Only two of Vancouver’s 53 large grocery stores are far enough away from an existing liquor store that they would be allowed to sell booze under new rules proposed by the B.C. government.
Last week, B.C. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton announced the province will allow grocery stores to sell hard alcohol and beer inside grocery stores using a “store-within-a-store” model that would require a separate checkout.
But a rule banning new liquor retailers within one kilometre of existing public or private stores means it could be a long time before you can pick up beer at your local Save-On or Safeway.
Of the 53 grocery stores in the City of Vancouver, only two are more than one kilometre away from an existing liquor store: the Choices outlets on West 16th and West 57th. In fact, most grocery stores in Vancouver are less than 150 metres from a liquor store.
Tyler Romano, a spokesman for Vancouver-based Choices, was surprised to hear his chain’s stores were the only two to make the cut. He said Choices would take steps to renovate the two locations, the chain’s largest, to accommodate liquor sales.
“We’ve been waiting to see what happens so we can see which stores can be renovated,” he said. “(The store on West 16th) is our flagship and we recently did expand it, so it’s definitely feasible.”
B.C. government spokesman Jeff Groot said the one-kilometre rule shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance for other grocery stores because they can simply buy out the store near them, or go into business together.
“If this is something grocery stores want and private licensees see as valuable, they’re going to find a way to make it happen,” said Groot. “If it’s really profitable to (the grocery store’s) bottom line to sell liquor, and they make the liquor store an offer they can’t refuse, they’ll have the opportunity to transfer that license.”
But it may not be as simple as that because, at least in Vancouver, most grocery stores have multiple liquor stores within a one-kilometre radius.
For example, according to The Sun’s analysis, 39 of the 53 grocery stores in Vancouver have at least two liquor stores within a one-kilometre radius, and 28 — more than half — have at least three. In downtown Vancouver, some grocery stores have more than 10 liquor stores within a kilometre of their location.
The ministry said in an email that there are already regulations in place allowing liquor stores that are closer than one kilometre to another store to move within that one-kilometre radius, as long as they move further away from the other store rather than closer.
It’s unclear, though, how those rules would apply to grocery stores, especially in cases like downtown Vancouver where a license could be moving further away from one store but closer to another.
NDP liquor policy critic Shane Simpson said he worries that the need for grocery stores to partner with or buy out their competitors before selling booze means private operators may profit handsomely from simply flipping their liquor permits.
“Currently, license purchases are more about buying the store with the license,” he said. “Now the store is just not that important anymore. The piece of paper is. And I think that is a problem.”
The province has had a rule forbidding new private liquor stores from opening within a kilometre of an existing store since 2010, although older stores that were already closer together were grandfathered in.
“It’s so you don’t have this massive concentration of liquor … a whole bunch of licenses flooding the Lower Mainland because people see the opportunity there,” said Groot. “It maintains that balance between health and safety.”
The one-kilometre rule does not take into account population density, so it’s the same restriction in both downtown Vancouver and northern B.C. Groot said licenses don’t restrict the size of a store, so those serving higher-density neighbourhoods can be bigger if they wish.
In addition to not permitting grocery stores to sell booze within a kilometre of existing stores, the province will also cap the total number of private liquor licenses in B.C. at 670. That means, even if a grocery store is more than a kilometre from an existing store, it will still have to acquire a license from an existing operator.
However, the province is removing a rule that a licence can only be transferred within five kilometres of its original location, meaning licenses could be moved from one city to another.
The province will also issue a limited number of new licences to allow grocery stores to sell VQA-certified B.C. wines on store shelves without a separate checkout.
The B.C. government has not yet defined what will qualify as a “grocery store” under the new rules, but has made it clear that convenience stores will not be included.
For its analysis, The Sun used businesses classified as “Retail Dealer — Grocery” in business-license data published on the City of Vancouver website.
While The Sun’s analysis was limited to Vancouver, Stephen Harris, spokesman for the B.C. Private Liquor Store Association, said even in rural areas, liquor stores tend to be located close to grocery stores because they are such high-traffic areas.
“If you go outside Vancouver, it’s hard to find a grocery store that doesn’t have a liquor store literally in the same plaza,” said Harris, whose group opposes grocery-store liquor sales.
Ryan Brideau, who works for a software company in Fredericton, N.B., analyzed the grocery-store location data on The Sun’s behalf using a software program he developed.
