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Is alcohol helping revive the lagging convenience store sector? · Kvetch & Release

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, you're back John McKee here on AM eight hundred CKLW. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's been what about a month and a bit since
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  Speaker 1: retail alcohol was expanded to convenience stores across the province,
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  Speaker 1: and we've seen a huge uptick of convenience stores that
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have decided to take part in this. You can check
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  Speaker 1: out online maps and see that's scattered across all of
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  Speaker 1: Windsor in Essex County. There are a number of different
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  Speaker 1: outlets that you're able to go to. You step into
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  Speaker 1: them and you can see that the not much has
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  Speaker 1: changed in how convenience stores look on the inside. There's
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  Speaker 1: some different operations and different offerings, of course, And I
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  Speaker 1: gotta say, quite frankly, the sky hasn't seemed to have
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: started to fall as many people have suggested that it may.
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  Speaker 1: But what I want to know is how is it
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  Speaker 1: actually impacting the convenience stores themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Joining me right now to discuss is the.
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  Speaker 1: Owner of Midway Convenience in the chair of the Ontario
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  Speaker 1: Convenience Stores Association, Terry Aldo, joins me right now.
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  Speaker 2: How you doing good?
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  Speaker 3: How are you doing John? Thanks for having me on, Oh.
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  Speaker 2: Doing really well?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much so, As I said, doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: like the guy has been falling whatsoever. What's it been
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  Speaker 1: like from your perspective, as you know, as an owner
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  Speaker 1: but also as the chair of the Commune Store Association
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  Speaker 1: of Ontario.
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  Speaker 2: What have you been seeing since alcohol was rolled out?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, we're seeing a lot of happy customers that are
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  Speaker 3: having access to you know, beers, wines, ready to drink
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  Speaker 3: a lot easier than they used to. In terms of business,
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  Speaker 3: it's helping with the traffic blow. We're seeing some new faces,
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  Speaker 3: new customers and that definitely helps with the bottom line.
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  Speaker 1: Yesterday was a big day considering it was Thanksgiving and
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  Speaker 1: traditionally that means if you didn't already have your purchases made,
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  Speaker 1: you were pretty well out of luck. Not the case
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  Speaker 1: though yesterday, because people were able to go to Commune
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  Speaker 1: stores for the first time and purchase.
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  Speaker 2: Did you see people coming in yesterday?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. We've seen an increase of sales even you
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  Speaker 3: know the average I guess beers from when we started.
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  Speaker 3: We've seen a boost yesterday. Uh, you know, having the
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  Speaker 3: beer stores being closed, so yeah, people appreciate that convenience
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  Speaker 3: and that access. You know, they're not you know, locked
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  Speaker 3: in on you know, getting everything done last minute. Uh well,
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  Speaker 3: I mean before you know, beer stores closed and before Thanksgiving,
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  Speaker 3: if you know, a lot of people were you know,
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  Speaker 3: happy to walk in and grab a couple of bottles
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  Speaker 3: of wine for the dinner. They were going to stop
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  Speaker 3: in a you know whatever relatives.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and you know that's the convenience is.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, the whole point of what a convenience store
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  Speaker 1: is is to be able to do that without having
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  Speaker 1: to do the whole planning ahead. Are people still coming
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  Speaker 1: in and purchasing other things at the same time.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. Yeah, we're seeing an increase in you know,
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  Speaker 3: other sales. You know, you're going to have some chips,
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  Speaker 3: not you know, chocolate, so bag of ice. Every every
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  Speaker 3: little bit helps. You know, it's been tough times in
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  Speaker 3: this industry and small business and Ontario. So we're definitely
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  Speaker 3: happy to see this change, and you know, see the
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  Speaker 3: government loosen up on some of their restrictions in terms
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  Speaker 3: of you know, the sales.
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  Speaker 1: I'll call you know, uh, when we look at how
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  Speaker 1: the situation has been obviously it's been very restrictive and
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  Speaker 1: it's been that way for one hundred years and people
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  Speaker 1: are saying have been saying, who are opposed to this.
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  Speaker 1: Government should have moved slower on this. They shouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: rolled it out as quickly as they did, to which
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  Speaker 1: I said, one hundred years seems like it's a pretty
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  Speaker 1: long time to get to this point.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like it was an overnight thing.
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  Speaker 1: Have there been any growing pains that you've noticed as
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  Speaker 1: a result of this? Have there been any issues that
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  Speaker 1: have popped up?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the biggest issue is getting supply of
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  Speaker 3: certain products I know are ready to drink, Like, We've
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  Speaker 3: had multiple orders in on the queue, and I was
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  Speaker 3: hoping to get one of my bigger orders in before Thanksgiving,
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  Speaker 3: and unfortunately that didn't happen. So we had some you
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  Speaker 3: know AMPSTI shelf space in terms of you know, the
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  Speaker 3: white closet, twisted tees, the cottage spring. So that kind
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  Speaker 3: of hurts because you get people coming in, they see
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  Speaker 3: a great selection and then you know, five days later
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  Speaker 3: they come in and it's like pretty much empty and
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  Speaker 3: they're like, oh, what's going on. So it's unfortunately it
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  Speaker 3: looks bad on us, as you know retailers, but it's
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  Speaker 3: just part of the process. Right now, you know, you're
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  Speaker 3: adding over four thousand stores, to the network, to the
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  Speaker 3: distribution system, you know, more trusting to be on the road,
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  Speaker 3: more drivers. It's just going to take time to you know,
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  Speaker 3: ramp to the proper levels.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's it's the good kind of growing pains, right,
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  Speaker 1: It's it's the kind of problems that you want to have.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much demand for something that they're not able
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  Speaker 1: to keep up. Of course everyone would want that stabilization,
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  Speaker 1: but you could have a lot of worse issues with
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  Speaker 1: people not coming in. And I know that that's been
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  Speaker 1: one of the concerns for convenience stores across the province
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  Speaker 1: is the number of commune stores that have been closing,
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  Speaker 1: especially in rural areas.
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  Speaker 3: Isn't that correct, Yeah, that's that's always a growing issue.
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  Speaker 3: There's you know, other challenges that affect our industry. And
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  Speaker 3: it's unfortunate because you know, we're kind of the last
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  Speaker 3: or one or the last types of business standings in
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  Speaker 3: some of these communities. So you know, to loser communience store,
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  Speaker 3: it's detrimental to the community.
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  Speaker 2: So is alcohol helping to revive the commune store?
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  Speaker 3: Then?
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  Speaker 1: Is this I don't I don't know if it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be a silver bullet, but is it something that
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  Speaker 1: can actually help to maybe turn the trend a different way.
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  Speaker 3: One hundred percent, because this will either slow it down
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  Speaker 3: or stop it or possibly reverse it, depending on you know,
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  Speaker 3: how things end up. You know, in six months and
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  Speaker 3: one year from now, well we're noticing, like I said,
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  Speaker 3: I know, for us, we notice an increase in traffic
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  Speaker 3: and that definitely helps the bottom line, and that definitely
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  Speaker 3: you know, gives us the ability to employ more people
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  Speaker 3: or keep people employed. So I think this will this
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  Speaker 3: is a positive change in the industry, and this will
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  Speaker 3: save a lot of stores across the province. Uh, but
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  Speaker 3: there will still continue to be other challenges that you know,
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  Speaker 3: make it difficult to run a.
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  Speaker 2: Business such as.
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  Speaker 3: I will one is contraby tobacco, Like so tobacco from
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  Speaker 3: the reserve, if you're avoiding paying tax on a package
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  Speaker 3: cigarettes that it is going to be way cheaper than
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  Speaker 3: buying a pack from you know, a comedience store. So
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  Speaker 3: when we're losing that customer, that hurts. You know, everybody's
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  Speaker 3: squeezed financially. You know, everybody's disposable incomes of have been
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  Speaker 3: h minimum. So you know, when when people don't have
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  Speaker 3: to uh have the money to buy you know, Accola,
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  Speaker 3: barships or some of the diligences you know, you would like,
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  Speaker 3: you know, they cut back on that, so you know
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  Speaker 3: that that hurts us as well. So that's another thing
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  Speaker 3: that affects our industry, you know, losing that customer, losing
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  Speaker 3: their customers continued business, or you know them coming in
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  Speaker 3: three four times a week, and all of a sudden
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  Speaker 3: they're coming in one time a week or one time
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  Speaker 3: every two weeks. So every little bit affects us.
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  Speaker 1: What more could the government do to help you guys out?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, whether it be in the alcohol side, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know if you'd want to see an expansion of
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  Speaker 1: other things to sell or even just beyond that. How
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  Speaker 1: could the government help Communian stores out the most?
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  Speaker 3: So I think it's they continue to work on the
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  Speaker 3: distribution of the alcohol, kind of get that up and running.
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  Speaker 3: That will help dramatically tackling the contraband issue. This has
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  Speaker 3: been going on for decades. If they did something about that,
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  Speaker 3: that would truly help our business. I know, like in
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  Speaker 3: the Winds area, when you know Reserve opened up within
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  Speaker 3: you know, forty five minutes, you know a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people lost twenty to forty percent of the bacco customers,
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  Speaker 3: so you can see that, you know, trickle into other
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  Speaker 3: areas of the business. So and that's been a bigger
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  Speaker 3: problem problem in other parts of the problems for a
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  Speaker 3: longer time. So we're just feeling it here. So I
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  Speaker 3: can't imagine how it's going to be in five years
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  Speaker 3: from now if nothing changes in terms of.
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  Speaker 1: That would what's what's the appetite like from convenience stores
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  Speaker 1: in regards to the sale of spirit alcohol like you know,
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  Speaker 1: jin vodka, whiskey.
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  Speaker 2: Do people want?
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  Speaker 1: Is there a desire from your operators to sell those products.
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  Speaker 3: We're always open and willing to look at other products,
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  Speaker 3: but right now we're happy with what we've been given
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  Speaker 3: and we're okay working with that and you know, proving
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  Speaker 3: to the community and consumers and ontarios that you know,
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  Speaker 3: we can do it responsibly and uh you know the
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  Speaker 3: benefits you know for us and the benefits for them. Uh,
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  Speaker 3: you know, let's let that come to light and then
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  Speaker 3: you know, we can do discussed further things down the road.
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  Speaker 3: But in terms of the alcohol category, we're we're happy
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  Speaker 3: with what they've given us at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Tell you that's that's that's great. To hear that. I know.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that a lot of people have been concerned
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  Speaker 1: about is you know, who's a cannience store clerk to know.
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  Speaker 2: How to sell alcohol? They're not even trained.
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  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about what it took
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  Speaker 1: for you to get to the point to be able
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  Speaker 1: to receive a license to sell alcohol?
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  Speaker 3: Well, every clerk has to be certified either through smart
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  Speaker 3: server or there's seven different options now for being a
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  Speaker 3: retail clerk in a community sort of sell alcohol and
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  Speaker 3: if it ends up training just like you know if
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  Speaker 3: you were selling at a bar or selling at a restaurant.
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  Speaker 3: So they're strict guidelines, strict rules, and my staff follows
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  Speaker 3: in most quotes around the city and the province are
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  Speaker 3: going to follow those rules too because there's heart heart
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  Speaker 3: heart pelonies. If it's not a boided by it's a
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  Speaker 3: little bit different than the LGBO and the beer store
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  Speaker 3: work ever by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission. So we
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  Speaker 3: have a lot to lose if we don't follow these rules.
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  Speaker 2: You could lose your license.
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  Speaker 3: We can lose our license. And that's our little machine
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  Speaker 3: is UH is governed under alcohol and gave me commission,
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  Speaker 3: so we can use that privilege as well, So it's
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  Speaker 3: very detrimental if I were to use either one of
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  Speaker 3: those licenses, pretty much idea out of business. So not
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people want to risk that.
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  Speaker 2: No, I'd imagine not.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Hey, Terry, it sounds like a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: growing pains. But I got to say it's it's heartening
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  Speaker 1: to hear you say that. You know, you're happy with
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  Speaker 1: the way things are right now, aside from a little things.
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  Speaker 1: You know a few things that could change outside of
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  Speaker 1: the alcohol side of things, But rarely do you see
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  Speaker 1: a government roll something out and to have the affected
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  Speaker 1: stakeholders to go, hey, two thumbs up, it's working.
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  Speaker 2: I'm glad to hear that well.
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  Speaker 3: Plus, the other positive thing is I'd rather this happen
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  Speaker 3: now and work out these going pains and then wait
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  Speaker 3: till you know, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, because
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  Speaker 3: how many more stores would have closed if they had
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: to wait. So this will definitely save stores from closing
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  Speaker 3: in the next year two years.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Well, keeping stores open, making sure that rural communities still
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: have access to not just again alcohol, but also to
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  Speaker 1: the staples that they need that these stores offer, can, eggs, milk,
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  Speaker 1: those types of things. It's important, but of course then
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  Speaker 1: the jobs as well. Terry, I really appreciate you taking
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  Speaker 1: your time to walk us through how the rollout of
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  Speaker 1: retail alcohol inconmunice stores has been.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, no problem, Thanks for having me
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: as usual.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Oh you're welcome. All the best,