what a pathetic species we are

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KnowItAll
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when alcohol is such an important part of our lives that we require it to be as easily accessible as possible, then that is totally pathetic.

it is pathetic how big a part of the lives of everyone who can get their hands on it all over the world.

it is truly pathetic that our social "need" for this stuff makes us oblivious to the problems it would and does cause others.

making life tougher for alcoholics, too bad.
making it even easier for children to get, too bad.
making our convenience stores even bigger targets for robbery and other crime, too bad.

just like with cross boarder shopping

costing Canadians jobs, too bad
increasing taxpayer cost for boarder control, too bad

all that matters is me me me

simply pathetic
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notahomer
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Not arguing with any of your points (I agree with many) but....

I think making this stuff illegal was one of the dumbest things our governments did. I had no idea but apparently at the time Doctors wrote prescriptions for booze during prohibition.

I had to make a complaint to the Liquor Control Board earlier this year due to the behaviours of customers coming/going from a local drinking establishment. Thankfully, I can say it was one of the FEW times in my life dealing with a government bureaucracy was successful once a hearing was held on my complaint.........
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Sir Purrcival
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I hear where you are coming from KIA. I don't really agree with you on the me, me, me, thing so much. I mean if I want to get the stuff, I can pretty much do it at will without a lot of extra effort. Nor am I convinced that it is going to make things worse than they already are vis a vis irresponsible behaviour. There are loads of liquor stores, beer and wine stores and such and in many cases they are located right nearby the local grocery store. The trouble is that I really don't like the look and feel of a lot of beer and wine shops and really would prefer the comfort and familiarity of my local Safeway. Many seem to be grafted onto local watering holes/seedy hotels and to be frank, I would be much more easily convinced that places like that might be inclined to look the other way when undesirable things are taking place.

Where I do agree with you is the "me, me, me" attitude of people who buy the stuff and then misuse it. Alcoholics have no problem procuring this stuff presently, Neither do kids. Those things aren't going to change. But if I want to pick up a case of beer while I am doing my grocery shopping, I would much rather do that and take care of all the items at once. It is efficient and harms no one.

You know where I stand on the cross border shopping thing. That is a matter of choice and when a whopping average 84% of income in the Vancouver market is devoted to paying the costs of simply living here vs a national average of 45%, I say all power to the shopper who tries to find ways to economize. Those numbers were on CBC or CTV last night, can't remember which.
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cromartie
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Not really sure what the big deal is. You've been able to buy liquor in grocery stores in Ohio since the early 1990s. This place isn't any more depressing now than it was then, and it saves those who choose to purchase a great deal of time.

This is opposed to the New Hampshire model where the states still run the liquor stores and you have to stop at a rest area in the middle of a freeway to buy liquor (I'm not making that up).

Recognizing these are two different countries, off the top of my head, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin (the four states I've visited the most recently) one could purchase liquor in grocery stores, within self-contained sections of grocery stores and with fewer hours than the grocery itself. Wine and Beer can be purchased with regular groceries within slightly less restricted hours. I highly doubt you'll find a statistically significant increase in alcoholism rates as a result of mainstreaming access to harder liquors. One can get just as drunk with beer and wine.
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cromartie wrote:Not really sure what the big deal is. You've been able to buy liquor in grocery stores in Ohio since the early 1990s. This place isn't any more depressing now than it was then, and it saves those who choose to purchase a great deal of time.

This is opposed to the New Hampshire model where the states still run the liquor stores and you have to stop at a rest area in the middle of a freeway to buy liquor (I'm not making that up).

Recognizing these are two different countries, off the top of my head, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin (the four states I've visited the most recently) one could purchase liquor in grocery stores, within self-contained sections of grocery stores and with fewer hours than the grocery itself. Wine and Beer can be purchased with regular groceries within slightly less restricted hours. I highly doubt you'll find a statistically significant increase in alcoholism rates as a result of mainstreaming access to harder liquors. One can get just as drunk with beer and wine.
In Newfoundland you can buy domestic beer from national breweries (i.e. no microbrews) in any grocery store or corner store (usually even cold in the latter, but no other type of alc bev, you have to go to the liquor store for the rest like here in BC). It's been this way there for as long as I can remember back to the 70s, perhaps even longer. I can't quite be sure but I think the "saves those who choose to purchase a great deal of time" angle is at play here because with a small, scattered population — we're talking about 85% of the pop of the city of Vancouver spread out over the equivalent of 13 Vancouver Islands — it can be a LOOOONG way to the nearest gov't-sanctioned liquor store.
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Toppy Vann
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In Hong Kong here you can buy liquor, beer, wine at 711 in a large variety of sizes and drink out in the streets. Very low rates of public drunkeness here or fighting and if there are fights in bar areas where it is typically expats not local Chinese. Here with local Chinese as in the Mainland despite being able to drink walking down the street it is not considered to be the most polite thing to do among some as typically you see workers having a beer on a break on a hot evening.

You can thousands here in Hong Kong jammed together and drinking alcohol and no problems! I was in a 711 with wall to wall people here at a festival time during Chinese New Year and an older man from the USA commented to me that this could never happen in the USA or they'd be fighting. He said he didn't need a beer but he and his wife wanted to experience what it was like to be in a situation like that and drink a beer.

Youth here are not the consumers of booze in public. Workers no. 1, then expats.

It is something in our attitudes in North America vs in HK and China where fighting is not condemned by westerners like it is here among locals here.

As to alcohol everywhere to replace gov't stores - some studies in Alberta apparently have shown that the mom and pop stores work long hours to make a living and you have more stores but not concentrated selection. Gov'ts often want to get out of the booze biz to drop well paid jobs to the private sector.
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Tighthead
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cromartie wrote:Not really sure what the big deal is. You've been able to buy liquor in grocery stores in Ohio since the early 1990s. This place isn't any more depressing now than it was then, and it saves those who choose to purchase a great deal of time.

This is opposed to the New Hampshire model where the states still run the liquor stores and you have to stop at a rest area in the middle of a freeway to buy liquor (I'm not making that up).

Recognizing these are two different countries, off the top of my head, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin (the four states I've visited the most recently) one could purchase liquor in grocery stores, within self-contained sections of grocery stores and with fewer hours than the grocery itself. Wine and Beer can be purchased with regular groceries within slightly less restricted hours. I highly doubt you'll find a statistically significant increase in alcoholism rates as a result of mainstreaming access to harder liquors. One can get just as drunk with beer and wine.
Those New Hampshire stores are wicked huge and wicked cheap though, and often you may be able to hit up a Dunkin Donuts nearby.

They actually do have smaller state stores in towns, but the big ones are impressive. I think on I-89 where you are only in the Granite State for about 20 minutes, but you pay a toll (used to anyway) and 30% of vehicle traffic stops at the liquor stores.
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Coast Mountain Lion
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[quote="Sir Purrcival" ]

You know where I stand on the cross border shopping thing. That is a matter of choice and when a whopping average 84% of income in the Vancouver market is devoted to paying the costs of simply living here vs a national average of 45%, I say all power to the shopper who tries to find ways to economize. Those numbers were on CBC or CTV last night, can't remember which.[/quote]

I have trouble with that. Last night CBC was talking to people who were buying 55 inch flatscreen tvs marked down from $1000 to $500. Yes, that's the typical thing the media pays attention to in things like this and Boxing Day sales, those being extreme instances whereas most savings are likely of much less significance. But people who are buying things like that aren't quite in the "struggling to make ends meet" category.

It seems to me that a lot of people doing it have some vague idea about sticking it to the greedy Canadian governments (while complaining about taxes) and/or the greedy Canadian businesses (as opposed to those great humanitarian US businesses). Same as those who convince themselves they're getting a better deal from private auto insurance or private liquor stores.
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Sir Purrcival
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Not everything is cheaper in the US I grant. I can't however condemn those who do shop in the US when there are some significant differences not only in prices but selection.
Bestbuy is an example.
8 brands of TV's available here, something like 56 different brands in Washington BBuy. Tires, we pretty much all use those, savings of up to 25% for a 40 min drive. That can add up over the course of a year. Not to mention 8.5% tax instead of 12. I pay my income taxes, I pay my property taxes and endure some of the other nonsensical taxes that we all pay. If I can save a buck or two now and again by shopping down there, then I feel I have the right. I don't break the law, I'm not trying to hurt anybody but I am not content to just willingly get stuck with artificially inflated prices because that is the patriotic thing to do. I'm not trying to punish local retailers but at the end of the day, my voice doesn't carry much weight with the governmental forces of the land. People have been complaining about the discrepancies for decades and what has that achieved? That leaves little option except to follow my own guidelines of what is prudent and fair. I appreciate many of the differences between the US and our country and I wouldn't want to live down there but in saying that, I don't mind keeping a few dollars in my pocket either. If retailers are feeling the pinch then they should be lobbying the provinces and the feds. There is something seriously wrong when I can buy goods made in Canada for less money in the US than at home.
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KnowItAll
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Every day that passes is one you can't get back
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Sir Purrcival
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Given that 2/3 of youth aged 13-18 have reported that it would easy to get alcohol from their parents supply without them knowing and a futher 30% say that it is easy to get the same knowingly from their parents, and 25% have reported being at parties where alcohol is knowingly being consumed by youth while parents are on the premises. Given that, how much of a problem is having beer and wine in the grocery store, really?

The other source of course most often cited is getting persons of a legal age to buy the alcohol on their behalf. Older siblings, strangers, friends. The presence of beer and wine in the grocery store will not change these practises either. In other words, the bad acts of people who knowingly break the law is a much bigger issue.

I wish that people would stop trying to make me some kind of pseudo parent. I don't condone youth drinking. I also don't get a say in how people supervise or parent their childern (rightfully so). Yet the argument seems to be that because parents are unable or unwilling for their own reasons to deal with this, that somehow, the rest of us must, by placing restrictions on what we can do as reasonable, rational adults. And to make matters worse, they are measures that are completely irrelevant to the larger problem. Tackle the issues of why youth are so attracted to illegal drugs and alcohol because restricting the supply does little to prevent acquiring these items to the truly determined.

I realize that in someways I have strayed from one of the original poster's point that we as a society place too much value on having easy access to alcohol. There is a message to be made here. It does seem as though too much emphasis is placed on alcohol being an integral part of having a good time. Nothing could really be farther from the truth as we all know that alcohol related deaths are one of the most common causes of death in young people particularly. We also know that alcohol plays a very large role in a host of other issues including a variety of violent acts, automobile deaths and so on. Hardly the good times that we often find common theme in beer commercials. KIA, you are quite right that there is something that ails in society but beer and wine in the grocery store isn't going to change that one way or the other. I would be fine if we went back to straight selling from the government. I seldom drink and then in very limited amounts. But at the same time, putting beer and wine in grocery stores isn't going to be the ruination of us either.

Education is the key, both at home and in schools. Alcohol isn't glamorous or sophisticated and even though being a member of the Weiserhood might look appealing, the ability to drink whisky doesn't make anyone a man (or woman being current for the times). Change the message about what alcohol is and isn't. That should be the objective.

We've been able to make great strides with smoking, alcohol shouldn't be any different.
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Lions4ever
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I want all beer, wine, spirits in grocery and corner stores. I want it without the excessive tax and markup gouging. I really don't give a f*** what teenagers do. Who cares?
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KnowItAll
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Lions4ever wrote:I want all beer, wine, spirits in grocery and corner stores. I want it without the excessive tax and markup gouging. I really don't give a f*** what teenagers do. Who cares?
I do
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Lions4ever
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KnowItAll wrote:
Lions4ever wrote:I want all beer, wine, spirits in grocery and corner stores. I want it without the excessive tax and markup gouging. I really don't give a f*** what teenagers do. Who cares?
I do
And I do not.
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KnowItAll
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Lions4ever wrote:
KnowItAll wrote:
Lions4ever wrote:I want all beer, wine, spirits in grocery and corner stores. I want it without the excessive tax and markup gouging. I really don't give a f*** what teenagers do. Who cares?
I do
And I do not.
so, if some drunk teens go on a vandalizing spree which includes your property, you don't care
if they also assault you or your family or your friends or your neighbours, you don't care
if their being drunk also leads to theirs or someone elses death, you don't care

is that the jist of it?
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