TORONTO — Ont a r i o Liberals have rejected t he latest call for alcohol in convenience stores.
The decades- old debate over beer a nd wi n e in Ontario’s corner stores bubbled to the surface again with the arrival of a 112,500- name petition calling f or greater choice when buying booze.
Convenience store owner Joanne McMurchy said she began polling customers in Vanessa, Ont., a tiny hamlet south of Brantford t hat ’ s a 20- minute drive from the nearest beer outlet, and the petition spread across t he province.
“Everybody came to support us,” McMurchy said. “They’ve already made a list of what kinds they would like to have at our store ... we’re there to serve them, so that’s what we would like to do.”
Aly Vitunski, a spokesman for Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, said i n an e- mail that the government believes Ontarians are well served by the existing alcohol retail system.
“The current system
bal- ances access f or both t omers and suppliers cuswith
social responsibility. We take the concerns of convenience store owners seriously, but we believe the current system of selling liquor is an effective way to guard the public interest,” Vitunski said.
NDP MPP Rosario Marchese said the LCBO could always be improved, but it protects minors f rom alcohol and contributes $ 1.5 billion every year to pay for schools and hospitals.
“I think our priority should be making the system work better, not new s chemes that make it easier for young people to get their hands on alcohol,” Marchese said in a statement.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak didn’t reject the idea outright, and instead called f or a public debate about the monopoly that the LCBO enjoys and whether a government entity needs to be involved in both purchasing and retailing of alcohol.
“Should government be in the liquor sales, liquor distribution business, the regulatory side as well?” Hudak said. “I’ve been a long proponent of some kind of choice in the system.” While the PC leader did not
r ule out beer and wine in convenience stores but said there were many options t hat should be considered including private franchises of the LCBO.
Dave Bryans, CEO of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association ( OCSA), said corner stores already sell agerestricted products such as tobacco and can be trusted with beer and wine as well.
The OCSA has already released the results of a mystery shopper study that concludes convenience store owners do a better j ob of checking ID than LCBO stores, Bryans said.
The petition in support of corner store alcohol sales was distributed in 220 communities across Ontario, including Toronto, London, Niagara, Ottawa, Peterborough, North Bay, St. Catharines and Guelph over f our weeks in late 2011.