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No receipt? No refund, under new B.C. Liquor Stores policy

Drinkers accustomed to stocking up on their favourite brands knowing they can return extras to B.C. Liquor Stores face new limits: 60 days is the maximum time frame to bring back what you don’t drink — and, without a receipt, no refund. The B.C.
B.C. liquor photo generic
The 60-day limit and requirement for a receipt for refund are “standard across the retail industry,” said April Kemick, communications manager of the Liquor Distribution Branch.

Drinkers accustomed to stocking up on their favourite brands knowing they can return extras to B.C. Liquor Stores face new limits: 60 days is the maximum time frame to bring back what you don’t drink — and, without a receipt, no refund.

The B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch is spelling out the changes in signs popping up at some liquor store checkouts in Victoria.

The 60-day limit and requirement for a receipt for refund are “standard across the retail industry,” said April Kemick, communications manager of the Liquor Distribution Branch.

The policy was enacted in late October but not all stores may have put out the black and white signs specifying tightened limits. The new policy spells out that containers must be unopened, without damage to labels or stickers and in saleable condition.

Previously, there was no specified time limit, Kemick said.

One liquor store employee in Victoria said some customers were known to buy a few bottles of $100 Bordeaux, lay them down for a few years, then bring them back for refund if they happened not to like the taste of the first aged bottle.

Such returns did not ring a bell with Kemick, who said an updated policy was needed that is consistent and clear across all 195 branches.

Customers who have lost receipts will be issued a refund in the form of a B.C. Liquor Store gift card “at the lowest price on record,” according to signs at some checkouts in Victoria. The product must have been stocked on B.C. Liquor Store shelves in the previous 60 days or no credit.

Refunds with receipts will be made in whatever tender was originally used — no cash if you didn’t use cash.

Another store employee said the new policies would help guard against people who shoplift a bottle, then return for a refund.

An unwritten policy that people who buy wine, then find they don’t like it, and are allowed to return the nearly full bottle for exchange “was never part of the B.C. Liquor Stores official return policy,” Kemick said.

“A customer wouldn’t be expected to keep a defective product, but it has never been an official part of our policy that customers could return products that weren’t to their taste.”

But whether stores will replace a bottle broken outside the doors just after purchase will be left to managers’ discretion, she added.

The updated policy was made to bring government stores in line with “modern retail industry practices and to give our employees clarity so policies would be consistently adhered to across the province,” Kemick said.

For fiscal 2013-14, the Liquor Distribution Branch’s net income and return to government was $877 million. There were 36 million customer visits in 2012-13.

kdedyna@timescolonist.com