76-YEAR-OLD INSULTED BY LCBO’S SUSPICIONS
Staff thought he’d been drinking and wouldn’t serve him, he says he hadn’t
Maybe it was the green ball cap with the embossed shamrock that Hugh McCord was wearing.
But if that made McCord look like he was on a St. Patrick’s Day bender, then the 76-year-old says LCBO employees need better training.
McCord popped into the liquor store at the St. Laurent Shopping Centre around 5 p.m. last March 17, intending, he says, to buy a bottle of wine so he could have a glass or two with supper.
But what the Lowertown man ended up getting was a lot of guff from a couple of LCBO employees who suspected he had been drinking. He wasn’t allowed to make the purchase.
Insulted and humiliated, he filed a complaint with the LCBO in Toronto.
McCord says he even called Ottawa police after he left the store to see if they would give him a breathalyzer test to prove to the two LCBO staffers that they were wrong. He says police turned him down.
McCord says it was a cashier who first accused him, moments after he placed a bottle of wine on the counter and said: “That’s a good price for a bottle of Beaujolais.”
The cashier replied he couldn’t serve him because McCord had been drinking. Stunned, McCord asked the clerk what led him to think that.
“He just said he just knew,” says McCord, who had gone into the LCBO after having a coffee with friends at the nearby Starbucks. “I then said I have never been drunk in all my life and that I never drink during the day,” McCord reported in his complaint to the LCBO.
McCord says the cashier called over a clerk to see what he thought of McCord. The clerk agreed with the cashier. Neither indicated they could smell booze on his breath, McCord says.
McCord replied their accusations were “highly insulting and that I was 76 years of age and this had never happened before in my life.” He left the store, called police to request the breath test and then eventually drove to the LCBO on Rideau Street, where he purchased a bottle of wine without a problem.
The LCBO says it is has to yet to receive McCord’s letter of complaint, but acknowledged that a man was turned away “respectfully” at the St. Laurent outlet on March 17 after “proper challenge and refusal protocols were followed.”
Spokeswoman Genevieve Tomney says LCBO staff are thoroughly trained and have to make judgment calls. Under Ontario’s liquor laws, liquor, beer and wine stores as well as restaurant, bars and liquor delivery services cannot sell or provide alcoholic beverages to people who are or appear to be intoxicated.
Says HelloLCBO.com, a customer service website: “Learning to recognize the signs of intoxication and refuse service to intoxicated individuals are core components of the (training) program.”
There are various reasons why people are not allowed to make a purchase, including being underage, lacking proper ID to prove they are of legal drinking age (19 and over) or appearing intoxicated.
LCBO staff can also refuse a patron they have reasonable grounds to believe is buying alcohol for a minor or someone who is intoxicated.
But the website also says, “if a person is of legal drinking age and shows no signs of intoxication, there are no legal grounds on which they may be refused service.”
The LCBO says almost 11.5-million customers were challenged in 2013-14. Of those, 360,297 were refused service for reasons concerning age and 42,724 for suspicion of intoxication.
McCord says he should not have been refused as he had no alcohol in his system and therefore could not possibly have been showing any signs of intoxication. He wants an apology from the LCBO and the two employees, plus “a free bottle of wine” for what he was put through.
OTTAWA COUPLE REUNITED
Ottawa’s Maria Summers has been reunited with her husband, David, in England, almost a year after she was kicked out of that country because of a misunderstanding over her expired tourist visa.
But she could be ordered to return to Canada again in five months.
When she applied to be allowed to re-enter the country as the spouse of a British subject — David Summers is caring for his dying mother in southwestern England — Britain’s government bureaucracy refused over doubts that her 45-year-old marriage was genuine. An immigration tribunal has agreed to hear an appeal of her rejected application.
Summers flew to England last weekend. After being detained for three hours at London’s Heathrow Airport, she was allowed to proceed. She says in an email that if her appeal fails, she will be barred from Britain for good.