BACKGROUND: Most Canadian provinces have adjusted their liquor policies to permit alcohol to be included with restaurant and bar food take-out or delivery orders. The vast majority (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador and PEI) permit all beverage alcohol categories to be offered including beer, wine and spirits in their original manufacturer containers. Manitoba now allows spirits-based coolers, but has yet to allow traditional spirits.

ISSUE:With many jurisdictions reimposing restrictions on inside dining and other precautionary measures that impair their business recovery prospects. Many now believe it will take years for the sector to fully recover and, in fact, the sector and consumer habits may be forever changed. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates that 60% of Canadian eating establishments are at risk of permanent closure.

Despite innovative initiatives undertaken by many operators, the impending winter weather across many parts of the country will further reduce operating capacity with the closure of outdoor dining spaces such as patios, public sidewalks, etc.

Small independent local neighbourhood bars and restaurants are amongst the most vulnerable and all reasonable policy supports measures should be seriously considered in order to save the maximum numbers of these jobs and business operations.

RECOMMENDATION: Spirits Canada is advocating for the addition of cocktails made on the licensed premises to be in included in the menu items licensed bars and restaurants may include with their food take-out or delivery orders. Benefits of adding prepared cocktails-to-go offer many benefits, including:

• Encouraging operators to retain or re-employ bartenders and mixologists;
• Providing a critical economic lifeline to neighbourhood bars and restaurants by the addition of their highest margin product in most cases;
• Permitting operators to extend their full in-site dining experience to home orders;
• Further reducing the number of shopping trips by consolidating food and alcohol purchases by patrons;
• Providing a more economic price point for consumers; and
• Indirectly supporting retail liquor stores through additional sales to on-premise operators.

PRECEDENCE Many Canadian jurisdictions already allow licensed premises to recork bottles of wine for take home by patrons with safeguards for transport. Beer growler policies are often cited as another useful parallel that also demonstrate there is little unique in allowing licensed dining premises to seal beverage alcohol for take-away by patrons.

USA EXPERIENCE According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), 22 of the 33 American that allow restaurant alcohol delivery of beer, wine and spirits in their original containers also permit prepared spirits cocktails.

Chief Steven Casstevens of the Buffalo Grove Police Department and president of the international Association of Chiefs of Police has stated publicly that they have seen no increase in violations of open container laws since the introduction of cocktail-to-go and sees no issue with the policy from a laws enforcement perspective. Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Traffic Safety Association, similarly confirms of no uptick in violations of open container laws or other road safety infractions.

The personal testimonials by American hospitality operators of the importance of being allowed to include cocktails-to-go are many and varies, but we attach an example by Julia Momose of Kumiko, a Japanese-style cocktail bar in Chicago printed in the Chicago Sun Times.

“Part of getting cocktails to go approved was embracing the fact that this isn’t going to fix everything, but it is going to fix something,” Momose said. “All these little things that we do will keep us open and keep our staff employed.”

While specific regulations and policies vary by state, cocktails-to-go are generally sold in approved tamper-evident packages, are picked-up by the customer or delivered by trained delivery personnel and, if the latter, packaged clearly and distinctly from the food portion of the order.