After a local brewer’s plan to launch a beer-delivery service with an Ottawa social agency was shut down over a legal technicality, the company gained the support of Ontario’s premier and was promptly granted an exemption to resume the service.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said last week that he hoped to have the service running again by Christmas. The next day, Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co. announced that deliveries would resume Dec. 5.
The service was abruptly halted on Nov. 24 after a complaint by an anonymous competitor.
Steve Beauchesne, co-founder of Beau’s, says the operation was shut down due to a provision in the Ontario Liquor Licence Act, which requires delivery companies to purchase alcohol directly from the LCBO or The Beer Store, rather than an LCBO-licensed brewery.
Beauchesne says Beau’s was granted a regulatory exemption from the rule about one week after the service was first shut down — on the eve of what would have been day its first day of operation.
“There was disappointment, surprise and an overwhelming feeling of letting down Operation Come Home and the individuals that had been hired for the service,” Beauchesne said after the service was cancelled.
The Vankleek Hill-based brewery has partnered in the venture with downtown Ottawa-based Operation Come Home, which helps prevent homeless youth from becoming homeless adults. The plan was to employ two homeless youth for the beer-delivery crew, and the new staffers had already been hired when the service was suddenly cancelled.
Elspeth McKay, executive director of Operation Come Home, says the organization only has two or three jobs available every 12 weeks through another Beau’s initiative, Bottleworks, but receives about 30 applications every cycle.
Bottleworks employs youth to collect empty bottles. The deposits collected go towards Operation Come Home’s project funding.
Homeless youth have a lot of trouble finding jobs, says Jamie Hammond, communication director at Operation Come Home.
“Just because they’re homeless, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to get a job,” Hammond says.
“A lot of youth that are hired in Bottleworks are very keen and very hard-working.”
The service intends to offer homeless youth another job opportunity through Beau’s.
The delivery service’s shutdown on the cusp of starting up was a shock, says McKay.
She says the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario inspector with whom she’d been working on the project never gave her a definite answer about the legality of the program.
The day before it was set to start, McKay says, she told the inspector they were going ahead with the program and that he replied that it shouldn’t be a problem.