New Liquor Laws in Effect Today
Prince George, B.C. – Major changes regarding how liquor is sold in B.C. come into force today.
They are the result of the Province’s Liquor Policy Review and are meant to create new opportunities for businesses and increase convenience for consumers.
Some of the changes allow:
- All types of businesses, like barbershops, salons, book stores and art galleries, to apply for a liquor licence.
- Businesses to apply for a Special Event Permit, formerly a Special Occasion Licence, to reduce red tape involved in organizing events and festivals.
- Hotels and resorts that own a bar on the premises to offer guests a complimentary alcoholic beverage upon check-in and permit guests to carry their drinks from licenced areas directly to their rooms.
- Theatres to permit customers to consume liquor purchased on-site in both the lobby and licensed seating areas when minors are present, like arenas and stadiums.
Along with making alcohol more accessible the Province says it is committed to ensuring liquor products are consumed responsibly by implementing several new policies to promote health and safety related to alcohol.
Many stakeholders in B.C.’s business community – including Ian Tostensen, president and CEO of the BC Restaurant and Food Service Association – applaud the changes.
“The government has worked very hard to not only with the industry to make these changes that are contemporary, but reflect common sense and reduces the red tape burden. It is an incredibly complex task to change regulations, given stakeholder and legislative complexities, but this government is getting it done and we appreciate their focused efforts and positive impact this change will have.”
Comments
Totally agree, time to leave our antiquated liquor laws behind!
I don’t agree with the laws but then again I don’t imbibe alcohol nor do I hang around people who do.
Each to their own
Health and safety around alcohol but what about zero tolerance for drinking and driving?
I agree, expanding the number, and types, of businesses that are allowed to serve liquor to their customers will result in more people driving impaired on our roads. Not everyone who watches a movie, and drinks, will take a taxi home, same with getting haircuts, etc.
That’s right, adults can’t be trusted to make the right decisions, only the Government is capable of making the right decisions for us, Government knows best.
That’s right Peter North “IMPAIRED” adults can’t be trusted to make the right decisions! When people drink alcohol they become impaired, that means their ability to make sound decisions becomes impaired, this is why some make the wrong decision and get behind the wheel.
Can I clarify anything else for you?
Do you guys even know how many drinks you have to quaff before you are impaired? What does driving drunk have to do with having a beer while you sit for an hour waiting for the barber? We are finally catching up with the rest of the world
BH, are you suggesting that anyone who has a drink or access to liquor does not have the self control to stop before they get impaired? Not everyone who drinks gets impaired, seems what you want is prohibition isn’t it? You are the prototypical NDP’er, you want the Government to control every aspect of peoples lives. After all Government knows best!
“expanding the number, and types, of businesses that are allowed to serve liquor to their customers will result in more people driving impaired on our roads”
Where are your stats to back that up? Surely if that were true the Government would tighten, not loosen liquor laws.
“That’s right, adults can’t be trusted to make the right decisions, only the Government is capable of making the right decisions for us, Government knows best.”
Really, Sherlock, if adults could be trusted to make the right choices then we wouldn’t need CounterAttack programs and anti-drunk driving ads and laws. However, adults have proven that they can’t make the right decisions, so the government does have to make decisions for them.
“BH, are you suggesting that anyone who has a drink or access to liquor does not have the self control to stop before they get impaired? Not everyone who drinks gets impaired, seems what you want is prohibition isn’t it?”
As soon as someone says they are against unrestricted access to booze all over the bloody countryside, they are suddenly accused of being for prohibition. Like the lack of sweeping access to alcohol can be equated to no availability of alcohol at all.
Some of you people are stunned beyond belief.
You are taking that way out of context there Hahahaha. When someone quotes a “study” that concludes “stricter policies and higher taxes are better” you can’t get any stricter than prohibition can you? There would be no DUI at all and everything would be just peachy wouldn’t they?
Saskatchewan has the worst DUI rates in Canada
Quebec legal drinking age is 18, beer and wine is sold in corner stores and yet they have the second lowest incidents of DUI per 100,000 population in the country.
ht tp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/infographic-drunk-driving-record-in-sask-worst-among-all-provinces-1.1359384
Please tell me how that correlates to the studies posted hither and yon?
“Really, Sherlock, if adults could be trusted to make the right choices then we wouldn’t need CounterAttack programs and anti-drunk driving ads and laws. However, adults have proven that they can’t make the right decisions, so the government does have to make decisions for them”
Hahaha, so government knows best and needs to decide what is best for “the people”, sounds like you are a Kim Jong-un fan.
So Hahaha, sees the “out of context” references to prohibition and calls it, and then you slinky call his comment out of context… a great example you provide on your ability to “double speak”. Then you provide useless information on Quebec’s DUI rates being low when that province has a massive and extensive public transit system people can use as an option to driving while under the influence. So what is the public transit system like in BC, outside the lower mainland, to be used as an option to driving while under the influence?
slinky, your Quebec and Saskatchewan examples are nothing more than misdirection!
“Hahaha, so government knows best and needs to decide what is best for “the people”, sounds like you are a Kim Jong-un fan.”
Well, I guess since you decided to engage in an ad hominem, I can too. Obviously, you have a problem if you need to have access to alcohol every where you go. There are organizations that can help you with that. Seek them out.
The only difference will be when the constable asks the driver where they were coming from, won’t be “The Weshwood” it’ll be “The Hairshalon”,”The Booshshtore” LOL
that made me snort lol
Me too 😆
Make no mistake, the goverment has huge control on the sale and distribution of liquor. Why do we need government liquor stores? Talk about government waste.
No kidding, I was in Edmonton a few months ago, the liquor store I was in had over 700 different beers. When I talked to the sales person about the variety he had vs what we see here in BC he said that he could order mostly what he wanted because the Alberta government is a lot more relaxed when it comes to liquor distribution. Time for BC to catch up to the rest of North America & let go of the wasteful government monopoly on liquor distribution.
You don’t want the prices though, 12 bottles of Coors Banquet beer will run ya $32.00 + deposit + tax = $36.00. Same exact beer in USA costs $11.00 tax in.
Oh boy, I feel like such a grown up now that the Government allows me to walk from a lounge to my hotel room with an open beer without breaking the law!! I wonder if any of these Government clowns have been to Vegas or a resort in Mexico where you can walk around anywhere with open liquor.
Most people who vacation in Vegas, and especially holiday at resorts in Mexico, fly there, and don’t need to drive around, as you stated they can “walk” around. So why are you trying to compare that scenario where people don’t drink and drive, to what is very likely to increase up here? Apply some logic please.
Why are you equating this with drinking and driving? Maybe call up some conspiracy websites and see if you can find someone with similar thoughts to yours
Using your “logic” liquor should then not be available at restaurants, lounges, hockey games, rodeos, concerts, baseball games, bowling alleys, etc because people will turn into slobbering drunks at the mere availability of liquor and drive home. By the way, every time I go to Vegas I rent a car and when I am at a resort sure I do not drive but I can take my drink anywhere like a big boy and not have to worry about getting a fine for open liquor.
Slinky; LivingWater, myself, others are concerned that increasing the number, and types, of businesses that sell, or give out, alcohol will equate to more people driving while impaired.
I have read no comment here that addresses our concerns, perhaps 250news can interview an RCMP spokesperson, and/or someone in the judiciary, to see if they have similar concerns?
And what do you base this on? Using your logic increasing access means more substance abuse. Guess we should start prohibition which will fix things right?
We don’t live in a resort town which is what Vegas is. Do you think most other cities in Nevada let people walk around with open containers of liquor where ever a person happens to be?
Also, walking around in Las Vegas with open containers of booze is more complex than it appears.
ht tp://www.shouselaw.com/nevada/open-container.html
Surely I can’t be the only one who notices that the very same people that will criticize my decision as a responsible adult to have a beer while getting a haircut are often the very same people that will defend the rights of someone to shoot up drugs and OD on fentanyl on our streets and sidewalks?
Ha, good one!
Was on the news that a guy OD’d on fentanyl while driving down Hastings street, passed out and ran into a freaking cop car. Took 4 doses of naloxone to bring him around and two more for the passenger. This on top of a guy passed out in the middle of the road while behind the wheel in the same area and was saved by a transit driver.
But it is not their fault the poor little snowflakes are soooooo hard done by:)
Seriously doubt that a person is going to down a flat of beer while getting a trim.
Lol, everyone who has a beer is sloshed and driving around drunk. I wait over an hour sometimes at a barber and a beer would go over great while I sit and watch the game in his waiting room chair. When I leave an hour and a half later I might blow what … ? .001? I have a beer at my father in laws lawn chair while chatting for an hour, am I impaired, what is the difference between his front lawn and my barber? Does the RCMP need to follow me around now as I do have a beer once or twice a week? Might even loosen my wallet to give the barber a better tip
Love your retort, good! Those Fentenoyl guys should be taken to an island and dropped off. Far as I know I am a responsible adult, so all these other alarmists can hide behind their aprons. I would hope the establishments also observe their client and amounts and deal with it accordingly. Be interesting, but I am still for it. Plus booze is going to be expensive, so along with a 20$ haircut you have to include beer?? I would wait until I got home, too expensive.
Yah but, but……LMAO!
So true Hart Guy, so true!!
I sure don’t want to get a haircut from a barber who has been drinking though.
Try one with a hangover asking if you want the back of your neck shaved.LOL!
HG-not many that are using drugs on the street can afford to buy a vehicle so no need to drive.
Interesting to see so many running away from the new liquor laws subject, which is what this news article is about, only to hug a completely different, and non-related, issue about drug overdoses. The legal limit for impaired driving was lowered from .08 to .05, for most of us, two glasses of wine, or two beers, would put us near or at that .05 blood alcohol limit.
Again, and I must reiterate, myself and others have legitimate concerns about these new liquor laws increasing the number of impaired drivers on our roads.
Two beers over how long? How many beers is a guy in a waiting room chair going to pound back? Your argument makes no sense whatsoever
Tell the others it’s okay to feel that way……
Prohibition will get all those impaired drivers off the street and I bet the RCMP would back that 150 percent
BH: no one was running away from the subject! Just making comparisons to DUI in all the comments you have stated on this post.
I found the smoking gun evidence that these new “less restrictive liquor laws” will increase the incidents of impaired driving! “States with more restrictive alcohol policies and regulations have lower rates of self-reported drunk driving, according to a new study by researchers at the Boston University schools of public health and medicine and the Minnesota University School of Public Health.”
“A surprising finding of the study was that laws intended to prevent binge drinking — such as high alcohol taxes, safe serving laws, and “RETAIL SALES RESTRICTIONS” — were equally as protective against drunk driving as were laws specifically targeting impaired driving, such as sobriety checkpoints.”
These less restrictive liquor laws should concern us all, and I would hope this government is NOT putting business, and their revenue interests before, and above, PUBLIC SAFETY!!!
ht tps://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/bumc-rod071515.php
Yet you are all for pot smoking to get legalized. You have no issue with increasing impairment, just an issue with it being at a hair salon or book store. Maybe Costco can have a beer garden while the wife pushes a cart around for two hours. Win win all around
Your link does not state more people are driving around drunk. Just that prohibition and higher taxes are as effective as road checks they think. I bet I can find 20 studies that draw the opposite conclusion.
you read those?
I read most posted links to get an actual background as to what their study is based on yes, and usually find they are being used in a way that was not correlated in the said study. Unless it is a tiny url which could link anywhere and no way clicking on those. Any study based on self reporting cannot be used as an argument for anything, it could be used as a case for a real controlled study. Unless you are doing a study to find out how many people lie in a study…
LOL, the smoking gun. Reminds me of Jim Leahy on the Trailer Park Boys!
posted by a certain individual whose name I won’t mention but the initials are BH.
“I will head to the liquor store to pickup a bottle of wine, and then later, it will be a night out with my girls. :-)”
Bombing around town bombed in a Chevy Spark EV? Stop for a trim and a shave?
Sparrow, thanks for posting that comment! I had just remembered it and was about to look for it, but nice to see that you beat me to the punch!
I’m hoping that BeingHuman, oops BH, will take the time to address the hypocrisy in his recent comment and his comments today!
Come on Peeps, pull your head out of your butt and explain yourself! I need a good laugh today!
Maybe we can enjoy a beer outside at a public park by the year 2100. I feel like a kid when I’m trying to hide my beer from the police when I’m just chilling on the beach in the okanagan with my family.
Why is there so many studies that indicate governments with “more restrictive” liquor laws reduce the number of alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths and accidents (particularly among our youth), yet this irresponsible government ignores that evidence and enacts “less restrictive” liquor laws?
“Researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School recruited a team of policy experts from a range of disciplines, including law, sociology, economics, epidemiology, and psychology to examine the effectiveness of collective alcohol policies in each U.S. state at reducing alcohol consumption and impaired driving, especially among underage drinkers. They found that states with stronger alcohol policies had fewer alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths, suggesting stiffer policies that not only target youth but adults as well, may protect teens from accidents.”
“In fact, policies targeting the overall population of adults and youth — policies like taxes, “LIMITS ON HOURS AND LOCATIONS OF SALES”, and strict rules on drinking and driving for everyone, not just youth — appeared to be the most protective,” Hadland said.”
ht tp://www.medicaldaily.com/drunk-driving-alcohol-policies-reduced-alcohol-related-crashes-384477
Once again, another study that confirms “less restrictive liquor laws result in a higher number of alcohol-related deaths.” Parents of 16, 17, and 18 year old teens should be particularly concerned; because this study shows stiffer liquor policies reduced alcohol consumption and impaired driving, especially among underage drinkers.
Yes they found that states where liquor laws were more strict people are less likely to admit driving drunk when asked. Quite the study I should say
Where do you come up with these?
The study conclusion:
efforts to reduce alcohol-impaired driving should focus on reducing excessive drinking in addition to preventing driving among those who are impaired.
Man you found the smoking gun for sure this time
This last study was not about people admitting to drinking driving it researched the actual number of alcohol related vehicle accidents per state and compared those accident rates to how strict the liquor laws / policies were in those states.
But of course BC Liberal shrill slinky knows more than all those university researchers and doctors at Harvard Medical School, Boston University schools of public health and medicine and the Minnesota University School of Public Health.
One note on the last sentence in my above post on the Harvard Medical School study; I warned parents who have 16, 17, and 18 old teenagers, but since these loose liquor laws are now in effect for who knows how long, all children 18 and under will eventually age up to 16 years and start driving with these loose liquor laws in effect!
This is something we should be concerned about people, share these study findings on social media and with family and friends every where!!!
“Alcohol related” does not necessarily mean the driver was impaired, it could mean the driver did consume alcohol but blew under the legal limit.
So funny, you don’t read what you post?
The Harvard study was on underage drinking – not relevant here.
The second study referenced that included a link:
“A 2015 study found that in states where laws are stricter, people are less likely to admit having driven drunk when asked.” Click on the study and read the conclusion.
The third study looked at binge drinking in kids, nothing to do with this topic either.
But of course a NDP shill would see things differently, smoking guns indeed
Thankyou for clearing the air Slinky.
Slinky the study included research on “alcohol related vehicle accidents” and compared the numbers with liquor control laws / policies. Would that be reading or comprehension problem that you have?… or is it both?
Alcohol related incidents in underage American kids, yes.
Meanwhile BC has some of the toughest DUI laws in the country, and Canada has the toughest blood alcohol laws in the western world.
The studies I posted clearly show a correlation between stricter liquor control laws / policies and lower alcohol related vehicle accidents, based on all the available evidence, why is this irresponsible government enacting new liquor laws that will put more impaired drivers on our roads?
Is this an example of our government putting business profits first, and above, PUBLIC SAFETY???
it is all about rights and responsibilities.
people so often scream about their rights but aren’t prepared to live up to their responsibilities.
in this case
yes you have the right to drink…
and the responsibility to see you don’t hurt someone else as a result of it.
and that is what people forget.
Am I the only one that has a visual of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and his giant shears running through their head right about now? LOL.
Well, that was a hilarious read. NEXT!
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