LCBO under fire—once again—from the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn

Remind us never to get in Martin Regg Cohn’s bad books: this weekend, the Toronto Star columnist followed up his recent screed against the LCBO’s pricing policy with a second rant against the board’s business practices. This time, Cohn took the LCBO to task for selling a covetable Lafite Rothschild 2009 at about 30 per cent below international market price. During the run on the Bordeaux that predictably followed, LCBO stores gave preference to longtime customers, which Cohn interpreted as allowing fancy wine-investor types to profit from a tidy bit of arbitrage. Cohn also argued that the LCBO should stop awarding Air Miles because the program is expensive, encourages alcohol consumption and is pretty much unnecessary for the provincial liquor monopoly anyway, since it’s usually used to distinguish a retailer from its competitors. The man’s got a point, but we’d sure miss those reward miles. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »