Liquor Control Board Of Ontario Research Articles

The impact of an alcohol policy change on developmental trajectories of youth alcohol use: examination of a natural experiment in Canada.

In 2015, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) authorized sale of alcohol in some Ontario grocery stores. This research evaluates the impact of the new policy on alcohol use patterns of youth in a quasi-experimental setting with two control groups. The sample consists of 2267 grade 9 students attending 60 secondary schools across Ontario (n = 56) and Alberta (n = 4), who provided 4-year linked longitudinal data (2013-2014 to 2016-2017) inthe COMPASS study. The study used the frequency of drinking and the frequency of binge drinking to characterize alcohol use behaviours. Latent transition analysis found four statuses of alcohol use: abstainer, periodic drinker, low-risk drinker, and high-risk regular drinker. The new policy had no negative impact among periodic and low-risk drinkers, but the risk of transitioning from the abstainer (lowest risk status) to high-risk regular drinker (highest risk status) among the exposed cohort was 1.71 times greater post-policy than pre-policy change, compared with those of Ontario-unexposed (0.50) and Alberta-unexposed cohorts (1.00). The probability of sustaining high-risk drinking among the exposed cohort increased by a factorof 1.76, compared with 1.13-fold and 0.89-fold among the Ontario-unexposed and Alberta-unexposed cohorts, respectively. Youth are more likely to transition from abstinence to high-risk regular drinking, and high-risk regular drinkers are more likely to maintain their behaviours in the jurisdictions exposed to the latest change in LCBO policy authorizing grocery stores to sell alcohol. When formulating policy interventions, youth access to alcohol should be considered in orderto reduce their harmful alcohol consumption.

The Dishwater Menace: Healthy Drinking Spaces and the Public Good in Post-Prohibition Ontario.

This paper examines inter-bureaucracy tension, negotiation, and resolution in the case of the oversight of beverage room sanitation in Ontario in the 1930s and 1940s. Both the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and various public health authorities claimed authority over the health status of public drinking spaces. But the LCBO had legislative priority. The ensuing debates regarding health and cleanliness linked issues of beverage room glass sanitation to a biopolitical approach to public drinking. Developing a more scientifically sophisticated approach to beverage glass cleaning required a balancing of administrative priorities. Perfect sanitation was expensive and complicated, and the LCBO's mandate demanded attention to the financial viability of beverage rooms. The LCBO needed to forge a trade off between safety and viability, while maintaining a public drinking system that dissuaded illegal drinking. The subsequent compromise in beverage room glass sanitation tied contemporary chemical sanitizers to the challenging economics of depression-era beverage room management.

An Exploratory Research of the Potential Strategic Benefits of Specialising in Riesling Grape: A Case Study from the Niagara Wine Region

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current business strategy of the Niagara wine region and to explore the potential of the Niagara wine region to specialise in Riesling grape variety. Questionnaires were administered to a range of different types of experts with a specialty in wine. Quantitative data from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario supplemented the core interviews. The results of this study indicate that differentiation through specialisation is the best strategy to develop the Niagara wine region. However, the structure of the wine industry encourages wineries to produce a vast array of grape varieties to cater to the needs of the domestic market. This has resulted in a loss of identity for the region. Though because Niagara Riesling is differentiable, world class, the most consistently awarded grape and unreproducible elsewhere, it is the prime candidate to become the representative grape for the region. By developing the Niagara style of Riesling and focusing on exporting small amounts of the variety, the region would benefit by developing an identity and increasing consumer confidence and sales.

Ethical Trade and Public Enterprise: Controlling Consumption in Ontario's Liquor Market

This article examines the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) as a form of ethical trade. Its unique public mandate, rooted in “con trolling consumption” and semi-monopoly, has been central to its relative success as well as its general disregard by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethical trade advocates, who focus on the actions of private corporations and individual consumers. Exploring the political significance of this oversight, its gaps and slippages, this article argues that the LCBO would do very well by standard CSR metrics, while also transcending them in several ways. The LCBO contributes billions of dollars to the public purse, acts as a form of “hidden developmental state,” negotiates prices with suppliers on the basis of “fair and equitable treatment,” and employs a unionized workforce with comparatively strong labour conditions. Recognizing this offers both a challenge to the dominant understandings of CSR, and the fantasies of a “harmonious market society,” while pointing to a wider perspective on a more transformative political vision of ethical trade.

Teaching Specialized Vocabulary by Integrating a Corpus-Based Approach: Implications for ESP Course Design at the University Level

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how to integrate two in-house specialized corpora into a university-level English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course for nonnative speakers of English. The ESP course was an introductory level of wine tasting for Applied English Department students at a university specializing in hospitality in Taiwan. Two corpora of wine tasting notes selected from the official website of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) in Canada, one for red wine and one for white wine, were compiled. Lexical density and vocabulary compositions were analyzed. The results show that the lexical density and the percentages of specialized vocabulary of the wine corpora were higher than in other disciplines. In addition, wine reviewers used different vocabulary to describe the characteristics of white wine and red wine. From the keyword analysis, terms related to cooking methods and food names appeared in high frequencies. Based on the corpora analysis results, vocabulary lists, the LCBO website, and the in-house corpora were introduced to the students as supplementary materials. The pre- and posttest results for vocabulary indicate that the students enrolled in this program gained significant progress in both content and language knowledge. Based on the study results, recommendations for ESP teaching and materials development are discussed.

Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44 by Dan Malleck

Reviewed by: Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44 by Dan Malleck Christine Sismondo Malleck, Dan – Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013. Pp. 305. Like all perfectly-titled books, Dan Malleck’s Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44, summarizes his argument succinctly. In a nut, the end of Prohibition represented a new, more moderate phase in Ontario moral regulation, one in which the newly constructed “citizen-drinker” became a participant in a complex and highly bureaucratic negotiation between political power and the body. From 1916 to 1927, there was a total prohibition on alcohol in Ontario and, as such, until repeal, there was no legal public drinking and no “citizen-drinker.” In Malleck’s view, this period was a legislative excess, since there was no room for negotiation. Repeal, therefore, represented the scaling back of excess and a move towards a more moderate approach. In turn, the 1927 Liquor Control Act requested that the “citizen-drinker” be moderate, too, unlike the pre-prohibition [End Page 268] drinker, who has been characterized as intemperate. Malleck sees the 1927 LCA, which birthed the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, as evidence of “temperance” in government—a neat turn of phrase and concept that fits in well with his Foucauldian framework. Since it’s tempting to begin a study of public drinking in Ontario in 1934 (when licensed beverage rooms were first allowed), Malleck’s choice to delve into the transition period from 1927 to 1934 is especially revelatory. Purchasing alcohol was legal, but only with an individual permit. Through this bureaucratic tool, which could be revoked at the discretion of the Liquor Control Board, consumption could be tracked and, to some degree, controlled. Individuals that held both Standard Hotel licenses and liquor permits produced the most anxiety for the Board, since they were in prime position to break the law and profit from semi-public drinking. Many hotel owners and employees were caught selling alcohol to guests who held parties in private rooms or, occasionally, in the public spaces of the hotel. We might assume that the repercussions for violating the conditions of both licenses would be swift and harsh and that hoteliers risked losing their livelihood with every quick sale of liquor. Not so, says Malleck, whose research involved reading every LCBO Establishment File in six jurisdictions—Toronto, Ottawa, Niagara, Essex County, Waterloo County and Thunder Bay—and revealed a pattern of paternalism and leniency. One woman hotel-keeper caught selling liquor on New Year’s Eve 1929 was told to be a “good girl.” So, although the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) is often portrayed as a tight regulatory agency, the control was primarily in the form of documentation and light reprimands, as opposed to strict enforcement. This is a significant departure from previous work that has interpreted the LCBO as an agency of tight social control. Malleck shows how liquor control was, instead, about disciplining subjects. From 1927 to 1934, pressure to allow beverage rooms in Ontario largely came from people who believed that making public drinking legal would give the economy a much-needed boost. Critics of the restrictive Liquor Control Act of 1927 argued that Ontario’s ban on bars and permit requirements made the province unattractive to American tourists, who were looking for a vacation from Prohibition. Four other provinces—British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec had more liberal public drinking laws and, as such, were more competitive tourist destinations. When America began seriously debating repeal of its federal prohibition on alcohol, Ontario opted to review its laws, too. Of course, it’s unlikely that many post-Prohibition Americans would have been enticed by Ontario’s sorry beverage rooms, since the restrictions were myriad and designed to make it as likely as possible that Ontarians would control themselves. Where many American states opted to allow cocktails, live music and saloon-style stand-up bars, Ontario’s beverage rooms could only serve small glasses of beer to seated patrons. These conditions, in addition to advertising and signage...

The Same as a Private Home? Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934–1944

Abstract: Along with regulating the sales of liquor in provincial stores, overseeing the manufacture of alcohol, and inspecting the public drinking establishments in the province, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario issued beverage licences to private clubs. This paper examines the challenges of regulating the activities of drinkers in semi-private spaces and asks how the lcbo applied the notion of public space to establishments that were not entirely public. The legislation permitting drinking in clubs appears to have been based upon a narrow idea of the elite social club. The administrators of the board quickly found that the residents of the province saw socialization in a variety of forms. In keeping with its regulatory activities in the public drinking establishments, the lcbo attempted to address individual challenges and problems based upon the unique characteristics of each club. It assessed club management, the type of clientele, and the activities of the club. It then evaluated whether certain transgressions or special dispensations would present a challenge to social order. In effect, the nuanced evaluation and careful application of the rules characterized the regulation of semi-private drinking in the province of Ontario. The article argues that, in contrast to Habermas's idea that the development of a public sphere resulted in freer public discussion and debate, in the lcbo regulatory activities, the term public implied an added responsibility to behave in certain constrained ways. At least when having a drink.

The Same as a Private Home?: Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934–1944

Along with regulating the sales of liquor in provincial stores, overseeing the manufacture of alcohol, and inspecting the public drinking establishments in the province, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario issued beverage licences to private clubs. This paper examines the challenges of regulating the activities of drinkers in semi-private spaces and asks how the lcbo applied the notion of public space to establishments that were not entirely public. The legislation permitting drinking in clubs appears to have been based upon a narrow idea of the elite social club. The administrators of the board quickly found that the residents of the province saw socialization in a variety of forms. In keeping with its regulatory activities in the public drinking establishments, the lcbo attempted to address individual challenges and problems based upon the unique characteristics of each club. It assessed club management, the type of clientele, and the activities of the club. It then evaluated whether certain transgressions or special dispensations would present a challenge to social order. In effect, the nuanced evaluation and careful application of the rules characterized the regulation of semi-private drinking in the province of Ontario. The article argues that, in contrast to Habermas’s idea that the development of a public sphere resulted in freer public discussion and debate, in the lcbo regulatory activities, the term public implied an added responsibility to behave in certain constrained ways. At least when having a drink. En plus de réglementer la vente d’alcool dans les magasins provinciaux, superviser sa production et inspecter les débits de boisson publics dans la province, la Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) a émis des permis de boisson aux clubs privés. Cet article examine les défis posés par la régulation de l’activité des buveurs au sein d’espaces semi-privés et se demande comment la LCBO a appliqué la notion d’espace public aux établissements qui n’étaient pas de nature entièrement privée. La loi autorisant la consommation d’alcool dans les clubs semble s’être basée sur une conception étroite des clubs sociaux élitistes. Les administrateurs de la LCBO se sont rapidement aperçus que les résidents de la province concevaient la socialisation sur toute une variété de modes. Conformément à ses activités régulatrices dans les débits de boisson publics, la LCBO a tenté de répondre aux défis et problèmes individuels en fonction des singularités de chaque club. Elle a tenu compte de la gestion du club, de son type de clientèle et de ses activités. Elle a ensuite évalué si certaines transgressions ou dérogations spéciales pose-raient un défi à l’ordre social. Dans les faits, la régulation de la consommation d’alcool semi-privée en Ontario s’est caractérisée par une évaluation nuancée et une application prudente de la réglementation. L’article soutient que, à l’encontre de l’idée habermassienne voulant que le développement d’une sphère publique se traduise par une libération de la parole publique et du débat, suivant les activités régulatrices de la LCBO, le terme « public » sous-entendait la responsabilité supplémentaire d’adopter un comportement modéré. Du moins, quand on avait un verre à la main.

Privatizing the Crown: The Exceptional Fate of Alberta's Liquor Control Board

A dramatic policy shift provides a means for understanding decision-making in governments. The privatization of the Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) in 1993 is an example of a radical governance reform whereby most of a policy sector was turned from a state bureaucracy to a marketplace of private firms. This article examines the decision of Ralph Klein's government to privatize the ALCB and the central roles that history, institutional configurations, and path dependencies, among other factors, played in shaping its policy decisions. Of all the provinces, only Alberta has fully privatized its liquor board. The rest of the provinces, to varying degrees, have both retained and reformed their publicly owned and operated liquor boards, the largest of which is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The unique policy outcome in Alberta was primarily a result of province-specific, temporally significant institutional and political factors. Liquidating the ALCB and establishing a private market to sell alcohol were relatively easy policies for the Klein Tories to implement given the weakness of the affected stakeholders in the liquor distribution industry. The liquidation of the ALCB was intended to demonstrate to the public that the new Klein government was dedicated to reducing the size and scope of Alberta's provincial state.

Potential for sustainability eco‐labeling in Ontario's wine industry

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the degree of consumer interest in an eco‐labeling program for the Ontario wine industry and determine whether there is a willingness‐to‐pay a premium for eco‐labeled Ontario wines.Design/methodology/approachThe study was a quantitative survey of 401 wine consumers in Ontario, collected at Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) retail stores and winery retail stores. Results were analyzed using quantitative non‐parametric statistical analyses.FindingsIt was revealed that while most Ontario wine consumers do not presently purchase eco‐labeled wine regularly, the majority (90 per cent) are at least somewhat interested in purchasing eco‐labeled wine and that the majority would be willing to pay a premium of $0.51 or more (65 per cent). Consumers also indicated a preference for a seal of approval style label with multiple levels that contained a website from which they could obtain detailed information on certification.Practical implicationsThese results provide valuable insights into wine consumers' purchasing behaviours and purchasing preferences with regards to environmentally friendly products. This information can be useful to those involved in implementing the Ontario wine industry's sustainability initiative, Sustainable Winemaking Ontario (SWO), and to wineries and winegrowers who are interested in promoting their actions taken to improve sustainability.Originality/valueThere is presently no published research investigating the potential role for an eco‐labeling and certification program for the Ontario wine industry, or any other Canadian wine industry. There is also a limited research on willingness‐to‐pay within the food and beverage sector.

Alberta's and Ontario's liquor boards: Why such divergent outcomes?

The provinces of Alberta and Ontario have chosen very different methods to distribute alcoholic beverages: Alberta privatized the Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) in 1993 and established a private market to sell beverage alcohol, while Ontario, in stark contrast, opted to retain and expand the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). This article examines the reasons for the divergent policy choices made by Ralph Klein and Mike Harris' Conservative governments in each province. The article draws on John Kingdon's “multiple streams decision-making model,” to examine the mindsets of the key decision-makers, as well as “historical institutionalism,” to organize the pertinent structural, historical and institutional variables that shaped the milieu in which decision-makers acted. Unique, province-specific political cultures, histories, institutional configurations (including the relative influence of a number of powerful actors), as well as the fact that the two liquor control boards were on opposing trajectories towards their ultimate fates, help to explain the different decisions made by each government. Endogenous preference construction in this sector, furthermore, implies that each system is able to satisfy all relevant stakeholders, including consumers.

The Rise of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario: 1985-2009

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last twenty years. Once a decrepit and inefficient retailer, it is now regarded as a leader in its field. It provides a high level of consumer value to Ontario’s citizens and, most interestingly, has sought to reshape their preferences with regards to consuming and purchasing alcoholic products. Such a dramatic institutional shift was the result of externally imposed expectations, as well as internally generated institutional variables. The political power of other retailers and alcohol suppliers in Ontario’s oligopolistic liquor retail market, certain fundamental organizational changes that occurred to the LCBO, as well as more ephemeral variables such as Ontario’s conservative culture, and long history of government intervention in its economy and the agricultural sector, help to explain the actions of Mike Harris’ Conservative government with respect to this institution. Such an interesting policy outcome in the Ontario liquor market complicates arguments made by some that government enterprises are unable to provide high value services to citizens, as well as the arguments of those who see privatization of public assets as a key characteristic of neoliberal-type reforms.

Leisure, Liquor and Control: Negotiating recreation in the beverage rooms of post‐prohibition Ontario, 1927–1939

Prior to the First World War, the saloon had been the traditional site of the blending of alcohol consumption and other leisure activities, much to the dismay of temperance and rational recreation reformers. Theoretically, by banishing the saloon, legislated prohibition severed that connection, creating the opportunity for the relationship between drinking and other leisure activities to be reconceptualised. The end of prohibition in Ontario, Canada, ushered in a new era of government liquor control under the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). These liquor control efforts sought to balance the imperative of social order with the demands of the consumer. Public drinking after 1934 was permitted only in the beverage rooms and dining rooms of Standard Hotels, and few other recreational activities could accompany them. In licensed hotels, gaming, gambling, music, and dancing were all scrutinised and either banned or closely monitored. The LCBO enforced a vision of drinking that reiterated a vision of the public drinking space as a community meeting place, while simultaneously separating immoderate drinking from other forms of recreation.

An Innovation from Across the Line: The American Drinker and Liquor Regulation in Two Ontario Border Communities, 1927-1944

This essay examines the perceptions of American drinkers in Ontario border communities as discussed in the records of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. It argues that Americans in the regulatory discourse of the LCBO represented “the other,” a stereotype of improper drinking behaviour leading to immorality and social disorder. While beverage-room proprietors courted the American drinker, the LCBO was wary of the American presence in border communities. Americans represented a pressure to violate the laws. With Americans came social disorder. This perception was not simply bred from anti-Americanism, however. Instead, this essay argues that the othering of Americans came from the perceived links between affluence and decadence. The American other in the liquor regulatory discourse was a distinctly different being than, and a decidedly serious threat to, the idealized Canadian.

Isn’t it time we found out more about what the heck happens around American liquor stores?

Isn’t it time we found out more about what the heck happens around American liquor stores?

Administrative surveillance of alcohol consumption in Ontario, Canada: pre electronic technologies of control

This paper describes the development of a vast bureaucracy of surveillance by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), Canada, and the categories employed in a vast social sorting operation of drinkers undertaken from 1927 into the 1960s. The paper deals fundamentally with list-making and its social consequences. These social sorts could transform the most private interests into public matters, recategorizing individuals and redefining their material possessions and property. However the Ontario "drunk list" was also known as the "Indian list" and the story of the LCBO is also the story of how the politics of race become diabolical. This paper thus exposes the georacial profiling of First Nations populations of the northern region and the bureaucratic reinscription of identity by means of then new technologies that enabled specific forms of social sorting: the folding together of lists, supported by inter-institutional cooperation through data provision across sectors, toward the pre-elimination of populations from the ranks enjoying legal access to alcoholic products.

Determination of ethyl carbamate in alcoholic beverages by capillary multi-dimensional gas chromatography with thermionic specific detection

A specific, sensitive capillary multi-dimensional gas chromatographic method with thermionic specific detection (TSD) combined with internal standard methodology to identify ethyl carbamate (EC), a well known carcinogen, in various fermented alcoholic beverages is described. The basic procedures for sample preparation were similar to a modification of the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) procedure, except that isopropyl carbamate (i-PC) was used as an internal standard. In the multi-dimensional gas chromatographic process, EC and i-PC were co-eluted on a polar capillary precolumn of BP-20, and then switched together to a non-polar OV-1 analytical column by the heart-cutting technique to resolve them and finally detected by TSD. The linear range of the calibration graph was from 10 to 550 ppb with a correlation coefficient of 0.9996. For a liquor containing 124.6 ppb of EC, the relative standard deviation was 2.0% and the detection limit was 1 ppb.

The Pricing Practices of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario: Reconsidered

Of course, economists are often suspicious of government declarations. In this case, however, we think it justifiable to take them at face value. We would agree with Breton (1969) who took the higher mark-ups levied on foreign wines as prima facie evidence that the LCBO was protecting domestic wines. While Acheson correctly pointed out that higher mark-ups might be consistent with profit maximization and thus could not by themselves logically be taken as evidence of protectionism, we wonder why a profit maximization hypothesis would not go any further than price discrimination between foreign and domestic wines. Surely the profit maximizing mark-up on sherries is different from that on champagne or table wines, so should profit maximization not imply price discrimination between these groups as well? Unless the costs of information regarding the elasticities of demand for types of wine are more expensive than the information on elasticity for foreign and domestic wines (relative to the increased gross profits from price discrimination along either of these lines) one would expect discrimination across types of wine to occur. Because of these inconsistencies, as well as the evidence regarding the other protectionist activities of the LCBO, it seems reasonable to us that the particular method of differential mark-ups (foreign versus domestic) and the consistently higher mark-ups charged for foreign wines are sufficient pieces of evidence to conclude that the motive behind the LCBO'S mark-up policy is protectionism, not profit maximization.

The Pricing Practices of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario: Revisited

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Revenue vs Protection: The Pricing of Wine by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario

Revenue vs Protection: The Pricing of Wine by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario