VIDEO: New factual ad depicts horrifying alternate universe where you can buy beer in convenience stores

Yesterday, Ontario Beer Facts—presumably an independently operated special interested group with no corporate tethering whatsoever—released a totally impartial video depicting what is for sure going to happen if Ontario were to relax liquor laws to accommodate the sale of beer, wine and spirits in local convenience stores. The video, which is based on facts, depicts a group of child-aged men purchasing some beer and liquor from a convenience store, the first step in their long, sluggish march toward alcoholism, and the eventual collapse of Ontario as we know it. You can watch it below . (Trigger warning for: corrupted youth, facts.)
The video is shocking, wake-up-call type stuff, which draws its characterizations and conclusions from the indisputable reality of what happens when alcohol is more accessible. Because its precision and sobering veracity can be hard to swallow upon an initial viewing, we thought it’d be helpful to break down the video, step-by-step, and explain exactly what’s going on.
0:00 “Let’s do this,” one of the babies says, bracing himself for the roller coaster ride of buying liquor at a convenience store, already drunk on the prospect of not seeing beer rattle down a conveyor belt.
0:01 One child hands another infant some money to buy the demon liquor with. It is unclear why this exchange has to happen given that: a) they all enter the store together; b) everyone knows that convenience store clerks would sell liquor to a fetus, no questions asked.
0:02 We see the convenience store clerk. Hunched, podgy, defeated, twice-divorced (probably), his nicotine-yellowed hair combed back across his head—a pitiable bid for self-preservation practiced by a man who has quite obviously given up. He eyes the toddlers as they enter the store. “Yes,” he thinks, licking his lips (figuratively). “Some youth I can secondhand corrupt through my own negligence.”
0:04 One of the tots greets the clerk, as if to say, “Hello.” This is the sort of recondite code that transpires between underage alcoholics-in-training and their free-market enablers.
0:05 The Boy In The Black Jacket—whose confidence marks him as the leader of this hell-raising pack of no-goodniks—grabs an off-brand bottle of brown liquor, as if he’s done it one thousand times before.
0:06 Another of the nurslings grabs an unmarked twelver. Bottom-shelf stuff. Swill. Crap. They don’t care. It contains alcohol—their only respite from the suffocating banality of youth. They’ll acquire taste and discernment somewhere further along the line in their lifetime of debilitating drug abuse.
0:09 “Eeeeeh!” says Child With The Gold Chain, as if he were The Fonz from Happy Days. The clerk, whose brain is a shapeless muddle of regret and dated pop-culture references, understands this. “These are very cool guys,” he must think. “They are as cool as The Fonz.”
0:12 “Woah! Look at this!” exclaims our immoral shopkeeper, impressed by the heroic appetites of children who should be running around out of doors chasing June bugs, working grass stains into their OshKosh B’gosh overalls. Our clerk cheerily bags the liquor, never asking for identification or proof of age. Why bother?
0:15 Our perspective shifts to that of a security camera. It is April 11, 2014, 7:21 p.m. And your children—yes, YOUR LITERAL SONS—are buying alcohol from a man who probably sleeps in his car parked outside a No Frills.
0:19 The clerk returns change to the little baby boys. This is a normal step in the whole sequence of exchanging cash for goods. But here it acquires a sinister dimension. Who knows what the children will purchase with the returned money? Tobacco? Crack-cocaine? Firearms? Some sort of experimental laser calibrated to destroy the very fabric of morality? It is impossible to say.
0:20 “Later Al!” one of the youngsters says to the clerk. Al! They know his name! This has happened before! This has always been happening! Our youth exist in a perpetually spinning flywheel of malfeasance! And you can’t spell “malfeasance” without “Al.” Imagine the infinitude of Als that exist across a sprawling continuum of laissez-faire convenience stores, holding our children’s noses while he pries their mouths open with a filthy shoehorn and pours shitty Russian Prince vodka down their tender gullets? I am honestly vomiting all over the place at the thought—or rather, the FACT.
0:21 In the factual video’s most pointed image, Hoodie Child makes eye contact with the camera. It’s like he’s petitioning for us to recognize the fear, the frailty, the humanity in his eyes. He is begging to be caught, if only so he can be extricated from this system of violence that he is being mercilessly churned through, like so much barley being ground, ground into beer, beer that you—a tiny infant child who is illegal—can buy literally wherever, unencumbered by law, unshackled by morality, adrift in the eddies of an unbounded evil for which there is no name.
0:27 Whoops never mind. The whole thing is just an alarmist advertisement paid for by The Beer Store, a foreign-owned corporate monopoly determined to protect their own bottom line.
That’s hilarious. The last measure of a desperate cartel holding a bag of marbles with a hole in it
Won’t someone think of the children!?
Great stuff–thanks for the laughs.
I grew up in Quebec and in the 90’s, I remember buying beers & lotteries for my dad at the convenience stores. All that had never affected my life or turned me into an alcoholic gambler. People worry too much now day. Just raise your kid to be responsible and all will be fine.
Excellent article.
Yet also hilariously politically correct, with almost every ethnic group represented lol…
I’m Officially Boycotting Beer Stores.. I would rather my money go back into Schools and such ie:LCBO than paying an American Millionaires kids car payments.
apparently Al is always thinking of the children.
They can sell smokes, lottery tickets, and porn but god forbid they stock a 6 pack.
This is embarrassing. Please, no one tell Quebec.
I did that long ago. I buy nearly all my alcohol in the US for half price as compared to The Beer Store. I recently bought a case of beer locally, $42! For a case of beer that costs $20 mere minutes away. Anyway, the $42 case wasn’t even good. It tasted like oppression.
I went from not caring about this debate to desperately wanting to see The Beer Store destroy themselves. If you just let them I think these idiots could talk Ontarians into selling beer in public schools.
This is hilarious. When did a drinking age ever stop anyone from having a drink?
His name is Al Cohol. He also has a scary arm tattoo.
Someone noticed what happend in 00:15 ? You can read “I love Satan”in the right arm of the seller. On the same frame is also clear that the seller is reading “How to Destroy the Occidental Civilization – chapter 1: Alcohol”
When I lived in the Annex, I agreed that beer and wine should be allowed in convenience stores. Now that I live a less prosperous neighbourhood, I’m against it. Too much substance abuse already. Booze in convenience stores is ideal for healthy, prosperous neighbourhoods, but would just cause problems around here.
Are you serious? You think that there are few more than three ethnic groups? Is it really so unbelievable that a white guy such as yourself could possibly have a grand total of TWO POC friends? Did you even notice that 50% of the actors are white? But god forbid we take a minuscule step towards depicting Canada for what it is, racially diverse.
Points for “It tasted like oppression.” hahaha
This is ridiculous… when I see stupid videos like this and how one sided they are just makes me laugh. Personally I don’t see a problem with selling beer in convenience stores… they do it in Montreal and the US. Ontario is behind the times and the Beer Store has had a monopoly on Beer for wayyyy too long.
Interesting how the foreign co-owners of this beer monopoly (InBev, Coors, Sapporo) find it perfectly morally acceptable to sell their brews privately in neighbouring Quebec and New York, while at the same time they insist that private alcohol sales in Ontario will essentially lead to the decay of civilization. Disgusting.
This is absolutely STUPID……..!!
The Beer-Stores are doing just fine. They know what the public wants. Just leave them alone…………
Bravo……..They’ve been selling Beer in Convenience Stores in Quebec for years without any problems and Ontario will sell same soon……….!!
funny though, because this is VERY similar in theme to the Cont̶e̶m̶p̶t̶ servative Party’s current “Pothead Justin Trudeau wants to make pot available everywhere, someone please think of the children” ads.
An extra like for the Rocco pic.