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Wanting again, I’m struck by how Canada’s strategy to alcohol and cigarettes has nearly reversed since I used to be a pupil again within the late Seventies.
At the moment, I labored part-time within the final of what the Liquor Management Board of Ontario known as typical shops. Again then, the L.C.B.O. took the “management” a part of its identify significantly. Its older shops did all the pieces potential to make folks keep away from them. Other than some dusty show bottles of chosen wines, the entire merchandise was hidden away behind a counter. Clients needed to get your hands on what they needed to purchase on lists of all the pieces within the retailer that have been behind glass panels, and write down the product’s identify, model quantity (Mateus rosé was 1086 B) and worth. Then buyers handed their slips to a cashier who, after receiving cost, turned it over to a clerk like me who fetched and bagged the products.
I have to confess that my colleagues and I have been typically lower than pleasant. We have been additionally repeatedly reminded to not give suggestions or recommendation to prospects — they have been strictly on their very own.
However, conversely, smoking in places of work and retailers, together with L.C.B.O. shops, was rampant at the moment. Cigarette makers sponsored sports activities and cultural occasions, and their advertisements and merchandise dominated nook shops and even some pharmacies.
Now it’s cigarettes which might be hidden away in shops behind clean cupboards, and so they are available generic, government-mandated packaging with grotesque photographs of tobacco’s well being results. All types of promoting by the tobacco promoting are a distant reminiscence.
In distinction, on the L.C.B.O. in the present day, management has been dislodged by aggressive advertising and promotion. Lots of its shops are neatly designed, with engaging picket shelving and lighting much like what you would possibly discover in a pricey clothes boutique. The board produces a free shiny journal about drinks, and meals to serve with them, and affords prospects airline loyalty factors and reductions.
It’s not alone. Once I cross the river to Gatineau, Quebec, the provincially owned Société des alcools du Québec shops appear to be in a contest with their Ontario counterparts in the case of pleasing design, attractiveness and product promotion and discounting.
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