Manitoba Liquor Commission initiates a "Bring Your Own Wine" strategy.

Back in the spring the Provincial Government announced a new hospitality strategy for Manitoba.  One of the areas they looked at was to make changes to the liquor control act to improve hospitality in the Province.  One of the things they did was initiate a new brew pub license.  This is a new license under the liquor control act.  Spokesperson Diana Soroka says,  "It is to allow for the establishment for a brew pub.  What's different from the past, is that the legislation allows the pub to sell product not only on site but off premise and to beer retailers and liquor marts."

Soroka notes, there is also a new program called bring your own wine.  This is a voluntary program for licensed premises, primarily for dining rooms.  If somebody wants to have a meal with a bottle of wine, this allows them to do so.  Soroka says, "This change is a voluntary program so what we are recommending is, people check with the restaurant to see if they are participating in that program.  The other thing people should know, the wine that they bring has to be a commercially made product , and cannot be open."  Soroka notes, restaurants are allowed to charge a corkage fee for the service of that wine and all other rules and regulations apply.  The restaurant would be responsible for opening and serving it as with any other wine.

 The Provincial Government has been looking for ways to modernize the liquor laws in Manitoba. This is something that has been progressing over the years.  There have been small changes here and there.  Soroka says, "They saw this as an opportunity to take a look at how we were managing policies around liquor, and to look at any of the regulations and legislation's to see if there was anything we could do to improve hospitality opportunities in the Province, but to also look at and see if there are things that we can do on the social responsibility side to make sure we can ensure patron safety when they are in a licensed premise, and to make sure everyone is responsible in the sale and service of alcohol.  There were actually close to 30 changes made in regulations and policies back in May.  The brew pub license and bring your own wine strategies that were announced in May are now being put in place."  

Soroka says there has been a lot of interest and inquiries over the summer months about the program and how it would work. From a public perspective people are very excited about the possibility and opportunity to bring their own wine to a pub because people are travelling where this is the norm, and they would like to have it here.  She notes, there is some natural concern and hesitation because people want to see what the response is going to be from the public.  Now it is a wait and see who will offer the service.   
For more information on the new hospitality strategy, go to www.mlcc.mb.ca/e/home