The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission is cracking down on B.C. wineries that ship wines to individuals in Alberta.
The has sent a letter to wineries advising them to cease shipping directly to consumers in that province. In response, Summerhill Pyramid Winery has on its website saying that it is no longer able to ship wine purchases to an Alberta address.
鈥淲e apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but this is outside of our control and we are obligated to comply with all local Alberta laws and regulations. You are of course still able to have your wine shipped to an address in another 91原创 province,鈥� wrote Summerhill.
The crackdown by AGLC comes in the wake of back-to-back disastrous cold snaps that have seriously impacted many wine growers in the Okanagan Valley.
Central Okanagan鈥擲imilkameen鈥擭icola MP Dan Albas calls it 鈥済atekeeping鈥�.
鈥淭he liquor monopoly in Alberta wants to create a firewall, wants to have a full, complete monopoly where any Albertan can only by through them. And it doesn鈥檛 matter to them that there are thousands of different types of wines from British Columbia that they couldn鈥檛 possibly stock on their store shelves. And they鈥檙e basically trying to stop anyone from selling their product,鈥� said Albas, who fought for years to get federal legislation changed to bring down interprovincial trade barriers.
Unfortunately, wine was excluded from the 2017 91原创 Free Trade Agreement between the provinces. Albas wants to see changes to the Canada Post Act to get around the 鈥済atekeeping鈥� by the AGLC.
鈥淚 believe that we should have modest changes to our federal law, in this case the Canada Post Act, that would allow for anyone to be able to ship, whether that be a private retail store in places like Alberta, a B.C. winery. Anything or anyone across the country should be able to use Canada Post to send a little something to their friends and relatives, so that they can try a little bit of our B.C. wine,鈥� he argues.
The notice posted by Summerhill Pyramid Winery points out almost all of its wines are available at Alberta liquor stores, but if they are not, customers can request them through the AGLC warehouse. That鈥檚 not the case for smaller producers.
鈥淟et鈥檚 point out the obvious. There are many small B.C. wineries that do not produce enough to sell to the BC liquor monopoly, let alone the Alberta one,鈥� said Albas. 鈥淪o when these kind of heavy-handed pronouncements come down, it鈥檚 usually on the medium and larger sized operators who have to comply with this because guess what? That鈥檚 a very big stick that these monopolies have.鈥�
