Hamilton restaurants sell booze to-go — and a century of liquor laws are upended

In April, Dave Fauteux, the owner of Bon Temps, a gourmet restaurant in Corktown offering traditional French cuisine, arranged a small retail space at the front of his shop. Organized by country, the shelves hold wines of a broad geographical diversity: a Malbec from Argentina, some reds from France's Bordeaux region, a simple Pinot Noir from Napa Valley.

It was the first time he could sell these bottles to customers for takeout.

We've been selling this stuff since the government gave us the green light," Fauteux says. Now people stop in to pick up a bottle of wine that night without even getting food."

Until the pandemic began, the nearby LCBO in Jackson Square - like any other government-owned liquor store in Hamilton - hadn't had much competition since the Great Depression. Since 1927, Ontario's strict regulatory laws have given the stores a monopoly, effectively, on liquor sales across the province - and only recently has that begun to change.

When lockdowns were first put in place last March, the Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) introduced new rules permitting businesses with a liquor license to sell booze to customers, effectively upending nearly a century of established regulatory policy.

The sudden liberalization, designed to help struggling businesses, allows every licensed facility in Ontario to sell beer, wine and spirits for consumption at home.

Ontario's vibrant hospitality sector and its workers have been hard hit by COVID-19 in every community across our province," said Attorney General Doug Downey in a December announcement.

We're building on the actions we took early in the pandemic to support local restaurants, bars and other businesses by providing permanent help to workers and small businesses as they face these ongoing challenges.

Downey says these changes are here to stay.

Already, restaurants and takeout joints are looking to permanently incorporate booze sales into their business model.

At Caro, an Italian restaurant with locations on Ottawa Street and James North, customers can order a range of cocktails and take-home kits. The Jolly Cut Cocktail," for $13, involves enough syrup and alcohol to make 16 drinks. Those who don't want to do the prep work can walk out of the store with a pre-made Negroni for $10.

Most offerings at Bon Temps range between $30 and $40, but bottles can go for as little as $15, the typical price of a cheap wine at the LCBO.

I don't want to be presumptuous and assume everyone's coming to buy a $30 bottle. Not everybody shops in the LCBO's Vintage section," Fauteux says. So we make sure to have some cheap cheerful options as well."

The province still has a ways to go before it fits the mould of a deregulated system akin to Quebec or the United States. Alcohol cannot be purchased in corner stores, and Ontario's Crown corporation will remain the predominant seller of booze to-go for a long time. But the pandemic has paved the way for a different approach to liquor laws in Ontario nonetheless.

Now, Fauteux hopes to make the retail space at the front of the store a fixture long after the pandemic is over.

It's something I really want to keep. The only challenge is going to be making the restaurant cosy even with this new retail element at the front," he says.

Jacob Lorinc is a Hamilton-based reporter covering business for The Spectator. The funding allows him to report on stories about education.