The B.C. government backed up Friday and took another run at the concept of happy hour, after the first one turned some people sad.
But in all the fiddling with liquor regulations, it seems to be missing a somewhat larger point, which is the short-changing that’s going on when it comes to pouring, at whatever price. Some beer advocates started a campaign last spring to raise a fuss about it, but none of the regulatory agencies in the federal or provincial governments seem too worked up about it.
Maybe it’s because they’re preoccupied getting happy hour right. It turned out to be such a complicated proposition that it backfired on them. The regulations that came into effect three weeks ago were adjusted on Friday because the minimum price that was set on pitchers of beer was actually higher than some establishments were already charging. That turned happy hour, in some instances, into a joke with an unhappy punch line.
Pitchers of beer (60 ounces) were routinely being offered in the $11 to $14 range during sale promotions. But the minimum price for that pitcher during happy hour, based on 25 cents per ounce, was $15, which negated the whole premise.
So on Friday, a new beer and cider minimum was set; 20 cents an ounce on servings over 50 ounces. That will bring the minimum price per pitcher down to $12.
It could mean a savings of a few dollars at any establishment that chooses to adopt happy-hour pricing.
There’s also a new minimum on hard liquor, but it’s going higher, not lower. The original $2 per ounce is being adjusted to $3, just to balance the price cut for beer.
The Justice Ministry, which is responsible for implementing all the liquor policy reforms recommended by Liberal MLA John Yap, issued a statement saying that when happy hour started on July 1, the government said it was “open to revisiting prices if they did not match consumers’ expectations.”
Yap acknowledged that’s exactly what happened. “Upon reviewing B.C.’s minimum prices, we realized they weren’t on par with consumers’ expectations and we took action to find a fair compromise.”
Subsequent to the creation of happy hour, the Vancouver Sun delved into serving sizes at a number of Vancouver bars and found the art of the short pour is alive and well. Reporter Larry Pynn went to bars that advertised full pints of beer (20 ounces) on their menus and got shorted a number of times. They were serving as little as 14 ounces. Even one bar that stressed “all pints are 20 ounces” managed to serve only 16 ounces.
One bar was called “The Pint,” which would lead the average person to expect that’s what they serve there. Pynn got less than 18 ounces.
If the same thing happened at gas stations, there would be hell to pay. But it doesn’t seem uncommon in pubs. Restaurant industry spokesman Ian Tostenson said he doesn’t think it’s widespread, but customers are entitled to ask and know exactly what serving sizes are on offer.
The issue has never seemed to resonate much with consumers, because it’s so complicated. Some breweries offer their own glasses of differing sizes. There are a range of glass sizes in B.C. — nine, 16 or 20 ounces — and there’s a difference in U.S. and Canadian pints.
In many people’s minds, the word “pint” over the years has come to mean simply a drink, rather than the legally required 20 ounces of beer. Also over the years, the industry has simply invented entirely new measures, such as the “sleeve.”
The Campaign for Real Ale, which is raising the fuss (Fess Up to Serving Sizes), found a sleeve to be an elastic concept, in the range of 12 to 16 ounces.
Also, the industry never managed to convert to the metric system and the government regulations reflect that.
The government responded only obliquely to the campaign and to the Sun’s findings and it did so by punting the issue over to the federal government, noting that anyone with concerns about serving sizes can contact Industry Canada.
Setting the minimum price per ounce is one thing. Getting the number of ounces you paid for is another.
