How has the culture of alcohol changed in your city/province since you were young?

[Innsertnamehere]

Yup. As I already alluded to, public health agencies and agencies like MADD are collectively losing their minds about Ontario liberalizing alcohol sales. Just about everyone sees through it, but these organizations have strong lobbying wings which have until now largely managed to suppress any attempts at liberalization.

Wynne tried liberalization a bit in 2015 and these lobbyist groups and government agencies managed to steer the Liberals in a much more moderate direction which was so incremental to be effectively useless.

Ford is one to just do what he wants, which hurts his government on a lot of files, but works in some cases.. liberalization being one of them. He's also held alcohol taxes flat for the last 5 years after over a decade of sharp increases under the Liberals which have moderated a lot of Ontario's crazy alcohol prices, even if they are still higher than most jurisdictions.

Similarly a lot of the smaller regulations which fall under municipal regulation get caught up in local politics, which is dominated by seniors who almost universally do not drink or partake in drinking culture, leaning councils to be extremely puritanical with regulations.

Toronto council debated the alcohol in parks issue literally yesterday and the meeting was full of councillors looking to block it in their wards, and the regulation still restricts it to only a handful of parks in each ward. It's ridiculous. You can drink in one park, but that other park a block away? No, no, no!

Meanwhile most other Ontario municipalities haven't even bothered dipping their hands into it. When I go to the beach in Hamilton in the summer I still gotta hide my beer a bit since it's not legal.. Half the groups on the beach are drinking, but god forbid we legalize it.

[WhipperSnapper]

High school and university was so long ago. I'm confident that the number of young people drinking coffee is exponentially higher now. No one other than parents and blue hairs drank McD's coffee back then. Mind you, the quality of McD's coffee has also exponentially improved.

Drugs aside, coffee is a social drink like alcohol.

[niwell]

Smoking is also way down for teens - I highly doubt that high schools have a "designated smoking area" like we had in the late 90s. That being said a huge number of teens vape, which is a troubling statistic and probably worse than the occasional weekend binge drinking we did.

[niwell]

Even in Ontario attitudes towards drinking seem to vary considerably. Toronto feels a lot more like a free for all in terms of ignoring rules that are still in place regarding public drinking and things like to-go cocktails. When we're at our place in Napanee I get the vibe that you'd get stopped pretty quickly for drinking a beer on the sidewalk. Though drunk driving is shockingly common - the number of people who stumble out of the bar and drive home was a bit of a surprise.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by niwell

Even in Ontario attitudes towards drinking seem to vary considerably. Toronto feels a lot more like a free for all in terms of ignoring rules that are still in place regarding public drinking and things like to-go cocktails. When we're at our place in Napanee I get the vibe that you'd get stopped pretty quickly for drinking a beer on the sidewalk. Though drunk driving is shockingly common - the number of people who stumble out of the bar and drive home was a bit of a surprise.

Ottawa is considerably more puritanical than Toronto as well. Same with Kingston.

The only exception might be in deep rural Eastern Ontario where the libertarian "back off gubment" mindset overrides pretty much anything else.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by niwell

Even in Ontario attitudes towards drinking seem to vary considerably. Toronto feels a lot more like a free for all in terms of ignoring rules that are still in place regarding public drinking and things like to-go cocktails. When we're at our place in Napanee I get the vibe that you'd get stopped pretty quickly for drinking a beer on the sidewalk. Though drunk driving is shockingly common - the number of people who stumble out of the bar and drive home was a bit of a surprise.

This is the same in BC, but with Vancouver and Kelowna. Vancouver feels like a free for all to consume basically anything in public, but I wouldn't walk around in Kelowna with an open beer. You'd get spotted and ticketed quickly.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by niwell

Even in Ontario attitudes towards drinking seem to vary considerably. Toronto feels a lot more like a free for all in terms of ignoring rules that are still in place regarding public drinking and things like to-go cocktails. When we're at our place in Napanee I get the vibe that you'd get stopped pretty quickly for drinking a beer on the sidewalk. Though drunk driving is shockingly common - the number of people who stumble out of the bar and drive home was a bit of a surprise.

drinking and driving is far more prevalent in basically any area which is car reliant and doesn't have easy alternatives - especially areas without easy access to a taxi / uber service.

Many of my Toronto friends have 0-1 drink limits before they stop driving, while growing up in a rural part of the province, the culture surrounding me was more like 2-3 before calling driving off, and often even higher in some cases.

Drinking and driving anecdotally is also far, far more prevalent in the US.

Speaking of which - one trend I do see in Gen Z and even Millennials is a far higher rate of "law abiders" - i.e. the type who do not break any law whatsoever, almost religiously. I feel like most older generations have a sense of "some laws are meant to be bent" - but a ton of people my age (late 20's, early 30's) and below seem to have this attitude of "drive the speed limit, come to a complete stop at a stop sign, do not have a beer if you are driving, don't jaywalk" type vibe.

[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.

While Quebec (in)famously differs from the ROC on alcohol, I can't say the same for drugs where I find things are about the same as in the rest of the country, based on when I was growing up and also what I'm seeing today when I cross the river or travel further.

[harls]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Young people drinking less goes all the way down to high school. They just aren't as interested in it anymore. Other drugs taking precedence maybe? Hard to say.

Video games are taking up all my kids' free time.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by harls

Video games are taking up all my kids' free time.

Yeah and social media I'm sure. They are still connecting with friends and doing all that stuff, but instead of wandering around the mall they are in their rooms on snapchat or whatever. One in conducive to smoking or getting drunk/high, the other not so much.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by harls

Video games are taking up all my kids' free time.

They're still very young, then... They'll switch to social media like TikTok, that's even worse!

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Alcohol sales have been dropping on a per-capita basis for about the last 15 years:



And this is despite very large relaxations in alcohol regulations in this time.

Yeah, liberalizing liquor laws doesn't seemed to have helped stimulate consumption in BC. I thinks its a generational think. My parents always had a bottle of wine at the dinner table. I never do. If I go out to a restaurant I'll have a cocktail and a glass of wine but that's about it.

People my age with young adult kids say the kids drink even less.

[Kilgore Trout]

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.

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.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by giallo

I've always found the laws around alcohol in Canada fascinating. For a legal substance, there has always been so many caveats to its legality. This certainly depends from province to province as not all cultures in Canada treat alcohol in the same manner, but growing up in BC, alcohol always felt like it was quasi-legal. I would come back from a country like Malaysia, with its strict stance on alcohol consumption, and still feel like it was far more liberal in its attitude towards drinking than BC.

Coming to BC from Alberta I just thought it was so bizarre. I had no idea it was like this there.

As soon as I mentioned to someone at work one day that I walked home from the bar once in university, grabbed pancakes after midnight with a beer at a restaurant, then we continued walking home to get beers at the liquor store before closing... they were like wait... what time did you go to the liquor store?

Just before closing... 1:45am.

I never really noticed Alberta had more "liquor problems" having a liquor store on every block almost in some areas and later hours compared to consumption issues in BC, with stricter hours and less locations. I do notice more black market or illegal after hours stuff in BC due to places closing early.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Ottawa is considerably more puritanical than Toronto as well. Same with Kingston.

The only exception might be in deep rural Eastern Ontario where the libertarian "back off gubment" mindset overrides pretty much anything else.

Despite the old "Toronto the Good" stereotypes, Toronto strikes me as generally being the most disorderly and least rule-following place in Canada, outside of Quebec (and maybe parts of the East Coast? never been there). Maybe not in terms of any actual legal framework, but at least in practice based on how people live.

It's not just attitudes towards alcohol or how much people drink either, but a broader cultural trait. Moving to comparatively straight-laced Vancouver a few years ago (which is itself less orderly than most of the rest of Canada) was a minor shock - even if it's just the little things: people actually queue in lines for the bus, wear bike helmets, wait for crossing lights, go to bed early, sort their recyclables, and so on. Canadians like to follow the rules to a level that most Torontonians just don't.

[urbandreamer]

It was moving to Montreal in 2002, and Vancouver late 2003-04 which indirectly caused my severe reflux DX. In Montreal, I lived beside a dep which gave me access to a decent selection of local beers. In Vancouver, the DES culture I lived amongst at places like the American Hotel and Ivanhoe got me into hard liquor.

I am going to request the LCBO slap huge warning labels on all their products:

May cause Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease, Barrett's Esophagus and cancer.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Despite the old "Toronto the Good" stereotypes, Toronto strikes me as generally being the most disorderly and least rule-following place in Canada, outside of Quebec (and maybe parts of the East Coast? never been there). Maybe not in terms of any actual legal framework, but at least in practice based on how people live.

It's not just attitudes towards alcohol or how much people drink either, but a broader cultural trait. Moving to comparatively straight-laced Vancouver a few years ago (which is itself less orderly than most of the rest of Canada) was a minor shock - even if it's just the little things: people actually queue in lines for the bus, wear bike helmets, wait for crossing lights, go to bed early, sort their recyclables, and so on. Canadians like to follow the rules to a level that most Torontonians just don't.

My reaction to today's news that Toronto was increasing the number of parks in which you could legally drink was that it was basically catching up to decades of common practice.

[SpongeG]

I've been seeing a number of articles about how Gen Z aren;'t drinking as much, something like 20% less than millenials.

Young people aren’t drinking like they used to.

Gen Zers are drinking less than young people in past generations: about 20 percent less alcohol per capita than millennials did at their age, according to a report from Berenberg Research.

And many are forgoing booze entirely. The share of college-age adults abstaining from alcohol has grown from 20 to 28 percent over the last two decades, a University of Michigan study found.

The shift away from alcohol stems in part from a heightened awareness of the risks that come with drinking, from poor decisionmaking to addiction to negative health impacts.

Young people “are actually learning that alcohol is toxic to humans,” said Charles Smith, an addiction specialist at the American Addiction Centers Recovery First Treatment Center in Hollywood, Fla.

source

For myself due to medications I have to take I don't drink anymore and don't miss it, if I do it might be a few times a year and most likely a cider or sparkling wine.

I never liked hard liquor that much was more into beer mainly of the lager variety.

My local superstore added the sales of Wine and Ciders a couple of months ago, I see a number of people who looked shocked to see it and others browsing, a few get something but its handy I guess. They only carry BC wines.

[urbandreamer]

Or maybe it's just too expensive for younger people? Especially when you're paying $2000 for an apartment, $10k for a used car, $150/week for groceries, God knows how much for gym membership, movies,going out etc.

[Architype]

It's probably already been noted, but in the early '80s, BC was much more restrictive, all bars and liquor stores were closed on Sundays. People used to go to Washington on Sundays for a drink. There were places where you could not drink unless you were sitting down. I'd also never before seen pubs with separate entrances for men and women.