Alcohol for takeout
A national restaurant organization is calling for federal changes to liquor laws to help improve the food service industry.
For the third time since 2015, Restaurants Canada has taken stock of liquor policies impacting food service and hospitality businesses from coast to coast in its biennial Raise the Bar report.
This year’s report, issued on Sept. 10 in Toronto, reveals a considerable thirst for selling alcohol through takeout or delivery.
Seven out of 10 licensed food service businesses told Restaurants Canada that they would benefit from being able to sell alcohol to their patrons to enjoy off-site.
“On premise sales growth has been flattening out for restaurants in recent years while growth in off-premise sales has been skyrocketing. So it makes sense that licensed operators see the case for expanding their liquor sales off-site as well,” said Shanna Munro, president and CEO of Restaurants Canada.
“In some jurisdictions, thirdparty services are already allowed to deliver alcohol, but not restaurants. Liquor laws and regulations need to adapt so that food service can keep up with modern market realities.”
While most rules impacting how restaurateurs buy and sell liquor come from the provinces, Restaurants Canada says federal policies can still go a long way to help or hinder the operations of licensed food service businesses.
As well as takeout alcohol, Restaurants Canada is asking for wholesale pricing to be available to all liquor licensees for all types of beverage alcohol products. Currently only restaurateurs in Alberta and on Prince Edward Island have access to discounted wholesale pricing on wine, spirits and beer. Bar and restaurant operators across the rest of the country pay the same as retail customers, in some cases even more, for at least some types of alcohol.
The organization also notes tax collected on liquor in Canada is among the highest in the world.
A cocktail of federal and provincial taxes and fees currently make up nearly 50 per cent of the cost of beer, between 65 and 70 per cent of the final price of wine and up to 80 per cent of the cost of spirits. In 2017, the federal budget increased the excise duties on beverage alcohol products by two per cent and introduced an automatic annual escalator on those duties. As a result, the money that the federal government collects from all beer, wine and spirits bought and sold within Canada has been going up every year since 2017.