Latest / Kvetch & Release / How the LCBO strike will affect Maiden Lane Wine and Spirits

Transcript

How the LCBO strike will affect Maiden Lane Wine and Spirits · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  And you know what they say, After five o'clock on a Friday, some
• 0:04
  people go and they grab a drink. What they're not going to be doing
• 0:07
  is heading to the LCBO and buying a bottle, because we have found out
• 0:12
  that all LCBO stores across the province are closed for two weeks as workers go
• 0:18
  on strike for the very first time after the union and the employer failed to
• 0:22
  reach an agreement. This is obviously going to be affecting a lot of Ontarians
• 0:27
  with more than nine thousand of their employees going on strike. They say that
• 0:32
  service interruptions will be there. You're going to be able to in fourteen days
• 0:37
  go to a store, and if you're lucky enough to live in an area
• 0:40
  that has one, they're only going to be opening up thirty of their roughly
• 0:43
  six hundred on just a couple days of the week for a couple hours.
• 0:47
  Now. They say that bars and restaurants and are still going to be able
• 0:51
  to purchase alcohol and serve it, but you know it's going to be slowed
• 0:56
  down because there won't be that many employees able to fulfill orders. Joining me
• 1:00
  right now to discuss how this all might impact them is one of the owners
• 1:06
  of Maiden Lane Wine and Spirits. Mark Didka joins me right now. Hey
• 1:10
  Mark, Hey John, how are you doing well? Thanks? How about
• 1:12
  yourself? I'm probably doing better than you are. Yeah, yeah, thanks
• 1:15
  for having me though. It's cool. You must be stressed right now.
• 1:19
  I'm a little stressed, but we are stocked up, so we're hoping for
• 1:23
  the best and we hope we get this over with as seem as possible.
• 1:26
  Yeah, no kidding, I mean, nobody wants to see this going longer
• 1:30
  than it has to be, and everyone hopes that, you know, the
• 1:32
  workers get the best contract that they can get here. How did you deal
• 1:37
  with this? Like, did you prepare? We did. We kind of
• 1:41
  waited till the last minute to prepare because, like you mentioned before, this
• 1:45
  is the first time this has happened, and we were kind of hoping that
• 1:47
  they would come to an agreement. But we did have to invest, you
• 1:51
  know, thousands and thousands of dollars into extra stock that we're just kind of
• 1:56
  sitting on right now. Can you tell me, like you say that and
• 2:00
  thousands is there like, is there like a rounder number that you can actually
• 2:02
  say or do you not want to? Yeah? Well, you know,
• 2:07
  my my weekly shopping trip to the l CBO is usually a couple of thousand
• 2:12
  dollars, so we've we've shot for a few weeks just to keep us stocked
• 2:16
  up. So that's got to be tough for you as a business, right,
• 2:20
  I mean, like unexpected expenses suck extremely. We're not a we're not
• 2:24
  a big place. We're just a small mom and pop kind of our restaurant
• 2:29
  kind of place, and we don't have that kind of money to throw around
• 2:31
  right now. But gotta do what you gotta do for sure, And like
• 2:35
  I'm I guess you know what I think of is on two sides. One,
• 2:39
  this is tough for you. You know, you put out extra money,
• 2:43
  You're gonna have to deal with that. But on the flip side,
• 2:46
  if people aren't able to go to the LCBO, I'm I'm probably gonna walk
• 2:49
  down the street and come to you and say, like, hey, make
• 2:52
  me a Manhattan, make me a Martine or something. Right, So,
• 2:53
  I mean there might be an opportunity here just because of that lack of option.
• 3:00
  Well that's what we're hoping. We also here at Maidenlane Heavy our own
• 3:04
  bottle shops, so we do sell wine and beer insider to go, So
• 3:08
  just so you know, when those LCBO doors are closed, we're still will
• 3:12
  still be open. Well. And that's one of the interesting things as well
• 3:15
  about all of this is that we're looking at this strike for the very first
• 3:19
  time, and it's probably not coincidental that it's after a period of massive expansion
• 3:23
  of liquor access in the province quite frankly, but how has that been for
• 3:30
  you in terms of serving your customers just being able to sell you know,
• 3:34
  the to go option. Uh, it's it's been great, and that's that's
• 3:38
  a product of COVID, but it's not our main business. Our main liar
• 3:44
  bar and restaurants, so you know, selling bottles to go is kind of
• 3:49
  a secondary business. It's almost it's not a loss leader. You're not losing
• 3:53
  money on it, but you would rather them to be there and you know
• 3:58
  buying cocktails and eating oist because you put out great ones. Yeah, that's
• 4:01
  yeah, that's what we want. So when you look at this and like,
• 4:06
  do you think that there is an opportunity maybe for the downtown core to
• 4:10
  capitalize on this, I mean, we know that this is going to be
• 4:13
  at least for the next well, I can't say at least then maybe they
• 4:15
  solve this within the next you know, fourteen days, but at least fourteen
• 4:18
  days is what they're saying the stores are going to be shut for. Do
• 4:21
  you think that the downtown is going to be hopping more? I think I
• 4:27
  think it's going to remain how it is right now. It depends how long
• 4:29
  the strike goes on. I think if it goes more than the two weeks,
• 4:32
  yeah, I think most of the people most a lot of people have
• 4:35
  already stocked up, and there are different options, like we've talked about before,
• 4:39
  to other than the LCBO. Yeah, that's definitely true. There's there
• 4:43
  is a lot of different access points to alcohol that didn't necessarily exist before.
• 4:48
  And like, as you're doing it yourself, well, hey, Mark,
• 4:51
  I hope everything goes well for you. You know, I look at this
• 4:55
  and nobody likes to have any interruptions in service delivery. You know, we're
• 5:00
  regardless of where that's coming from in the start or ending process of the supply
• 5:04
  chain. So I just I wish the best for you. Thanks John,
• 5:09
  I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Mark Dutka is one of the
• 5:11
  co owners of Maiden Lane Wine and Spirits. I want to know how this
• 5:15
  is going to impact you, You can call or text us at five one
• 5:18
  nine seven, nine to two CKLW. Let us know what you think about
• 5:24
  the fact that we've got all of the LCBO workers on strike for the very
• 5:28
  first time ever. We will dive into how that is going to impact all
• 5:32
  of us just after the break