I come from a wonderous land where the government’s response to prohibition in the 1920s was to nationalize all booze sales under Crown corporations or other such—I mistyped “such” as “suck” on the first try—entities so as to control the distribution of alcohol to the plebes. Ontario, on the other hand, formed a collective, made up of brewers. It’s all very fascinating and incorporates some of the worst qualities of monopolism and capitalism—the companies that formed the Brewer’s Retail collective are no longer even owned by Canadian corporations yet the government still protects their monopoly —and, quite frankly, there’s a staggering amount of room for competition because the costs of having your stock distributed in the Beer Store is highly restrictive. Unsurprisingly, the cost to the consumer is also quite high. However, despite all of that, I still prefer that horrible monopolistic booze dispensing nightmare to what I encounter in the North West.

Now, to be fair, booze dispensing in the North West has many, many pluses. The first plus, of couse, is just accessibility: beer is sold everywhere.  Grocery stores, corner stores, pharmacies, gas stations, they all sell beer. The other up side is the cost: that is, the cost is very low. Back in Ontario, we used to drink Lakeport beer because, even before returning empties, the beer worked out to just over a buck a bottle. Everything else got progressively close to two bucks or more. Anyway, something like Fat Tire—a really nice beer— will set you back $15 for a case of 12 or $1.25 a bottle. Lastly, the quality of the beer in this area is exceptional. The New Beligium Brewing Company and Rogue Ales are two that immediately spring to mind.

So, despite the relative plusses of boozing it up in America, the real problem, for me, with booze in the North West has more to do with the buying and returning of the beer. First of all, this is how you buy beer at the Beer Store:

1) Enter the store

2) Stare at The Wall

3) Point

4) Pay

5) Beer gleefully rolls toward you on the magic conveyor

Returning empties works in reverse.

1) Find a container. The original box is fine but that’s not very creative. Plastic bags, an old blanket, or a garbage can are fine.

2) Fling beer bottles or cans into your container. Are they filled with cigarette butts? No problem. Missing label? No problem. Did you shoot your cans with your .22? No problem. Throw ‘em into your now beer-soaked blanket.

3) Drive to the Beer Store

4) Dump your empties onto the magic conveyor

5) Stick hand out

6) Receive money

7) Stare at The Wall

8) Rinse, repeat

This is what civilization looks like. I don’t have a problem with buying beer in the North West, per se, as it is no different from buying anything else. It’s the returning that is demeaning. You’re expected to remember which beers you got at what store because beers not sold from a store cannot be returned there. That is, say, Albertson’s sells Fat Tire. I can return Fat Tire there. Let’s say they don’t sell Kokanee. I can’t take a box of Kokanee there. I know, I know, why not?

Well, the first problem is this:

Here’s how it works:

1) You put a bottle in

2) The machine scans the UPC code on the bottle

3) If it is a bottle that comes from the store that this machine resides in, it accepts it, the smashes the bottle.

4) The door opens, you insert another bottle.

If the bottle you insert is not sold from the store, the machine ejects the bottle. Ok, does anyone else see a problem yet? Why the hell does it matter what the fuck bottle I insert in the slot if you’re going to fucking smash it anyway? If you’re just interested in glass  crumble why not just pay for the glass by the pound. Secondly, why the fuck are you smashing the bottles? Can’t you, I dunno, reuse the bottles? Maybe you can wash them out and put more beer in them? It seems like a retarded amount of wasted energy to take a perfectly functional bottle, smash it, melt it down and make a new fucking bottle. What was wrong with the other bottle?

I only make this argument because I’ve taken the “tour the Sleeman brewery and get a few cases of free beer” tour at Sleeman’s and I’ve seen the high-pressure steam cleaning assembly line. That thing can blast a bottle crammed with cigarette butts clean in a second. It’s amazing.

I think this bottle return machine is like the parable of the broken window in that it creates unnecessary work for dubious benefit (5¢ a bottle? seriously?)  and, in fact, creates waste where no waste had previously existed while having the appearance of being convenient and time saving. Oh, and you can only return a certain number of bottles per day.

Convenience!