The Ontario Public Health Association … cites multiple studies showing that increases in the number of places where alcohol can be bought in Ontario, and in other jurisdictions, have already led to more consumption and more of the harms that come with it, such as suicides, drunk driving, emergency-room visits and higher rates of cancer.
I enjoy booze, but I like that it’s hard to get. I don’t need any more encouragement to mess up my liver.
Isn’t that his plan, though, to make us all stoned and drunk as much as possible to ignore what he’s doing to our province?
It’s sad that our regulations about alcohol sales are so restrictive, but it’s unfortunately very necessary because of how our built environment exists. It’s correlated with drunk driving deaths because there’s not enough ways to get home that aren’t driving. We can’t really fix one without the other. I’d love to have a European-style picnic with wine I bought at the store on the corner, but that means at least 10% of the people on the road are going to be drunk driving at any given time which isn’t ideal.
Yo can buy wine and beer in corner stores and drink in parks all over Quebec and it’s not a problem. Ontario isn’t different, except for the persistent smell of prohibition (which started in Ontario!).
They said the same thing about weed stores and there hasn’t been any increase in accidents.
Those who want to drink will drink, making it more accessible won’t change that. It’ll be nice not having to drive multiple kilometres to get a sixpack.
Give Ford an inch and he’ll have crack in the convenience stores too.
I’m in favour of this, if for no other reason than the Beer Store needs to die, or at the least the sweetheart deal with the province needs to. Absolutely ludicrous that a company owned by foreign corporations is granted a monopoly over the sales of 12 and 24 packs of beer and distribution rights to restaurants and bars. They’ve done far too good a job of fooling the public into thinking it’s government run while they fleece us and lobby away our choice.
