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Lifelong Ontarian. I always thought our logic of having a provincially run liquor store was limited in practice. Like, why aren't LCBO stores open 24 hours? Gen
by ericzawo 9y ago
Lifelong Ontarian. I always thought our logic of having a provincially run liquor store was limited in practice. Like, why aren't LCBO stores open 24 hours? Generally, most are open from 10 am to 9 pm. Making them 24 hours could nearly double their workforce.
I've been watching closely the way government will carry this out, and its unfortunate they aren't choosing to franchise dispensary permits out to small business. But I suppose Ontario's government would botch that, too. Hell, they're attempting to roll out the opportunity to purchase beer and wine (woo!) at grocery stores — but so far, only the franchise chains are able.
Finally, Liquor in Ontario is dumb expensive. I expect them to milk the price of marijuana for all its worth when this finally comes out.
- vidarh 9y agoI don't know about Ontario, but in Norway the reason for having limited opening hours (shorter than the ones you gave), and restricting the number of outlets, and pricing things high is that the government monopoly on these products is not there to maximise sales, but to minimise them. They're only open in the first place because prohibition didn't work and drove sales under ground. So they provide a compromise - limited outlets, restrictions on opening hours etc. - that stave off attempts open up for wider sales and that is "good enough" to prevent most (but not all) black market sale of alcohol. I believe that is the motivation for most alcohol related government monopolies.