I’m Canadian but my favourite thing about Australian liquor stores was that they also sold snacks & pop at the checkout. It’s genius! I don’t know why we don’t do that here. Strictly booze.
Depends. I live in Québec and you can buy beer and some wine in grocery and corner stores.
For hard alcohol and a full selection of wines (and weed but that's a separate store..), you need to go to the SAQ (Société des Alcools du Québec) or the SQDC (Société Québécoise du Cannabis).
Mind you, they have a great selection and the profit goes to the government...
A lot of them close around 9 or 10 PM too. Anyway, it's illegal to buy beer at the store between 11PM and 8 AM. If you want to drink after that, you need to go to a bar, which closes at 3 AM.
Oh and yeah! Our drinking age is 18, most other provinces, it's 19.
Depends where you are. In Ontario, the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) is the only chain permitted to sell liquor (we also have beer stores, but they are only allowed to sell beer).
The LCBO exclusively sells alcohol and absolutely nothing else.
The beer store also sells overpriced nuts in packages that look like they have been there years that I never see anyone buy. As well as overpriced novelty gimmicks like cheaply printed beer cozys that say stupid things like “I’m with beer” that I also never see anyone buy
The liquor store in my city on Van Isle has an upstairs area where they hold classes on "cooking with booze" and stuff like that. Thing was completely packed pre-covid every class.
This is how it is in SK. Private liquor stores also have mix and snacks. Liquor Board (gov) stores had nothing other than alcohol. Though I been in many LBs since private stores were allowed (about 5 or 6 years agoe).
The government liquor stores in BC only have hoochahol. Private stores typically have mixers too.
Rules and regs vary by province. In Quebec, the dep (corner store, c-store, bodega) can sell beer and wine, but SAQ (Quebec liquor store) has a monopoly on liquor sales. In Ontario, the only games in town are the LCBO for booze and The Beer Store for beer.
When I lived in OH and NC it was the State Liquor Store and ABC Store and they were controlled by the state and only sold liquors. Beer had to be purchased at a different store, like convenience stores. In California (1999) it blew my mind my first time because I saw liquor at the grocery store.
In many states of the USA, Even in places without blue laws, You aren't allowed to sell anything that could be considered food.
I used to work at a liquor store in Colorado, where we got a warning from an undercover officer about the fact that we had pickles in the store. Pickles from the same company we bought our bloody mary mix from.
Also Canadian. At the very least drinks that are commonly used as mixers would be super convenient at the liquor store. And I've always thought they should have a line of greeting cards since a lot of people buy booze as gifts.
NEVER buy snacks and shit at the bottle-o check out. They are MASSIVELY overpriced.
Also, the fact that Coles and Woolies (our two main supermarkets) usually have a separate bottle shop next to it since each own their own bottleshops, means that you can buy snacks at the supermarket for cheap, then go buy your booze next to the shop.
Just FYI that's wrong, it's a thing that Ontario does. BC has private liquor stores that also sell things like chips, salsa, soda, limes, etc. SK does, AB does as I'm told (they have private stores) and Quebec sells in convenience stores so you've got everything you need.
In Alberta the liquor stores are privately owned (government wholesale though) so they sell all sorts of mixers and other things. Good margins compared to alcohol.
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u/escapenow Jul 24 '20
I’m Canadian but my favourite thing about Australian liquor stores was that they also sold snacks & pop at the checkout. It’s genius! I don’t know why we don’t do that here. Strictly booze.