Navigating the LCBO Strike: What's Next for Ontario?

#028 - In this episode, we discuss the ongoing LCBO strike in Ontario and its implications. Topics include the construction affecting local businesses, the challenges facing 'Howl at the Moon' during the summer, and the potential dangers of the alcohol shortage. The conversation also covers how the strike might lead to a rise in black market alcohol and the associated health risks. Furthermore, the episode touches on revenue allocation from LCBO sales and its implications for addiction recovery resources in Thunder Bay.

Transcript

And they're gonna hit the market as well. And of course there's worries with that because we don't know how potent. Those homebrews are. We don't know who's making them. We don't know what precautions are being taken as far as like health 

all right. So Jody, man, tell me about the construction that's going on outside. Like, how's that are, it's summertime, are people out of town, in town? Is the construction affecting the traffic coming in? Talk to me. Yeah, as you can see, they got the road dug up. right in front of the moon here.

It's dug up real good. It's been ongoing for about probably five weeks now. I remember when they pulled the first excavators in and thinking to myself, Oh boy, here we go. How long is this going to take? And that was about five weeks ago. And they've been at it ever since. It seems like pretty slow progress.

I feel like they're probably going to be at it for the better part of the summer. That certainly had a bit of an impact on on the business here at Health of the Moon, but also the return of summer it was expected that we were gonna be a little bit slower it was last year, that was our first summer in business, and when the nice weather came around here in Thunder Bay business dropped off a little bit, and so that's not completely surprising that the same thing has happened this year.

We were having some real good numbers actually leading up to the summertime, like into late April and early May we were actually setting some sales records here at Health of Moon, which was really encouraging. So it's always a little disappointing to see the drop off, but it's not unexpected.

Summer is short here in Thunder Bay  and there's so many activities to choose from outside ranging from, powwows, barbecues, camping, hiking, all the outdoor stuff that, so many people love. So I get it. I totally get it but we're certainly certainly still going full steam ahead here.

We're still open seven days a week. We've got all the programs running because, recovery doesn't take a holiday. And,  there are still people who are attending so we've got everything that we've always had. including a couple of new things and we're going to just keep going with that. 

Very cool. Yeah, I know you got Healing Circle tonight. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's Sunday night. Sunday night, yeah. Yeah, so we'll have Ron Kanutzke coming in here at 7 o'clock as per usual. That's a weekly event.  And yeah, that's happening tonight at seven after we're finished recording here.

Gotcha, gotcha. It's interesting, man, because a lot going on this summer. People are out at camp or at their cabins and it's interesting. I don't know if you heard in the media probably have just a couple days ago, when was it our liquor, LCBO, our Liquor Corporation of Board of Ontario, they went on The workers are on strike or something?

Yeah, that's pretty big news in Ontario here. It's I guess they walked off the job on Friday. It's now Sunday, so all the LCBO locations in Ontario have been closed now for three days. So there's obviously a a bit of a a conundrum for people who are looking for booze.

My understanding is that you can still get it at the beer stores and the wine shops and some of the grocery stores that are carrying beer and wine. It's not completely dry in Ontario, but I don't think that you can get spirits. Anywhere outside of the LCBO, so all hard liquor is pretty much unavailable with the exception of maybe bars.

But there's going to come a point that if this if this strike drags on, that the bars may have a hard time keeping stock as well on hard liquor. I think that's where we stand right now. My understanding, I've been following closely for a few reasons, because A, I'm interested as somebody who worked in the nightclub and bar industry for my whole entire life as a bartender and running busy bars and nightclubs there's been a few times where the LCBO has been on the cusp of striking like this, and I've been paying pretty close attention in the past when it's happened, because we've had to consider ordering larger quantities just to make sure we were stocked up for any potential strike situations.

I don't believe any of the strikes actually ended up taking place. I think this might be one of the first, if not the first time that they've actually walked off the job. So this is pretty significant. And we're going to just have to see how it plays out here in Ontario, but it's a pretty significant thing to happen for the  spirit and alcohol industry here in Ontario. 

My understanding is that they're out for a minimum of two weeks. I think they're going to try and come to some sort of agreement in the two weeks. But it sounds like the two sides are pretty far apart right now. I know that the union was saying that they're prepared to dig in and go as long as they need to go.

And there's certainly talk about it being a dry summer here in Ontario as far as hard liquor goes. Gotcha. Jody, it was an employee walkout? What do what do they want? What do the employees want? Any word on that? Yeah, so I'm not completely familiar with exactly all the things that are being negotiated, but I know one of the things for sure is the LCBO and and the employees are not happy about the possibility of spirits being sold in and mixed drinks.

I think it's mostly, maybe not so much the spirits, but the pre mixed drinks sold in convenience stores. Oh, okay. Okay. Right now, my understanding is that they've got a monopoly on that market and they're exclusively sold through the LCBO. But Doug Ford and the Ontario government is pushing for the go ahead for mixed canned and bottled drinks to be sold at convenience stores.

Which, obviously is going to take a bite out of the the business and at the LCBO and probably cost some people some hours and so on with all the ramifications that would come along with losing that business. So I think that's part of the strike. I don't think it's exclusively about that, but I think that is one of the big pieces. 

I can see how  if workers at LCBO it can be a job security thing as well, right? So if there's spirits and other alcohol that's exclusively available at LCBO is now available at. Other let's say private retailers or convenience stores. Now do we need that person? Like maybe less jobs at the LCPO site, right?

So I can see that. I can see why it could be a walkout. I'm trying to find a CBC article here. Let's see. So it says. Yeah, it says  they fear job losses after Ford's government announced plans to allow convenience stores and all grocery stores to sell beer, wine, and ready to drink cocktails.

At least 150 people attended. So this was a rally over the weekend. I believe it was yesterday. LCBO retail locations are expected to stay closed for at least 14 days through convenience outlets and smaller communities will remain open and online ordering is available with product limits in place.

So it says we're not going to. JP Hornick, President of Ontario Public Service Union, Employees Union, said workers are drawing a line in the sand around the privatization and casualization of alcohol. Over 70 percent of LCBO employees are casual,  meaning they have no guaranteed hours, benefits, or access to permanent part time or full time jobs.

Hornick said as, at a LCBO picket line on Bay and Bloor Street Saturday, in Toronto.  As well, allowing ready to drink spirits to be purchased outside of the LCBO would reduce sales by about 9%. Hornick said this expansion would shrink how much revenue goes towards the province's public services, they said.

The province earned 2. 5 billion from  the LCBO last year. That's a lot of money. And that's money that goes into public health care, public education, Hornick said. Another concern is that the, let's say the Ford government has not allocated funds, sufficient funds for alcohol training programs for expanded locations.

The union president said, imagine that would happen in gas stations if you wind up with wine, beer, and ready to drink drinks with very little training. And then they went on and said, casual worker at LCBO for over, there's a gentleman that was just highlighting his story fighting for job security at LCBO he said striking LCBO employees are understandably frustrated, we do good work, we serve the public, we want to be treated fairly, even if there is little progress at negotiating table after two weeks workers are in it for the long haul we're strong, we're not gonna break, he said.

And then, oh, interesting here, restaurant and bars rely on stockpiled alcohol. Some restaurants and bars are  hoping stockpiled alcohol will carry them through the strike. So it's a, yeah, so they're just going on about that and then I guess jodi, it's, some of the stuff is like,  there is the beer and wine stores that are available.

I guess people can, are flocking to those for for alcohol and I guess like our, in Ontario our grocery stores have alcohol, which isn't always standard across our country. Cause I know when BC, maybe BC has alcohol at grocery stores now, that wasn't always the case. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're correct.

We've got the beer store here, which you know, to my understanding, obviously sells beer and maybe some coolers. But and then of course wine and beer is available at some, if not most of the major grocery outlets. But I don't think you'll see any liquor or pre premium cocktails which are sold exclusively the LCBO, which you mentioned are part of the reason that they're out on strike, because Ford has said that, he's interested in allowing other private businesses to sell those products as well.

Something that, that I found interesting as you were reading that article it, you were talking about the article was talking about how much revenue the LCBO generates for the province of Ontario. And I have to just, ask the obvious question, how much that revenue is being allocated to recovery resources, because, we all see here in Thunder Bay that we are, like, just, we don't have anywhere near the the resources that we need to deal with the the addiction issues that we're dealing with in this city I'd be curious to know as to how much revenue is being allocated to those resources because we could certainly use a check from Mr.

Ford's government here in Thunder Bay to to build recovery homes and and aftercare facilities because we're struggling. We're barely keeping our head above water here in Thunder Bay, and I think that's it too, that whole harm reduction, how much of it actually goes towards that.

Um, it's weird. People are, I find the more and more I look at this, people are interested in the mental escape and chaos and rather than the fix.  There's always money involved where people's attention's at that's where I'm saying, whereas less attention might be towards the harm reduction side.

Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. I can't imagine that a whole lot of the revenue from the the Ontario government's liquor sales goes into recovery, at least not enough anyhow, because if, if it were, we wouldn't be struggling with the with the shortage of resources that we're struggling with, so I'd encourage the foreign government or any other government to maybe reconsider where some of those revenues go.

Moving forward, but that's a whole nother topic. Something also with regards to this strike at the LCBO, a couple of points to, to consider. We need to consider that for people who are struggling with hardcore alcohol addictions we're now in a situation where they're not able to access what they're usually drinking, right?

A lot of people drink exclusively hard liquor or at least majority hard liquor, and now that's not available, so they're going to have. to look for other options. And we know that we've seen it with alcohol withdrawal can actually be very dangerous for some people. And the reason that I bring that up is because if you're an alcoholic and you're used to drinking, say 26 ounces of vodka in a 24 hour period.

Which is a lot of vodka, but there certainly are a lot of people who do drink that much. It's going to be hard to compensate that by drinking beer, it's a little bit different getting it down and just it it's different, there's a reason that people drink hard liquor and now, without the availability of hard liquor, I'm concerned about some of the people who are struggling with addictions turning to other products, like maybe hand sanitizer, say Listerine, hairspray, that sort of thing, right?

So you know, I think we're going to be seeing some of that sort of thing happen too which is really hard because those products are obviously really hard on your body too, not that vodka isn't, but some of those other items are even more destructive. So we've got that to deal with.

And then of course, there's also the the black market, whenever there's a, anytime that there's a a prohibition of sorts, even though this is not. Prohibition by choice. There's people who are willing to step up and and fill that gap. So you're gonna have people distilling alcohol and liquors in their basements or, in, in underground operations.





when they're being prepared and so on.

But you're going to see those things hit the market this summer too, especially if this is a, an elongated liquor strike people are definitely going to step up and in that black market and they're going to start producing, homebrew liquor moonshine per se, whatever you want to call it, that's going to, that's definitely going to hit the market.  Yeah and just people bringing in product from other provinces. Oh, definitely. You got Minneapolis to the south of us, sorry Minnesota, which is the U. S. And you got Manitoba's right there. And yeah, so they're going to bring product from elsewhere.

I know what you mean when you say when you said that it goes underground black people. Market stuff in Nunavut when I used to work up there, if those of you that don't know, you can go back and listen to one of the, my earlier episodes on my story. But in Nunavut they have like you can bring up alcohol in certain parts, like the capital of Calhoun, you need a permit, you bring it up, you use it, and then there's like a beer and wine store there.

But you can only bring up so much, it's depending on the permit and but  things do tend to go underground. Oh definitely. Yeah. This is going to be a bootlegger's paradise because I think you're going to see people coming across the border, whether it's provincial borders or even national borders with with liquor.

And it'll be interesting to do an episode in a couple of weeks if this strike continues and we can ask around and talk to people and find out what they're paying for for a Mickey or a 26 or a vodka. It's still going to be out there. It's just a matter of where are you going to get it and how much are you going to pay for it?

Cause there are going to be people who are going to jump at the opportunity to to smuggle liquor in from out of province. and and sell it on the black market, it'd be interesting to see in a couple of weeks or even in a month or two if it goes really along just what the market value is on what the black market value is on a two six.

 Yeah, it's definitely a demand out there and a lack of supply. Oh, for sure. And especially with summertime too, right? Yeah. You've got people just, wanting to party all the time, whether it's at camp, or whether it's long weekends, whether they're camping, whether they're just having backyard barbecues, it's a it's a huge gap to have the LCBO closed, and like I said it's gonna be a bootlegger's paradise, because people are always willing to step in, in a black market situation like this.

We saw what happened during Prohibition. It's not like there wasn't any alcohol. There was plenty of alcohol. It just, it was coming from different sources and you had to go to different places to get it, and also yeah, I do recall that drink COVID and that's what you just meant, right?

I was actually talking about prohibition, like more like Al Capone days, my bad. People think that during prohibition in the U. S. there, that there was no liquor, which is absolutely untrue. There was plenty of liquor. You just had to go underground to get it.

Yeah. That was the only thing. You made me think of something else too that just crossed my mind by LCBO doing this, they're actually facilitating the movement of making alcohol more accessible for around the clock in, in convenience stores. Because the longer you stay on, the longer the argument is that, Hey we can have it elsewhere.

Oh. For sure. Do you know what I mean? For sure. So it might be doing the opposite a little bit. Yeah, we've talked about this too in prior episodes, like just availability of beer and liquor in general, like with it being, with beer and wine already being available at most grocery stores, which wasn't always the case in Ontario.

People are always going to, are always going to go where they need to go to get it, but does it really need to be more accessible? There's already a bar on every street corner. It's already in your face everywhere you go. It's already at most major grocery retailers now.

Does it really have to be at gas stations and convenience stores too? Like it's like you won't be able to walk 30 feet without having a fridge full of booze in your face, and it's too bad that it has to be like that. How much convenience do people need? You know what I mean?

Like it, it, to me, it just doesn't make sense. a whole lot of sense, for example, Quebec is always had that hand. Hey, like you can buy it, booze in a convenience store and just think of bordering cities with Ontario or towns with Ontario. Like you got Gatineau and Ottawa Gatineau, but there's stuff that's available more hours in a day, let's say on the Gatineau side.

So Only, even that effect, you probably have people in Ottawa going over to grab whatever they want. Of course you would. And even, I remember growing up, like Montreal, Ottawa was like, yeah, the legal clubbing age or going out age or drinking age is less. That's right. I think it was 18.

I'm not sure if it still is, but when I was younger, it was 18, I think in Quebec, where it was always 19 in Ontario. And so it's people are always going to go to where it's allowed or permitted or things are accessible, like you just said. So it's the same thing that's happening right here is we'll, people that really want it, we'll find a way to get it and whether they have to drive somewhere to get it or they have to pay a premium here to get it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't see any real purpose in having it more readily available. And I guess maybe that's coming from the perspective of a recovered alcoholic too, I just don't want to see alcohol everywhere I go because I don't think it's necessary and it's not so much that it's triggering for me.

I feel like I'm deep enough in my recovery that, seeing a fridge full of alcohol Coolers at, a 7 Eleven or a Circle K isn't going to trigger me into wanting to drink. I don't want to drink, period. But for young people, like, why do they need to it's just right there in their face, like you're going in for a bag of chips and a Gatorade, you're 15 years old and there's the there's the booze cooler right next door, and you got 15 different cocktails in there, I just, it, to me, it just seems completely unnecessary and it just, To me, it glorifies alcohol even more and is going to create more problems leading forward for young people. There's already enough pressure to drink, like, why does it have to be in their faces everywhere they go? Absolutely. Yeah.

Jody, anything else you wanted to add on this whole LCD or straight? No, but I think we need to Keep talking about this as it moves forward. We'll we'll do another episode or two, depending on how long this trek goes. And we'll talk about some of the things that we're seeing developing in real time as far as like contraband and black markets and so on.

And we'll we'll see how it all plays out here in Ontario. Sounds good to me, Jody. And you know what, man, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate you. Great conversation. Sounds good. And we'll chat next week. You bet. Okay. Bye everyone.