LCBO workers believe booze will cause headaches for convenience stores

LCBO officials believe convenience stores and gas bars will get a real eye-opener when staff members need to manage liquor sales in their respective locations. 

Wayne Young is a full-time customer service employee at the LCBO in North Bay with 19 years of service.

Leadership at the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and its approximately 10,000 workers at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) who walked off the job on July 5, has said wages are not the main issue in the labour dispute, rather it is the expanded sale of ready-to-drink cocktails.

See related: Striking LCBO workers' stiff stance on convenient store liquor licences

Young says dealing with unruly patrons wanting booze can be a challenge. 

"We have fought to have a minimum number of staff at certain peak hours and at closings and opening," explained Young.  

"They kind of already deal with a lot of the same sort of people we do. And that's not all of our customers, obviously, but you notice that one or two or five or whatever, per cent of the problem people and where our stores are laid out in such a way where we can safely intervene when someone is being refused, whether they are trying to purchase intoxicated or purchase for a minor or even if they are trying to steal." 

Previous rounds of alcohol market expansion in Ontario have kept spirits sales in the hands of the LCBO, and OPSEU worries undoing that will threaten the LCBO and union jobs.

Getting ready-to-drink beverages in grocery stores even sooner is an attempt to undercut the LCBO and amounts to interfering in bargaining, said OPSEU president JP Hornick.

According to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, 21 North Bay applications have been approved for locations listed as convenience stores and gas bars, as of July 16.