Beer will be sold at select grocery stores in Ontario just in time for Christmas, Premier Kathleen Wynne said at a press conference Sept. 23.
Approximately 60 grocery stores will receive permission to sell beer beginning in December this year. It will end the monopoly on beer that the Beer Store and the LCBO have held.
The Ontario government will implement beer sales in roughly 450 grocery stores within a span of ten years. Up to 13 supermarkets in eastern Ontario will have beer for sale by Christmas.
McGill University professor Robert David said beer prices may possibly rise based on supply patterns.
“Breweries generally prefer central distribution through beer stores, as this is much easier and cheaper for them,” David said. “In most cases, they actually pay for the fridge in corner stores, and this raises costs.”
“It is also much more complicated to deliver to a bunch of small stores than to one central outlet,” he added.
Hannah Roblin, a third-year child studies student at Carleton University, said she believes the changes will impact students negligibly.
“I think just in terms of access maybe a bit more will be sold, but I don’t think it will skyrocket,” she said.
Twenty per cent of the shelf space in grocery stores will be reserved for smaller breweries within the Beer Store network.
Wynne described these changes as a way of leveling the playing field and said this could be seen as a long-awaited holiday gift for some Ontarians.
