The B.C. government has been presented a report with 24 recommendations on making the liquor industry more efficient.
In November 2017 Mike Hicken was appointed as liquor policy advisor to the attorney general. Some of the recommendations in the report include allowing non-stocked items to be sold without passing through a Liquor Distribution Branch, improve market transparency, and to review the mandate to put consumers and producers more important than LDB profits.
“An alternative distribution system should be established to specifically address the delays in distributing Non-Stocked Products,” the report reads. “The new system should allow Non-Stocked Products to be delivered directly from the third party warehouse to the retail level licensee (i.e. retail and hospitality customers) without passing through the LDB distribution warehouses.
“Since the overall volume of these orders is less than 10% of the distribution warehouse volume, there should be minimal negative effect on the operation of the distribution warehouses.”
Previously information about liquor in B.C. was distributed freely, but now it is more likely to only be sold, which creates an imbalance of information across liquor distributors in the province, according to the report.
“LDB Wholesale should, at a minimum, restore the level of data sharing and reporting that existed prior to the April 2015 Changes. In the longer term, such data sharing and reporting should be expanded. All industry stakeholders should have equal access to market data.”
The report states that BCLS Stores were mandated to increase profits, which has increased prices, and made things more difficult for private liquor stores.
“The current mandate instructions for the LDB should be reviewed and reassessed in terms of providing greater benefit for consumers and for industry. Particularly, the LDB’s mandate to increase its own revenue should not be a primary objective that is pursued without proper consideration of the consequences and effects on other parts of industry and upon consumers. The mandate should include a proper balancing of the effects on consumers, industry, government revenue, and health/social responsibility.”
The B.C. government will be reviewing the report in the coming months, then decide on what steps to take going forward.