The MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey smells something fishy in a government lottery to allow liquor stores to move their licences into grocery stores.

David Eby, the NDP's liquor-policy critic, told the Straight by phone that private liquor stores and B.C. Liquor Stores have only been given a four-week window to submit applications. He argued that this short timeline favours big corporations and stacks the deck in favour of the government moving its own liquor stores into supermarkets.

“The small family-owned businesses are not able to play in the game under the rules that the government has set up,” Eby said. “There’s not enough time to reach a contract agreement with a grocery store, to come up with a renovation plan in terms of putting your store in there.”

By March 27, applicants must include a scaled site plan with photographs, the location of the front-entrance door of the “store-within-a-store”, and a declaration from the grocery store. Eby said that it takes months to negotiate contracts, get them approved by lawyers, and hire an architect to draw up plans.

Under the government's rules, private liquor stores and government-owned liquor stores can transfer their licences as long as the grocery outlet has a minimum of 10,000 square feet of space, including storage, and is primarily involved in selling food. "If liquor sales are added, at least 50% of the combined sales revenue must continue to come from food," the government's notice states.

Liquor will not be sold in convenience or "multipurpose" stores.

Eby predicted that government liquor stores will end up relocating to grocery stores.

The NDP's liquor-policy critic suggested that this would allow the government to sell properties and get out of leases with its existing liquor stores, then apply any additional revenue from these real-estate transactions to the provincial operating budget.

“It explains why the small businesses are being shut out of the lottery,” Eby charged. “They can’t come out ahead or else it screws up the plans.”

When reached by the Straight last week, the minister responsible for liquor reforms, Suzanne Anton, said that “technically”, government-owned stores may apply to move into grocery stores.

“We don’t see it necessarily playing out that way, but yes, they could,” Anton said.

Eby, however, has a different view.

"It's very clear from the structure of the lottery that government stores are invited to participate," the NDP MLA said. "And under the conditions that they set up for the lottery, it's hard to know who else might be able to participate except for very large corporations, like grocery-store chains, or Liquor Depot out of Alberta."

He said if the government's intention all along was to move government liquor stores into supermarkets, it should have been transparent about this.

"We could have a discussion about it," Eby stated. "We might have come to an agreement that yeah, this makes a lot of sense. But the way the government set it up is to pretend that this is fair—to pretend that there was consultation when there was none—and to pretend that there was a lottery system where anyone can participate, which is clearly not the case. It makes people cynical about government. It makes them even more more cynical than they already are."

He added, however, that there are some good things that have come out of the liquor-policy reforms, such as allowing for the sale of B.C. wines and craft beers in farmers markets.

"There are initiatives like this that make sense to people," Eby noted. "The question that I have is what's driving the changes that weren't part of that initial liquor review? Where are they coming from? Prices are going up and our domestic wineries and craft breweries are paying the price for it."