Some 7,000 unionized employees at the Beer Store are urging Premier Doug Ford not to make it last call for the private retailer by expanding brew sales to corner stores.The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada Local 12R24 on Friday launched a public awareness blitz against Ford’s plan to liberalize the selling of beer and wine.Three 30-second radio ads began airing across the province, blasting the premier for proposing “to spend $1 billion shutting down the Beer Store,” bankrolled by cuts to health care and education.“Premier Ford, keep your promise that no one will lose a job,” a male announcer intones in each of the hard-hitting attack ads.John Nock, the president of the union local, warned “the Ford government is creating chaos for communities by pushing ahead with corner-store beer sales.”“Right now, beer prices before taxes in Ontario are among the lowest in Canada due to our efficient distribution system to outlets that are equipped to handle beer safely,” said Nock of the 450-outlet chain owned by Labatt, Molson, Sleeman and about 30 small Ontario breweries.“Study after study has shown that beer prices will rise due to higher distribution costs and the usual convenience store markups,” he said.“That is what happened in Alberta when it privatized alcohol sales, which Doug Ford’s $1,000-a-day alcohol consultant Ken Hughes knows too well because he profited from it as a partner in Alberta Spirits Inc.”Hughes no longer has any stake in Alberta Spirits Inc., which is now owned by the company that runs that province’s largest booze chain, Liquor Depot.Ford and Finance Minister Vic Fedeli hired him to oversee the expansion of alcohol sales in Ontario.But Fedeli has emphasized that the government is not contemplating a sell-off of the LCBO, the provincially owned 660-store chain that has a monopoly on liquor sales in Ontario.Industry sources have told the Star th ...
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