ANALYSIS: The simple matter of selling a case of beer in Ontario has been a contentious issue long before I first stood behind a stainless steel counter wringing my safety-gloved hands as people asked me tough questions about The Beer Store.

Once again, I imagine news items and interest groups are causing more awkward conversations over the roar of the bottle crusher and the crash of can bins as consumers demand answers about “foreign owned monopolies” and why they should be subjected to the prohibition-era relic turned corporate conglomerate we know today.

A report released Wednesday by the right-leaning C.D. Howe Institute took aim at The Beer Store along with the LCBO and smaller wine outlets for their virtual monopoly over alcohol sales. The study found that Ontario would improve its bottom line by allowing greater competition at the retail level, and that consumers in the province are being sold 2-4s of domestic beer that could be had for $10 cheaper in Quebec.

Almost immediately, Jeff Newton, head of Canada’s National Brewers, an organization made up of The Beer Store’s owners – Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev SA (which owns Labatt), Molson Coors Brewing Co. and Sleeman Breweries Ltd. – countered with an accusation that one of study’s authors is biased by his work on a separate beer study for the Ontario Convenience Store Association, a group lobbying for an end to The Beer Store’s monopoly. Now a new Beer Store commissioned study claims that Ontario has cheaper beer on average than Quebec when taxation is factored out.

Caught in the middle are the beer loving masses, a group increasingly inundated by polarizing messages from groups acting on behalf of the multi-million dollar stakeholders. One need only watch the attack ad put out by Ontario Beer Facts, where fresh faced youngsters make off with a bounty of booze as a seedy convenience store clerk shirks his duty to ask for ID, to understand the depths that each side is willing to sink to in order to garner public favour.

While I can’t speak on behalf of either stakeholder, what I can do is put my years as a “customer service representative” to work by subverting the tightly managed corporate message of Brewers Retail – better known as The Beer Store – and answer some of the questions often posed to me, in the same way that I would with a friend over a pint.

What’s that smell? Why is the floor sticky? What’s this gross stuff on the bin I’m putting my bottles into?

What you’re noticing is beer, wine, whisky, gin, and schnapps, basically the residue of every imaginable alcoholic concoction. The better question is why is there often a film of said residue coating the counters and floors of stores across the province?

The answer is competition.

The Beer Store is the only place where bottles and cans can be redeemed for their deposit. While the not-for-profit Beer Store makes a pretty penny managing recyclables, there is no monetary incentive for the company to improve its retail experience. Of course, the Beer Store is beholden to its big brewer parents who are reluctant to invest in store-level infrastructure. After all if Molson Coors Brewing wanted to spend money to make the store nicer, that could help the competition like Mill Street Brewery sell some cases. And we can’t have that.

Plus, it’s a dirty job sorting the TBS (the Beer Store) bottles from the ODR (Ontario Deposit Return) bottles. Have you ever tried to figure out how many sticky empty beer cans are inside a trash bag? I have. It’s not pretty. Entry level employment at the Beer Store means a lot of time getting up close and personal with mouldy stale beer, cases crawling with insects, and bottles filled with a variety of unidentifiable substances.

Are you really keeping beer out of the hands of minors?

Yes and no.

“ID 25” is embroidered on the uniform of every employee. Internally, the act of asking for ID is called a “challenge.” The number of challenges an employee makes per shift is often closely monitored by management. When The Beer Store says they take asking for valid ID seriously, I know first-hand that they are aren’t kidding. Failing to ID a mystery shopper has serious consequences for complacent workers.

Here’s where it all falls apart. A group of high school kids stands out in the parking lot, waiting for somebody who looks like they could use a few bucks. (It doesn’t take long to find one. For many of Toronto’s homeless, collecting bottles and cans and returning them to the Beer Store is practically an industry on to itself.) He’s going into the store anyways, and they hand over cash for a case.

Many of these “bottle collectors” are regular customers. I knew many by name. When I see a man who barely scrapes together $2 for a can of Laker Ice every day buying a nearly $50 case of Stella Artois, it raises a red flag. Training dictates that I inform the individual that purchasing for minors is against the law, but I cannot refuse to sell him the beer. On several occasions, I followed people I suspected of buying for minors out of the store where I saw them handing off alcohol to eagerly awaiting minors. My eye witness account of these transactions was not enough for management to allow me to refuse a sale. All they have to say is “I’m buying this for myself.”

Why are Beer Store employees so rude?

I’ve personally taken offence to this question on a number of occasions. I always did my best to serve my customers in a polite and professional manner and firmly believe there is no excuse for not maintaining that standard.

That said, I have witnessed behavior in the Beer Stores I worked in that I could never imagine happening in any other retail environment.

People included rotting garbage with their empties.
Full blown screaming matches would arise over who was first in the empties queue.
A man once threw cans at me, counting them, “one, two, three, four,” when I caught him demanding the deposit for more than he had.
My life has been threatened, and I’ve been called every name in the book.

Ask any Beer Store employee about some of their interactions with customers and settle in for a shocking tale.

While it may seem that my intention is to drag my former employer through the mud while it's under public scrutiny, that’s not the case. I stood behind the counter with many hardworking and professional people during my years at The Beer Store, many of them voiced profound insights regarding the state of the company and how beer should be sold in Ontario. More of them need to be heard.