Remember my visit to the LCBO store on The Queensway in the West End of Toronto last September?

I wasn’t there on assignment; I just popped in to purchase a bottle. Some other “customers” popped into the store too — except, unlike me, they had absolutely no intention of paying for the merchandise. 

I estimate that thousands of dollars of booze waltzed out the door that night. Perhaps even more egregious was that, in the aftermath, nobody seemed to care.

To date, neither the store’s manager nor LCBO corporate has said whether they filed a police report. I have a very strong hunch they did not contact the police.

And later that month, when I made a house call to nearby 22 Division, the cops couldn’t be bothered taking a report from me because I wasn’t the victim.

You know, I would argue that point. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is a crown corporation. Meaning we, the taxpaying people of Ontario, own this monopoly. We are all financially victimized when the product is stolen.

Fast-forward to last January. This is when I came across a contest being run by the fine folks at Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers announced it was offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the resolution of a retail crime.

I figured I was a shoo-in for this prize. Just consider the evidence I submitted:

1. I was an eyewitness to a crime — namely, that liquor theft.
2. I recorded video evidence of the crime in progress, even when I was threatened with a weapon by one of the thieves.
3. When it was relatively safe to do so, I exited the store to record the licence plate number of the getaway vehicle.
4. Later, we were able to track down the Brampton address where the van is registered.

So, the other day I called Crime Stoppers to find out when I could expect my windfall. But I guess I forgot to read the fine print. 

Unless the LCBO itself reports the theft, there will be no investigation, and therefore, I am automatically disqualified from the contest. But as I stated earlier, the LCBO has absolutely no intention of calling the cops.

Why would that be?

Here's why: The booze bureaucrats don’t care about doing the right thing. All they care about is mitigating bad publicity.

The LCBO is notorious for downplaying theft numbers. The last figures we have date back to 2018, when theft first spiked. Under pressure to fess up, the LCBO finally stated that its losses due to theft were "consistently under $6 million in retail dollars per year."

Alas, the union that represents LCBO employees, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), questioned those numbers. OPSEU stated that LCBO theft amounts to about $77 million annually. 

I’m siding with the union on this dispute, especially considering that rank-and-file employees actually witness the unpaid booze leaving LCBO stores on an almost daily basis.

Plus, as I have personally discovered, if the LCBO can’t even be bothered to report theft incidents, then of course the corporate numbers will never reflect reality.

The paper-pushing LCBO fat cats at head office, making six figures a year, like to pretend everything is just fine to preserve their reputations. They have no skin in the game. Nobody at head office is going to be fired over spiking theft numbers, even if they bothered to tell the truth.

After all, these LCBO stores are not independently owned outlets — unlike those private sector shops that would face bankruptcy if they allowed unpaid merchandise to fly out the door.

Have you ever gone to a privately-owned liquor store in the U.S.? You pull a stunt like waltzing out of the shop without paying for the booze, and you might end up being confronted by the security team, who go by Smith and Wesson.

To conclude, I must point to the words of Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow during the Crime Stoppers press conference in which the contest was announced: “Retail crime affects workers who deserve to feel safe at work. It affects small businesses in our neighbourhoods, and it affects families going about their daily lives. Addressing it means stronger partnerships between police, businesses, community organizations and residents.”

Mayor Chow is right. But when it comes to the LCBO, the provincial booze monopoly couldn't care less about retail theft. It can’t even be bothered to report one, not even when their customers do all the heavy-lifting!

It’s all about the optics. The LCBO booze bureaucrats would like everyone to believe that everything is just Jim Dandy — even as the Jim Beam flies out the door unpaid for.

Sell the LCBO!

3,678 signatures

Goal: 10,000 signatures

The public sector union that represents LCBO workers is out of control! But now a bigger question arises: Why is the government even in the booze retailing business to begin with? The role of government is to tax and regulate, not to sell the stuff. Please sign our petition right here on this website to send a message to the province of Ontario that it is time to Sell the LCBO!

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