New map shows 2,300 Ontario locations where you can still buy alcohol during LCBO strike

The Ontario government says it is helping Ontario residents navigate the ongoing LCBO strike by launching a new, interactive map of retail booze outlets across the province as LCBO locations remain closed.

The map pinpoints exactly where residents can still purchase beer, cider, wine or spirits across Ontario during the strike.

“This new map is a great way to connect people across the province to local Ontario-made products and support the hundreds of Ontario businesses and thousands of Ontario workers who make these products and serve customers each and every day,” Premier Doug Ford said in a written statement.

“It also supports our plan to offer consumers the kind of choice and convenience available to other Canadians when purchasing alcoholic beverages, starting later this summer.”

More than 9,000 LCBO employees represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) walked off the job last Friday, closing 669 LBCO locations across the province.

On July 19, if a deal has not been reached by the two sides, just 32 LCBO stores will open provincewide for in-store shopping but will only operate on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays with “limited hours in effect.”

Mobile orders through the LCBO’s website and app are continuing, allowing for free home delivery anywhere in Ontario for the duration of the strike.

The Crown corporation has noted that alcohol will remain available at 2,300 private retail points of sale across the province, including LCBO Convenience Outlets, licensed grocery stores, The Beer Store, and winery, brewery, cidery, and distillery outlets.

“The new convenient and easy-to-use map can help users find a location that sells beer, wine, cider, spirits or ready-to-drink beverages,” the province said in a news release issued Monday.

“The map will be updated regularly as alcohol sales are expanded to more licensed grocery and convenience stores. As LCBO retail stores re-open, these will also be added to the map.”

The union representing striking workers has said the primary point of contention at the bargaining table is the Ford government’s expansion of alcohol sales in the province, which will see beer, wine, and ready-to-drink beverages available in some convenience stores at the end of the summer.

Next month, existing grocery retailers that already sell wine and beer will be permitted to sell other ready-to-drink beverages along with larger packs of beer.

Colleen MacLeod, the Chair of OPSEU/SEFPO’s liquor board employees division, issued a statement on Monday saying that LCBO workers fully support small businesses but criticized the Ontario government’s decision to launch the map.

“LCBO workers fully support the mom-and-pop stores and craft brewers, wineries and distilleries and we also encourage folks to go to them. But that’s not what Ford is doing,” she wrote in a statement.

“He is undermining LCBO workers and this strike to hand the alcohol market over to big box store, grocery, and convenience chain CEOs so that alcohol sales can be monopolized by them. In fact, mom-and-pop stores and small producers will be worse off in Doug Ford’s Ontario – his business model is going to crush them, not help them.”

“Ford can’t be trusted. If Ford really cared about an Ontario that’s ‘for the people’ he would have worked on a family doctor finder rather than a booze finder, and he would have invested in the public services we all rely on rather than throwing away the very revenues that fund them.”