New city liquor bylaw to limit sale of fine wines in Vancouver restaurants
 

:haha: :rolleyes: how embarrassing and does the city not want consumers to have the choice to dine and wine as they choose to? one step backwards

New city liquor bylaw to limit sale of fine wines in Vancouver restaurants

VANCOUVER - Imagine this: Out for a meal in a Vancouver restaurant, you spend $30 to $40 on entrees. But when you order a $45 bottle of B.C. wine, your waiter says: “Sorry, this is Vancouver; you’ll have to buy something cheaper.”

That’s exactly what could happen after Jan. 1, when the city’s new liquor licensing bylaw comes into effect.

An obscure subsection of the bylaw casts a regulatory net — intended to nab restaurants that are all bar and no food — that snares just about every other restaurant with a wine list aspiring to offer more than bulk wines. Under the bylaw, approved by city council Oct. 8 and coming into effect Jan. 1, the food portion of all restaurant receipts must account for at least 50 per cent of all revenues over any eight-hour period.

The city is imposing an annual $3-a-seat tax on all city restaurants, raising money to hire food police who will make sure restaurants comply.

That’s the death knell for upper-end wine sales at all but the more costly restaurants in town, says Ian Tostenson, president of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association.

“We are going into the Olympics; we want to showcase British Columbia; we want to showcase B.C. wines and B.C. wines are not known for being inexpensive so that could kill it. The waiter could end up saying ‘Sorry, I can’t sell you that $45 bottle of wine.’”

Wine lawyer Mark Hicken said in an interview the effect on fine wine sales could be dramatic. “If the manager for the night notices that the restaurant is running 50/50, then theoretically he or she should prevent customers from ordering expensive wine because that would throw the restaurant off for the 8-hour period,” he said in his blog Winelaw.ca. “As the Olympics approaches, this is a huge backward step for the modernization of wine laws in Vancouver.”

The new law is aimed at restaurants that operate as bars, contrary to the licence bylaw, which separates food establishments from bars. The city conducted an undercover operation to see how bad the problem was and found in once instance, a police officer was served six drinks and no food at a licensed restaurant.

“What the city is interested in is: a restaurant is in the business of selling food and liquor but a handful of restaurants have apparently been acting more like bars than restaurants. That’s what everyone wants to avoid here,” Tostenson said in an interview.

Tostenson is to meet with city officials soon over the issue. He believes the city will rewrite the bylaw. “It’s the unintended consequence of the city trying to do the right thing,” he said. “But it needs to be rejigged.”

The issue flared up when James Iranzad, of Corkscrew Entertainment, started organizing restaurateurs to fight the bylaw. In an e-mail, Iranzad said it’s impossible for restaurants to meet the new bylaw. Corkscrew operates three restaurants in the city: Hell’s Kitchen, Abigail’s Party and the Flying Tiger.

Iranzad declined to be interviewed, but a glance at the company’s menus shows entrees typically range from $12 to $21. Most wines are in the $30 to $60 range. But a bottle of B.C. red Nota Bene, at $78, would require a couple to also eat two orders of B.C. halibut at $21 each, plus one order of Moroccan chicken at $21 and three desserts to be within the bylaw.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/life/cit...148/story.html

Oh God. Nanny state here we come.

:previous: This is retarded! Honestly, I have gone to restaurants many times for an appetizer and a beer! What us going to happen to the Japanese and Korean restaurants where their entire premise is appetizers with beer/spirits? Those are the most fun places in the city IMO. Hopefully those places are listed as bars!

This is way to silly, sometimes the more by-laws and rules a place has the weaker it becomes.

Indeed.
One of the reasons I love China's nightlife so much is because there is so little red tape when opening restaurants, pubs and clubs. With that comes the occasional sketchiness like bad food, fake liquor and poor services, but more times than not this is self correcting. A place that serves bad food, cheaply made liquor etc. will not last long due to quick word of mouth thanks to the internet.

Why does Vancouver insist on wrapping more red tape around the city when there is more than enough already. This law seems so bizarre. How are you supposed to convince customers that their bill must have an equal monetary value of food and liquor on it? Ridiculous!

Before you know it they will introduce another by law that will take into consideration % alcohol on the drink you buy and then there will be some ratio calculation of % alcohol vs. quantity vs. price of drinks vs. price of food vs. calories and weight of food dictating what you can buy and then you will have to spend an hour of calculations before you order!

I just realized how bizarre this law is going to be to all of the people traveling here for the winter Olympics, especially for the Europeans and East Asians.

Oh well, good thing Vancouver is only a part of Greater Vancouver and if planning a fancy dinner where we will want to drink expensive liquors and for those occasions for a quick pint and snack I can still go to restaurants in every other corner of the metro area.

I agree this is retarded. I hope the City does rewrite it soon as the article suggests may happen.

I just don't even understand how you come up with this crap, to be rewritten.

Who thinks of writing it in the first place? Honestly.

"The city conducted an undercover operation to see how bad the problem was and found in once instance, a police officer was served six drinks and no food at a licensed restaurant."

Wow. That's the best use for a police officer's time?

Seriously, I can't believe the priorities at City Hall some days. The micromanaging of restaurants, bars, and music venues is killing a lot of what makes Vancouver fun (and if you think I'm being hyperbolic, take a look at what happened to Hoko's and what's currently happening to the Biltmore).

This plus any increase in taxation (HST) will drive me away from but the most elite of restaurants.

Seriously, it's like 2 steps forwards, 4 gigantic, idiotic leaps back.

Amen! Could you imagine if they were this attentive towards the homeless problem or gang problem? Rules like these choke off the life of a city and as others have said our bar/restaurant scene is far to restricted. Especially for a city with such great food and provincial pride in our spirits/beer! We should be embracing our bars and restaurants, not red taping them.

This is absolutely retarded! Man I love Vancouver but I get a feeling its nigh life and general sense of fun is being bastardized by a bunch of prudish puritans!

*whistles in astonishment*

This stinks worse than bad booze. Even the timing really stinks - especially with the Winter Olympics just around the corner. Wait until you start to get a lot of international visitors coming in and people wanting to order the good stuff to impress their hosts or friends.

This is really really stupid. What the hell, CoV?

Welcome to nimby, good time stifling, Vancouver. And then they wonder where Vancouver developed this "no fun" image?:koko:

Finally, something I can agree with you all on... does anyone know which councillors voted for this nonsense?

This is absolute rubbish.
City council *needs* to be held accountable for this ridiculousness. So a few restaurants are selling mostly booze... is this really worse than say... ganglang style drive-by shootups, or known gangsters living 4 doors away.

Lets get that cop to police toy stores too... better make sure those toy stores are selling at least 50% of their toys to boys and 50% to girls.

Going to play devils advocate on this. This will not prevent anyone ordering a $40meal from ordering a $45 bottle of wine. There are plenty of people that don't order liquor which buys leeway for those that would go reasonably over. This is for food primary establishments only, there is no doubt there are numerous places that are currently taking advantage of it and acting as liquor primaries. The complaints were coming from the liquor primaries as they had to jump thru all the legal loops and pay an arm and leg to get licensed only to see some cheaters acting the same with only a food primary license, which is quite easy to obtain.
This new bylaw isn't meant to stop a place like Guu which probably hovers right along the 50% range or might even be in breach right now. It's meant as a tool to shut down the obvious cheaters. I'm fairly positive that is how we'll see it enforced.

HST will lower alcohol prices. Currently the SST for on booze is 10% plus GST of 5% (total = 15%). This gets lowered to 12% with HST

I don't mind the city cracking down on Restaurants that are actually running as bars, but coming up with rules that punish everyone trying to enforce that ideology is pathetic. Can't the city just fine places that are breaking the "spirit" of the law (no pun intended) by being bars instead of restaurants and then let a judge decide. Last time I checked this is a tort society, not a code civil one, we don't need laws mothering every aspect of our lives. It should be a simple mater to bring an offensive restaurant before a judge and let both parties plead their case instead of using draconian methods on everyone to enshrine a principle.

That was my first impression of this new by-law. it seems like a justifable ends but the means to this end is simply asinine.