Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I've lived in Quebec for over 20 years, and have raised teenagers and young adults here, and can't say attitudes towards alcohol in this place have differed much over that time.
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Yup. I moved to Montreal in 2002, when I was 17. I was ordering pints in bars pretty much immediately and was never asked for ID. Everyone I know who grew up here was going to bars at 15 or 16. I don't think much has changed, all things considered.
I get the sense that the rest of Quebec is *slightly* more conservative than Montreal when it comes to alcohol. You can't drink in public places in most cities, for instance, and when Quebec City experimented with this during Covid, people went so wild they banned it again. But in Montreal you've always been allowed to drink alcohol in parks as long as you have a "meal" and there is only very sporadic enforcement of this. If anything things have become even more relaxed and you now see people drinking beer or wine pretty much anywhere, including while walking down the streets. During the summer you even see people having picnics with bottles of spirits and mixers.
Liquor licensing has become slightly more liberal in the sense that restaurants no longer need to serve food with alcohol. Back in the day there were a lot of bars licensed as restaurants that either skirted the law and were occasionally busted, or made you buy some very cheap token plate of food if you wanted to drink. No longer. Similar to Ontario, restaurants are now allowed to sell beer/wine for takeaway, although the rules here are a bit more restrictive – no pre-made cocktails, for instance.
Historically the laws in Quebec have been more liberal than in other parts of Canada, but interestingly Quebec hasn't changed much while the rest of the country is catching up. Soon Ontario will have more liberal liquor laws than Quebec. Craft breweries can't deliver or ship beer here, for instance, and local distilleries can't sell their product for less than it's sold at the SAQ. And you can't sell spirits or beer at farmer's markets, but you can sell wine or cider. There are a lot of inconsistencies and quirks like that.