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It’s the first day of British Columbia’s new liquor landscape and retailers of all stripes are preparing to sell beer, wine and spirits in one of the most bizarre liquor markets on the continent.
A new wholesale tax, part of government’s wonky plan to level the retail playing field, is anticipated to collect so much money that the BCLDB will be able to operate its 200-store chain on what now looks to be a break-even basis, if not a loss. Either way, the new level playing field, heavily tilted in government's favour, could bring the private liquor store community to its knees. Meanwhile, monopoly bean counters have fiddled every SKU on the old price list by employing a shifting range of operating costs to look as if little has changed. Just to be sure the new prices look good, government will add to the confusion today by removing the 10% PST and 5% GST from its shelf display price, in effect lowering its prices by 15% until you walk to the cashier where the 15% will be added back to the purchase price. All that after Justice Minister Susan Anton, in charge of liquor, hit a new low recently when she accused local distributors and their wineries of raising prices to make government’s wholesale program look bad. Throw in the grocery store mess where one day hardly any stores are qualified to sell liquor and the next day there are so many they have to hold an auction to dole out the ‘no new licenses’ that wouldn't be made available to the public. The words "shabby", "underhanded", "despicable" and "vengeful" all come to mind. Today may be the start of a new era of liquor sales in BC but frankly it looks a lot like the old show with super high prices and a government with no particular expertise in retail still calling all the shots and answering to no one for its practices. Shame on BC.
