Iqalummiut will get a say this fall on experimental beer and wine store

The grim, battered exterior of Iqaluit’s liquor warehouse, where retail sales ended in 1975. This building is now a likely location for a government-run wine and beer retail outlet next summer. The Government of Nunavut will hold a public consultation in October to hear residents’ opinions on opening such a store on an experimental pilot-project basis. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

If residents agree, Iqaluit might host the territory’s only beer and wine store next summer.

Some 95 Iqalummiut showed their support for the idea by way of a petition they sent to the territorial government in July.

With city council’s approval last month, the territorial government will open public consultations on the question in early October, said Chris D’Arcy, Nunavut’s deputy minister of finance.

Changes to Nunavut’s Liquor Act, passed last year, allow the possibility of opening a beer and wine store as a “pilot project,” in one of the territory’s non-prohibited communities.

Iqaluit has been the first and only community to express interest so far.

“We believe there are two big advantages to opening a store,” D’Arcy told Nunatsiaq News.

“Reducing bootlegging” is the first, he said, “but more importantly, offering an alternative to having spirits – which we believe will reduce the harm by introducing other choices in beverage alcohol.”

“Spirits” refer to beverages with an alcohol content of at least 20 per cent, such as vodka, whisky, or gin.

D’Arcy confirmed Sept. 2 that a public consultation in Iqaluit is “still in the planning stages,” with a target date of Oct. 7 at the earliest.

“We would meet with special interest groups during the day, and talk to them about how we would move this project forward,” he said. Consultations open to all would take place in the evening.

Hours of operation, sale quantities, and location of the outlet will be open for discussion.

Offering beer and wine instead of a full range of alcoholic drinks falls in line with recommendations from a liquor act review task force in 2012, D’Arcy said, which emphasized the need to discourage bootlegging and the binge-drinking of hard liquor products such as vodka.

“We’re generally following the Greenland example from several years ago, where they saw large positive effects from offering beer and wine — a lesser alcohol content than spirits,” he said.

Increasing the supply of beer and wine at lower prices is expected to encourage consumers to shift away from spirits, which bootleggers would offer at much higher rates.

Iqaluit’s beer and wine store would be a government-run outlet. The most likely location would be the government’s liquor warehouse in the city, D’Arcy said.

“We absolutely want to ensure that we can close the store if we notice negative effects,” he said, “and we want to be able to do that overnight.”

Right now, Iqaluit residents must buy their liquor — including spirits as well as beer and wine — by ordering from the Nunavut Liquor Commission’s warehouses in Rankin Inlet and having them delivered by air.

Rankin Inlet residents must order from the Iqaluit warehouse, and residents of all other non-prohibited communities may order from whichever warehouse they choose.

Residents may also get import permits from the Department of Finance to buy liquor from provincial outlets outside the territory such as Quebec’s SAQ and Ontario’s LCBO liquor outlets.

A local storefront in Iqaluit would allow over-the-counter sales of wine and beer in Iqaluit for the first time since 1975, when the store was closed to retail sales.

Run by the Department of Finance, which has the authority to open liquor outlets, the pilot project would gauge the effects of the outlet in the community.

D’Arcy said it was too early to tell how the government would measure success or failure of the project, although one obvious measure would be through communication with police, “about what their experience is, in terms of taking people into custody.”

The government is hopeful that crime related to bootlegging and alcohol consumption would decrease, he said.

The territorial government must also consider effects of a beer and wine storefront on other communities.

“We have to answer any questions that surrounding communities may have, on how it may or may not affect them,” D’Arcy said.

Iqaluit city councillor Terry Dobbin said at city council last month that beer and wine stores could also bring added revenues to the government.

That, said D’Arcy, would depend on the volume of sales which itself would depend on how local retail prices compare to the cost of importing from the south and whether demand for bootlegged products would be impacted, he said.

“We really want to take baby steps and ensure that we have measured success with increased availability of beer and wine,” D’Arcy said.

“If there’s overwhelming support, then we will move ahead,” he said. “If there’s overwhelming discord or overwhelming disagreement, then we will consider our options.”