Vancouver councillor wants city to allow B.C. wine on grocery store shelves

Other municipalities have embraced it. Now, a city councillor says it’s time for Vancouver to allow B.C. wine to be sold on grocery store shelves, and checked out at regular cashiers.

“We think Vancouverites are ready to have this,” said Coun. Mike Klassen. “Vancouver is really just trying to catch up with what all of its neighbours have been doing.”

Since provincial liquor laws changed to permit B.C. wine on grocery store shelves back in 2015, many cities including Surrey, Langley, Delta, North Vancouver and Coquitlam have welcomed it. But the city of Vancouver only allows the “store within a store model.”

“The store-in-store model is considered to be very expensive, which is why you almost never see it,” said Klassen, adding it requires stores to have walls separating grocery from liquor sales, a dedicated cashier, and customers to make separate purchases for food and wine.

“We think it’s about time to have this wine-on-shelf experience for Vancouverites, said Klassen. “That means when you’re buying your fruits and vegetables and your staples for an average meal, you can walk down a grocery store aisle and select a B.C. VQA wine.”

Next week, Klassen will introduce a motion at city council that asks staff to look at changing the bylaw. And with his ABC party holding a large majority on council, he expects that motion will easily pass.

“I think city staff are going to be ready to do this, and then of course it’s the retailers themselves who are going to have to make the next move,” said Klassen.

Miles Prodan with Wine Growers British Columbia said Vancouver grocery stores are a valuable, untapped market.

“We think this is a great opportunity, not just for people in the city of Vancouver to access 100 per cent B.C. wine, but more importantly for us, it’s those growers and makers of B.C. wine throughout the province accessing the market,” said Prodan.

But if the bylaw is changed, it won’t open the floodgates of grocery stores selling wine in Vancouver. There are only about 25 grocery liquor licenses in the entire province, and they’re currently being used at stores in other cities.

“It’s going to need to close somewhere else to move into Vancouver, so it needs to be a business decision. But we also need to be respectful for those who embraced it originally, right?” said Prodan.

Klassen expects grocery chains that currently sell wine in other cities will want to make the move to Vancouver. “I have a feeling from early discussions from the industry that they’re very excited to get moving on this as well.”

The motion will be introduced at the next council meeting on April 11th. Klassen expects the bylaw will be changed at some point in 2023.