Vancouver continuing to explore plan for more wine at supermarkets

Vancouver council is set to consider the next step in making it legal to stock wine on grocery store shelves, but only a tiny fraction of supermarkets will actually be able to offer this option to shoppers.

In April, council voted unanimously in favour of a motion that would explore how to bring the "wine on shelf" option to the city's grocery stores, creating an option more convenient for retailers and shoppers than the "store-within-a-store" model. The goal, according to the motion, was in part to "increase consumer selection and convenience."

A report from city staff is recommending a change to the zoning and development bylaw that would allow stores with a provincially issued license to sell wine, cider, mead and sake off the shelf, something already being done in a small number of stores in cities like Langley, Surrey and Richmond.

However, the province is no longer issuing new "wine-on-shelf" licences to grocery stores, which means in order for a store to sell wine, one of the 33 already issued licences would have to be "relocated" to Vancouver.

"Based on feedback from existing licensees, staff anticipate some interest in relocating to Vancouver - but not a large uptake at this time," the report from staff says.

The province began allowing wine to be sold on shelves in 2015, but only in stores that are 10,000 square feet or larger. All of the provincial licenses, except one, have been issued to Save on Foods or Real Canadian Superstore. According to the staff report, there are a total of 39 grocery stores in the city that are both owned by these chains and large enough to qualify for a licence.

Because of this, staff is not recommending any municipal restrictions on where the sites can be. This is in contrast to the city's guidelines on liquor stores, which "establish where and how many liquor stores can be located in certain areas of the city, and their proximity to other liquor stores and to other places such as schools, parks and community centres," the staff report says.

If the same restrictions were put in place for wine-on-shelf sales, there would only be five stores in the city that would meet the criteria.

"Although staff are not recommending distancing requirements that would limit the number of grocery stores that sell wine, feedback from licence holders suggests that the number of licenses that will be relocated to Vancouver if Council approves recommendations of this report is small," the report reads.

A submission from Vancouver Coastal Health opposing the potential sale of wine at more grocery stores is attached to the staff report. In it, the health authority says its concern is that increasing the availability of alcohol will increase its sale and consumption and increase the associated public health risks and harms.

"Regulating the physical availability of alcohol is broadly regarded as one of the best methods to limit consumption and is considered by the World Health Organization as one of the “best buys” to reduce the harms of alcohol use," the submission from VCH says.

If council approves the recommendation in the staff report at its meeting on Tuesday, the proposed bylaw change will proceed to a public hearing.