- cross-posted to:
- canada@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- canada@lemmy.ca
The Ontario Public Health Association … cites multiple studies showing that increases in the number of places where alcohol can be bought in Ontario, and in other jurisdictions, have already led to more consumption and more of the harms that come with it, such as suicides, drunk driving, emergency-room visits and higher rates of cancer.
I enjoy booze, but I like that it’s hard to get. I don’t need any more encouragement to mess up my liver.
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Give Ford an inch and he’ll have crack in the convenience stores too.
Based
It’s sad that our regulations about alcohol sales are so restrictive, but it’s unfortunately very necessary because of how our built environment exists. It’s correlated with drunk driving deaths because there’s not enough ways to get home that aren’t driving. We can’t really fix one without the other. I’d love to have a European-style picnic with wine I bought at the store on the corner, but that means at least 10% of the people on the road are going to be drunk driving at any given time which isn’t ideal.
I lived in an EU city in the mid/late 00s, and one of the nicest things was never having to worry about who was the DD. It wasn’t a big city, and quite compact. Walk 15 minutes and multiple pub and restaurant options. The equivalent of CAD$25 including tip would get you and 3-4 friends out and back to a respectable chunk of the city.
Yo can buy wine and beer in corner stores and drink in parks all over Quebec and it’s not a problem. Ontario isn’t different, except for the persistent smell of prohibition (which started in Ontario!).
They said the same thing about weed stores and there hasn’t been any increase in accidents.
Those who want to drink will drink, making it more accessible won’t change that. It’ll be nice not having to drive multiple kilometres to get a sixpack.
Also proceeds from the LCBO and Beer Store fund programs for alcohol and drug addiction.
There’s also the increased suicides, emergency room visits, and cancer rates.
Access to alcohol is fine, but it shouldn’t be encouraged. A little bit of friction discourages access, and helps people moderate themselves.
I’ve lived in quite a few places in my life and those that have the worst alcohol problems are the most restrictive ones. Restricting means more binge drinking, there’s a lot of empirical evidence showing that.
Perhaps it’s high time our government stops treating us like irresponsible children.
Cool anecdote, but the article mentions a correlation between increased availability and the issues mentioned.
The relationship probably isn’t causal!! How do you know that it isn’t simply the case that the places with the worst alcohol problems adopt the strongest restrictions?
I know that from official data and having lived there. Restrictions are a catalyst for excessive use. Those restrictions have been around for quite some time and generally haven’t made things any better. Those who want to drink will drink, regardless of how many assholes are between them and the liquor store.
This points to other socioeconomic causes for alcoholism. Any prohibition or restriction is just punishing the victims further.
Simply living someplace doesn’t give you any special insight into such a complex topic, especially if you are not educated to be a researcher in the field and haven’t conducted any actual research. It’s just some rando’s opinion based on random stuff that happened to them.
I know that from official data
Perfect! Please cite the data you are using to make these remarkable claims.
Just to be crystal clear, is it your belief that our best science predicts that the proposed changes will not increase alcohol consumption? Cuz when I state it like that, I feel like I must be being quite unfair to whatever it is you do actually mean.
“I don’t like feeling like someone is treating me like a child,” is both an unhelpful way of interpreting the situation – no one is treating anyone like a child, they are treating them like human beings who are subject to addiction and lapses in judgement while intoxicated (so much worse than children) – and also a really poor and selfish reason to inflict the negative effects that do correlate with increased availability on other people.
Family trauma, child neglect and abuse, intergenerational trauma, etc etc
This means we’d actually have to make our justice system actually punish drunk and careless driving. The best way to commit murder in Canada is with a car, you will get out in a couple of years!
Drunk drivers don’t need punishment afterward, they need peer pressure before.
Punishment doesn’t work. It just makes you feel better.
There are plenty of ways to get home without driving in cities.
You can already buy alcohol in corner stores in rural Ontario. You’ve been able to since the 1960s!
Isn’t that his plan, though, to make us all stoned and drunk as much as possible to ignore what he’s doing to our province?
He’s definitely trying to distract from more serious issues just like he did with his “buck a beer” campaign.
I’m almost convinced Trudeau did the weed in the beginning for similar reasons. Though I support what Doug is doing here, and what Trudeau did regarding weed, I do like to entertain the conspiracy theory thinking too. The less sober society is the easier it is to make bad policy decisions without as much pushback :D
We legalized weed because a) people who got in at the ground floor got rich, and b) it’d hopefully get everyone to forget about his other keystone promise: electoral reform.
Fuckers like Fantino who spent decades demonizing and criminalizing us, making all sorts of outrageous moral judgements towards us, warping public policy and brainwashing the olds, but then he’s poised with millions of dollars to exploit us the moment it’s legal.
And Bill Blair. And more than a few others.
I don’t really have any skin in the cannabis game either way, but our ethics regulations needed serious work, because a lot of well-connected people just coincidentally made a lot of money on it.
I’d also add that this is why legalization happened, but electoral reform didn’t: no rich folks, nor anyone in the LPC and CPC hierarchy, was going to get rich off of electoral reform.
oof
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I’m in favour of this, if for no other reason than the Beer Store needs to die, or at the least the sweetheart deal with the province needs to. Absolutely ludicrous that a company owned by foreign corporations is granted a monopoly over the sales of 12 and 24 packs of beer and distribution rights to restaurants and bars. They’ve done far too good a job of fooling the public into thinking it’s government run while they fleece us and lobby away our choice.
You just described Canada with interchangeable contextual puzzle pieces! lol
Not worth it. Add a bunch of actual societal issues to fix an ideological issue (oh no, a foreign capitalist instead of a domestic one) that won’t actually benefit anyone here.
This feels like pearl clutching to me…are there any stats to support that things are measurably worse in Quebec where they’ve had beer in convenience stores for ages?
Are you seriously asking if the FRENCH drink more than Ontario, the most boring and repressed place in all of Canada? I mean I don’t know but my gut says yes?
Okay, let me google that for you… In 2021-2022, Canadians drink 3.9 beers a week. Ontarians drink 3.7 beers a week, and Québécois drink 4.3 beers a week. So yes, there is a significant difference, but I am not qualified to say why, and I’m not likely to accept that you are, either.
Incidentally, I also learned that ten years ago governments in Canada earned $441 of tax revenue a year from alcohol from each drinking age Canadian. That’s not nothing. So DoFo might believe he has an incentive to increase drinking to improve his short term outlook, rather than actually looking out for our best interests.
Thing is, the reason The Beer Store exists as its own privately owned entity and not integrated into the government-controlled LCBO is because beer is considered to be the least dangerous alcoholic beverage. We have not believed it needs the same government oversight.
If we are changing our tune about the dangers of beer then the Master Framework Agreement still has to go and the LCBO needs to take control of the beer market. There is simply no justification for the Master Framework Agreement no matter how you slice it.
If we still believe that beer is a less dangerous alcoholic drink, as we always have, then your link is troubling. Ontario consumes substantially more spirits – considered to be the most dangerous drink – as compared to Quebec. If people are going to drink, we would benefit from encouraging them to drink the least dangerous option.
I don’t recall saying anything about the amount they’re drinking but rather if things were worse ie drunk driving fatalitie, etc. Your biases on the topic appear to be showing…
TIL that I am 8 Canadian people.
The Beer Store is a societal issue. It puts the binge drinker’s special – 24 bottles of beers for the evening – up front and centre, without much indication that you can buy singles from behind the Soviet-era counter. The data is fairly clear that people drink less when the beer is sold in small quantities (e.g. by the individual can, as is typical for craft beer). The first step in seeing reform is starting.
Nothing that sees people consuming more alcohol is a good policy decision. Treatment for addiction in Ontario is pathetic and I feel pretty safe guessing none of this new revenue will be going to that. DoFo is like the asshole ex-husband that spoils your kids with stuff that isn’t good for them they’re not allowed to have the rest of the month. When meanwhile we’re being killed by grocery barons that Ontario is in bed with.
I worked at a 7-Eleven across the street from a university. It took years off my life. You expect a till jockey making minimum wage to cut drunk university students off? These are the same people who think nothing of starting food fights, smashing windows, upending garbage cans, or cutting open as many bags of chips as they can. That won’t end well. Also, Doug’s brother had substance abuse issues. This is unseemly.
I’m always surprised this isn’t the norm. In the UK almost every convenience store sells alcohol
Any reason you’re comparing to the UK and not the closer America? Always funny seeing how casually people can go into something like a convenience store and pickup some booze. Makes us seem so weirdly restrictive.
Because I am in the UK
Ah I see, you’re just commenting on an Ontario, Canada based post on a Canadian Lemmy instance is why I was curious :P
The glory of federation. Browse all, finding interesting niches
It varies wildly in the US. In some states Alcohol can only be bought in state run stores, in some it can be bought practically anywhere.
Why not get closer and look at Quebec where you can buy boose at any convinience store and gaz station and no one care.
Folks, I can’t get reelected with all these progressives being sober.
Does anyone not want this?
I don’t not want this, but I recognize how little a factor this plays into my overall life satisfaction. Sure, it would be neat for people who consume alcohol to be able to buy it in convenience stores, but this policy, along with this government’s pattern of prioritizing alcohol (1, 2, 3, 4) related policies is more than deeply concerning, when it’s so painfully obvious we need to be improving our housing, healthcare, and education systems. We have more pressing areas that need addressing that affect more than just the people who drink, so it’s honestly bewildering to see the conservatives focusing so much of their time on what amounts to only minor conveniences for people who consume alcohol, while the wallets of those Doug Ford is close with get major payouts.
I fucking hate that now I cannot go to the Farmer’s Market without some asshole screaming at me from his stall to come buy his drugs. This is wrong on so many levels.
Apparently there are a lot of temperance league members on this site.
Le league got started in Ontario…
I don’t blame them.
🙋
I felt our old system before sales in grocery stores was a good balance of availability and control. I don’t drink much now, but I used to be a heavy drinker and didn’t have any issues. Even in rural areas, there’s often a “separate” Beer Store/LCBO attached to local convenience store. I’m not advocating for prohibition or anything, I just see this as making the system worse as I’ve already seen through grocery store sales. Also:
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I’ve lived in ON(duh), QC, NS, MB, and AB and the provinces with centrally controlled liquor sales also had better selection. The LCBO is one of the world’s biggest alcohol purchasers and with less sales they could lose this purchasing power.
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While some might say this is removing a government monopoly, I see it as (due to the limited selection) consolidating power behind the biggest brewers. You see very few small wineries or breweries in groceries stores and I suspect you’ll see even less microbreweries in convenience stores.
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This feels like trading government revenue (which in turn pays for the healthcare needed due to alcohol use) and good paying jobs for private revenue and minimum wage jobs.
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While not perfect, the employees at the Beer Store/LCBO seem well trained and usually do a pretty good job of handling drunks and underagers. I’ve seen less ideal handling of these situations in the limited time groceries stores have been able to sell.
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I remember hearing years ago, an Australian gal talking about visiting the US and what she thought. One of the first things she mentioned was how easy it was to buy booze. It’s in most of our gas stations, grocery stores, and local markets.
At the time I assumed that was the norm across the world lol.
I’ve been to Australia and booze was very easy to get by, there’s even drive-thru booze stores there. They are however extremely strict on under-age sales of booze and tobacco and that’s a great thing in my opinion - the store gets shut down if caught.
Don’t even like Ford but this is pretty standard. These puritan era alcohol restrictions need to end.
Fuck please. Get more drunks out of my store
So don’t stock it?
Kinda hard to do when I work at the lcbo
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5917186
I’m sure his meeting with 7/11 in Texas did not affect these plans whatsoever.
Jesus everything this guy proposes is seeping in corruption.
