Purchasing alcohol: Drinking, and yes, we mean the alcholic kind (4)
Purchasing alcohol looks quite a bit different in Ireland and Canada, with Quebec being a bit of an exception, and closer to the Irish way of doing things.
In Ireland, you can purchase alcohol very easily and in many places. That’s not to say they don’t ask for ID in these places; they do. Also a Canadian visitor friend of mine, who wanted to buy some whiskey to take home, noted that you can’t purchase any alcohol in stores before 11 a.m. – seems reasonable enough! But in Ireland if you want to buy alcohol you can go to a supermarket, a local grocery store, or an off-license. Off-licenses sell alcohol only, a bit like the LCBO in Canada, except they are not government owned, but rather private enterprises. Sometimes off-licenses are stand-alone affairs, and other times they are attached to a pub, as shown in the picture below, or may form part of a store.
In Canada, the sale of alcohol is closely regulated, and (except for Quebec) it can only be sold in a few locations. In Ontario this is called the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), a crown corporation, and the only other place you can buy alcohol is The Beer Store, a privately owned chain of retail outlets. While the Beer Store is privately owned, the nature of government regulations for the sale of alcohol, means that the Beer Store commands a near-monopoly on the sale of beer in Ontario. In other provinces there is a similar set up, though because each province has it’s own control board, the names differ. The only exception to this tends to be retail establishments owned by wineries, where they have a license to sell their own labels.
So in Canada, you’ve got to be organised, when you need alcohol. You can’t just decide on a statutory holiday, that you’d like a bottle of wine, or very late on a Sunday evening, ’cause the LCBO and Beer Store type of establishments are going to be closed. Also depending where you live, you may have to walk a bit. In contrast, in Ireland, the grocery store type affair stays open late, and some supermarkets, e.g. Tesco, are open all night, in some locations. Also given the range of options for purchasing, a drop of the hard stuff, is never far away.
 A A pub called “The Malt House” in Dublin with off-license attached. This is quite a common site in Ireland. |
 The Liquor Control Board of Ontario regulates the sale of alcohol in Ontario and the LCBO is the only place where you can buy all types of alcohol. Similar regulatory boards exist in other provinces. |
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 Here you can see wine for sale in a Spar, a common chain of grocery stores in Ireland. |
 The Beer Store, also government regulated in Ontario, sells beer from all over the world, as well as stocking many varieties from Canadian microbreweries. |
 When you enter a beer store in Canada, this is typically what you'll see. The actual beer itself, isn't on shelves, but the brands available are clearly viewable. You then ask for what you want, and it gets retrieved from a back storage room. |
Hi,
Interesting post. But that isn’t the way you purchase beer in British Columbia. You can buy Beer in a private liquor store (they’re usually more expensive than government stores, but the prices vary), or a private beer/wine store (again, more expensive than government stores but the prices vary) or at a pub that has “off sales” which is the same as the off-licence in Ireland (usually the most expensive option, since they’re often the choice of last resort), or the government owned liquor store (which are cheapest, but oddly don’t sell cold beer … though they’re still much more expensive than in Quebec, for instance). In each of these cases no one goes and retrieves beer for you, it’s clearly displayed on the shelves and you get it yourself. Though of course the Liquor Control Board of BC still controls the distribution, so beer and wine, let alone spirits, are prohibited from being sold outside of those establishments (and of course licensed restaurants, pubs and clubs).