Liquor is on the menu for takeout and delivery

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This article was published 31/03/2020 (2012 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Days after the restaurant industry called on the province to provide a lifeline to their struggling businesses, the Manitoba government has announced it will allow liquor sales with delivery and takeout.

Similar decisions to allow alcohol delivery and takeout have already been taken in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Liquor can only be ordered with food and would be offered only by licensed establishments that sell food. Prices will be the same as dining menu prices.

Shaun Jeffrey, Executive Director of the Manitoba Restaurant & Foodservices Association, called the change “something that was necessary.”

“Especially today, with the announcement of mandatory closures of restaurant dining rooms, we needed this small ray of sunshine to try to provide some sort of an additional revenue stream for restaurants,” he said.

The province issued a public health order Monday ordering all food service establishments to close their dine-in services to the public.

The MRFA called on the province to pass this legislation last week, and Jeffrey told the Free Press that Crown Services Minister Jeff Wharton said at the time the province would work on it but provided no further details.

The association spoke with Premier Brian Pallister and Wharton at the Manitoba legislature on Monday.

“We have heard from restaurant owners who have expressed a strong interest in selling wine, beer and single-serve beverages through food takeout or delivery service and had already started the process of bringing in necessary changes,” Wharton said in a statement.

“These businesses have been significantly impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19 and by allowing this flexibility now, restaurants will be able to offer an additional service to customers when it is needed most.”

The province had introduced legislation in 2019 to allow liquor sales with take out and delivery but it had not been passed.

“We’re happy to see that they made it a priority, and took the legislation that had already been enacted, and made sure it had become a reality.”

Jeffrey said he believed the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the restaurant industry “permanently at this point” and authorizing takeout and delivery of alcohol was a way for people who want to support the local food services industry to do so.

“Restaurant patrons are asking for it,” he said.

“We’re just trying to give the public who’s at home practising social distancing, doing their best to try to flatten that curve, we want to provide them the ability to be able to partake in an alcoholic beverage while having that dinner ordered from a restaurant.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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