Publican

President's Message
by Poma Dhaliwal
It is perhaps the most tumultuous liquor policy
environment in recent memory. As the voice
of BC's private liquor industry, the Alliance of
Beverage Licensees (ABLE BC) remains committed
to what matters most: advocating for your
interests and protecting your investments.
With all of the legislative, regulatory, and policy
changes taking place in our industry, we spend
much of our time meeting with Ministers, MLAs,
municipal councils, and other government
officials, to share our members’ concerns and
achieve workable solutions. To ensure you’re upto-speed
on our policy priorities for 2016, here’s
a list of some of the key issues we are advocating:
Allowing Licensee-to-Licensee Sales
BC’s private liquor retailers are still prohibited from
selling products to BC’s pubs and restaurants. In
many cases, private retailers are better suited
and better situated to supply these customers.
Allowing “licensee-to-licensee” sales could be
an important business opportunity for private
retailers, and generate millions of dollars in
additional revenue for government.
This fall, ABLE BC received the results of our
economic analysis, proving that “licensee-tolicensee”
sales would be economically positive
for BC. We have been sharing these results with
government and our members. We continue to
fight to allow BC’s private liquor stores to sell to
the province’s pub and restaurants, the next step
in a “level playing field”.
Marijuana Sales in Licensed Establishments
In November, we surveyed our members on the
sale of marijuana in BC’s liquor primaries and
private liquor stores. The poll results were clear:
an overwhelming majority of ABLE BC members
support using BC’s existing liquor licensees to
sell recreational marijuana.
ABLE BC has had preliminary discussions about
the necessary policy framework with government
officials, including the LCLB and LDB. If the federal
government legalizes marijuana, ABLE BC will be
recommending to government that BC’s agecontrolled
liquor primaries and licensee retail
stores are best equipped to sell marijuana.
Improving LDB Wholesale Operations
ABLE BC has had several positive meetings
with the new senior management team at LDB
Wholesale. We have discussed solutions to stock
outages; how the LDB manages and forecasts
inventory demand; and how the LDB is working
with vendors to ensure industry customers get
access to the products they need when they need
them. While we all agree there is much to improve,
it is clear that the new team understands our
industry’s challenges and has set a goal of being
our industry’s “vendor of choice”. We look forward
to continuing our discussions with LDB Wholesale
on your behalf in the days ahead, to ensure LDB
fully understands the needs and concerns of BC’s
private liquor industry.
It is a time of transformative change in our industry.
It’s no secret that we are all stronger when we work
together, and that our membership base of nearly
1,000 licensees is a significant strength when
advocating for your interests with government
and businesses. For more information about
ABLE BC, our Member Benefits, and what we are
doing to protect your investments, please visit our
website (www.ABLEBC.ca) and consider joining
the Alliance, if you’re not already a member.
If there is anything else we can do to help, or if you
have any questions about liquor policy changes,
I hope you won’t hesitate to get in touch. You
can contact us any time at info@ablebc.ca or
604-688-5560.
4 The Publican