The doors of BC Liquor Stores are once again open and booze is coming off the shelves for the first time in weeks after the BC General Employees' Union (BCGEU) reached a tentative agreement with the provincial government on Sunday.
Not only are BCGEU members happy to be returning to work, but so are those who use their services, such as BC restaurants, which depend on the BC Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) for acquiring stock for their shelves.
“Christmas in October,” said Ian Tostenson, BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association (BCRFA) president and CEO, when asked for his thoughts on Sunday’s agreement.
“I guess we're really relieved, happy, we're happy that the BCGEU was able to get an agreement. They're obviously a very important part of the whole system.”
Tostenson said that the tentative agreement creates a sense of certainty and now the process to resupply the system as quickly as possible will begin.
“It's a big task,” added Tostenson.
“We think that there's probably eight to 9000 orders that need to be put into the system today…and that eight or 9000 orders represent probably about 700,000 cases of products.”
The association’s president said that the last time there was a BCGEU strike, it took three months to restock. That strike lasted a little more than two weeks.
With the latest strike, which went on for eight weeks at various levels of closures, the worst-case scenario is that it takes around five months to resupply the system.
"I think you'll see within the next two, three weeks, perhaps, the big items that everybody's been waiting to get their hands on, particularly spirits, because that's the one we had a real problem getting," he explained.
"That'll be in the hands of the industry, and then I think...the next stage will be the sort of medium to smaller volume products (which) will take time to get in the system, but I think the first part of this will really help our industry."
As Tostenson said, one specific area of alcohol that restaurants will be focused on restocking is spirits.
“I think most restaurants are getting really, really down to almost nothing for the spirits,” Tostenson explained.
“So that's all your cocktail programs and your Baileys, your Absolute Vodka, those are an important part of the experience.”
Tostenson noted that the industry had a good supply coming in from BC wineries and craft brewers, but not a lot of products were available from craft distillers. Craft distillers in BC currently face production caps, caps that, at times, hold back distillers.
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Tostenson explained that the hospitality industry in BC purchases about $3 million worth of alcohol every day.
“The amount of alcohol we did not purchase was around $150 million,” he explained.
“Now, parts of that were certainly picked up by our local producers, but if you take that $160 million, we would have sold that product at about double the price in a restaurant. So that's $300 million in potential sales that were lost during those 56 days of labour action.”
The news of provincial liquor stores reopening also comes just in time, as the Toronto Blue Jays are set to take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in game three of the World Series on Monday, a nice boost for the industry.
“If you have a good screen and a little bit of beer, a little bit of wine and stuff, it's probably a 15% pickup for the industry right now, which is great,” he added.
The series will see at least three more games played, including Monday's bout.
