle of wine and a 170-per-cent markup on every bottle of spirits sold in the province. No bars or restaurants are offered wholesale discounts.
Government price-fixing affects restaurant bottle sales, pushing competitive advantage south of the border. As one Vancouver Magazine guide points out, to get the best restaurant price on a B.C. wine, you have to travel to Berkeley, California.
As Berman points out, discounted afternoon drinks are commonplace in other parts of the country, including Alberta, but B.C.’s high markups make it next to impossible to do the same locally. And these markups aren’t limited to wine and spirits; beers are affected as well.
If an establishment in Vancouver wants to offer its patrons a cheap beer in the afternoon—or at any point in the day for that matter—a deal would have to be struck with a brewery. And for that to happen, said brewery would have to have fairly deep pockets. This is why cheap beers are largely limited to those that are mass-produced, and why you would rarely (if ever) find a pint of craft beer for $4 or less.
You can buy a glass of Granville Island beer at a reasonable price (since it was bought by Molson—and by extension, Coors—a few years back), but if you’re a fan of any of Vancouver’s few brew pubs, than the price you see on the menu is likely the price you’ll have to pay anywhere, at anytime.
Of course, alcohol markups are effectively taxes. They’re in place (in theory) to offset the costs associated with alcohol consumption. For example, since alcohol can adversely affect one’s health, and the government would have to shoulder much of that financial burden, they tax the offending product. But are these taxes fair?
There’s no doubt alcohol markups in British Columbia are high compared with most jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S., even though alcohol affects the population the same.
In B.C., wine, spirits and beer are taxed based on retail value, not alcohol content. That is to say that a $50 bottle of vodka with 40 per cent alcohol content is taxed twice as much as a $25 bottle of vodka with the same alcohol content and volume.
So, will this component of the province’s liquor laws ever be changed?
When you read the entire Tyee article, you’ll see that it’s just one outdated regulation of many included in B.C.’s Liquor Control and Licensing Act. And since B.C. is notoriously slow when it comes to amending it’s liquor laws, we don’t advise anyone to hold their breath.
Leave a Reply