Beau's BYBO During Question Period - Queen's Park

Buy Your Beau's Online (BYBO). I wrote about the operation being shut down last Thursday evening, shortly after it was announced. The unique home delivery program that Beau's created with Operation Come Home, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting street youth, began on November 24th after getting the go ahead from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), and was subsequently curbed later the same day after the AGCO received a complaint from another brewery.

There was immediate chatter on Twitter, Facebook and a number of other beer blogs and newspaper websites that followed and helped to explain the entire situation.

Since Thursday, there have also been a number of positive messages that have emerged, including a number of tweets from Beau's themselves providing individuals following the situation with brief updates. One such update mentioned that Beau's was already discussing the matter with their MPP who then spoke with Premier McGuinty.

With the large media coverage, and due to Beau's being Beau's, this situation made it's way to Queen's Park question period yesterday, and while not available to view online through the Legislative Assembly of Ontario's website, Beau's have put up a video on YouTube that highlights PC MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) speaking about BYBO. MacLeod did a nice job getting the message across, and the Attorney General (Honourable John Gerretsen), while sounding like a true seasoned politican, did say that his government/office was looking into it and would be "... working out the situation as quickly as possible because we think it's the right thing to do." Video below.

Back in May of this year there were a number of industry representatives that sat in front of the Ministry of the Attorney General's staff (George Milbrandt - C'est What, Cass Enright - Bar Towel, Jed Corbeil - Griffin Gastropub and Session 99 and myself) where discussions took place about the archaic regulations in the Liquor Licence Act. The four of us were proud to hear that a number of our suggestions were adopted along with some other changes. This discussion, home delivery, was never brought up, but the conversation is long past due.

This may well be the situation that helps government to take another hard look into the Liquor Licence Act and how many of the regulations don't make sense in today's market place. The Act was created at a time when only a handful of breweries operated in the province and have yet (in most updated circumstances) to adapt to the growth in our brewing/retail industry along with the impact that craft breweries have on the province.