B.C. government announces that grocery stores can apply for new licences to sell B.C. wines
Justice Minister Suzanne Anton has given grocery chains a holiday gift.
Today, her ministry announced that food retailers can apply for a limited number of new licences to sell B.C. wines beginning April 1.
Grocery stores will also be permitted to buy existing wine-only licences from independent wine stores and VQA stores and sell B.C. wines.
This came a month after the justice ministry had announced that grocery stores could buy licences from private liquor stores starting on April 1 to sell beer and wine.
Private-liquor-store licences can only go to grocery stores that don't have another liquor store within one kilometre.
The one-kilometre rule will not apply to the 100-percent B.C.-wine-only licences.
In each category of licensing, grocery retailers will have to operate a store-within-a-store model with a separate cash register. There will have to be a minimum 10,000 square feet and approximately 75 percent of the focus on food products and services.
Comments
1 Comments
Alex T
Dec 20, 2014 at 9:26pm
Why not BC beers? I wonder if it's merely cynicism to think that politicians drink wine but voting schmos drink beer.