How Much for that Beer in the Window?

Beer is usually considered a working man’s vice. A cheaper alternative to fancy wines and single-malt scotches that is still social and will still get you buzzed. For many, a major benefit to drinking beer is the considerably lighter hit on the wallet found when drinking macro offerings.

Here in Canada the government enforces a minimum price on beer (with recommendations to increase  them!) that means even the coarsest swill costs more in Toronto than craft beer in the US.   The theory is that higher prices will mean reduced consumption and dangers from excess drinking. Hogwash.  That’s prohibition-era thinking and is specious at best.

Drinkers are already paying significantly more than they need to in order to plump up the Ontario coffers.  Now they’re thinking of asking us to pay more?

NO

I’m sorry, but just last night I found myself paying $13.75 for a single bottle of beer. Limited Edition and 750ml, but still more than I would pay for  a really nice bottle of wine in the States.  Picking up a 6 pack of  beer brewed just down the street is going to set me back easily $13.  I don’t drink swill, but even if I did $25 for the minimum price 2-4 is unbelievable when you consider just how much actual beer is in there.

The government is trying to stigmatize drinking and make it so prohibitively expensive that people will quit. Like smoking.  But the analogy isn’t sound.  The risks of smoking were always about second-hand dangers to the community as a whole.  There was little-to-no separate infrastructure for smoking (cigar bars and tobacco-only shops aren’t terribly common) and no real tobacco business in Canada, so the marginalization of smokers didn’t heavily impact large numbers of people.  People like their booze. Prohibition was tried and failed and the proliferation of bars and pubs on every corner shows that drinking is a popular past time.

If the goal of government is to discourage harmful behavior, then I want to see a tax on Timbits.  Mandatory gym memberships for all! If you don’t check-in at least 3 times a week, pay a fine.  I don’t believe it’s the government’s role to tell people how much to drink or to interfere in the free market pricing of booze, but if they feel it’s a legitimate safety and health concern, I expect to see other similar dangers addressed.