Alcohol Floor Prices

The Quebec government is contemplating a bill that would set a minimum price on beer and other alcoholic beverages at bars and pubs. This law would be aimed at happy hour specials, which sometimes offer bargain-seeking drinkers (students!) draft beers for a dollar or two. The bill would set a minimum price of $2.50 on 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine or a shot of hard alcohol.
Quebec is one of the only provinces in Canada that doesn’t have such a law, which would put an end to Montreal institutions such as dollar taco and beers at Carlos and Pepe’s, Thursday shooter night at the Peel Pub and of course Concordia’s own “Thirsty Thursdays” at Reggie’s.
We are told this measure, encouraged and supported by the Quebec associations of bars, is designed to curb binge drinking and is taken for general health reasons. This is nonsense. This bill would not set limits on actual drinking; it would only make it more expensive.
The majority of the bars and pubs in Quebec undoubtedly have no problem with binge drinking – so long as we’re paying a higher price. Some bars that support the ban have used some very creative reasoning in assuring us this will actually cause them to lower their prices. So what’s stopping them now?
Worse still is the Quebec provincial government’s supposed concern. One of the saddest spectres in any bar is the sight of men and women morosely fixed on the screen of a video lottery terminal, slowly gambling away their paycheques.
If the government is really concerned with the well-being of pub patrons, it would find a worthier cause in getting rid of these paycheque-sucking machines.
Unlike dollar beers and shooters however, the provincial government collects a healthy revenue from these machines – making it easier for them to target cash-strapped students rather then chronic gamblers.
Ultimately it is the responsibility of every person to control their own drinking for health and financial reasons. It is certainly not the government’s place to prevent certain businesses from offering beer at a discounted rate to attract certain customers who otherwise might not go out as much to bars.
Moreover there are already laws against serving people who are drunk – so all this law does is hike the price of drinks. Introducing an anti-competitive and quite frankly anti-fun bill, does nothing but anger people who want to exert their right to have fun on the cheap, and the businesses who serve them.
There’s only one clear winner who would emerge from this bill: the more expensive bars, which won’t have to worry about having to compete with cut-rate competitors. However, there are many losers: the more inexpensive bars, who’ll lose part of their hold of the market, and most of all the consumers (students!), who’ll be forced to pay a higher price for the same thing.
Montreal, with its reputation for a having a vibrant, student-fuelled downtown nightlife, will be rendered just a little bit more boring, and a little bit less unique.