Elbows Up! BC Craft Distillers Need Your Help to Get Craft Spirits on Government Liquor Store Shelves

British Columbia’s 85 craft distilling families desperately need your help to finally get 100% BC Craft Spirits onto BC government liquor store shelves!  

Now more than ever, BC residents want to support local, but unfortunately, they can’t get their authentic, locally made spirits in BC government liquor stores. That’s because the BC government does not give BC craft distilleries the same VQA reimbursement that they do for BC wineries, which allows wineries to keep a fair percentage of the bottle price in their pockets. This leaves British Columbians with the only choice of purchasing foreign owned (often US) and foreign manufactured spirits, where all the economic impact is realized in those foreign countries instead of here in BC!

Authentic farm-to-bottle BC Craft Distillers are counting on you to help change this once and for all! 

We are calling on you to demand that Premier Eby and Solicitor General Begg make the two changes that will finally see BC’s craft distilleries treated with the same respect as BC wineries.

The required changes are simple to enact, economically positive for BC’s economy, and will correct a long-standing era of discriminating against BC Craft Spirits simply because they use grains and fruits instead of grapes to produce 100% BC spirits.

1.     Give BC craft distillers the same VQA reimbursement program granted to BC wineries who make their products from 100% BC agricultural inputs, and give BC craft distilleries their own VQA aisle in all government liquor stores so that consumers can easily identify the truly 100% BC products! 

2.     Remove the 50,000 litre production cap that penalizes any BC craft distillery for making more than this volume by charging a $280,000 penalty on their next bottle produced, even though they are using only BC-grown fruits and grains. If this cap is not removed, a BC craft distillery can never grow to compete fairly against foreign brands, nor can they funnel billions of dollars back into BC’s economy when they grow in supporting local growers and employing BC residents in their local production efforts.

Of note, there is no cap on the number of litres a BC winemaker can produce; and because of this in recent decades, wineries have grown to become a $4-billion-a-year industry in BC!

BC's craft distillers and the hundreds of BC farmers and orchardists are counting on proud British Columbians like you to get their elbows up and join us in demanding that this government, at last, redresses the inequities in our industry. Our tax dollars pay to keep government liquor stores open: it’s time for them to start supporting authentic BC products.

With 100% BC Craft Spirits, every bottle produced here in British Columbia equates to an EXTRA $20 of economic development for BC.

The choice is clear, if British Columbians choose to drink locally produced BC Craft Spirits, they are powering their own local economy. Please join us in demanding change now, so that BC Craft Spirits can finally be sold and celebrated in BC government liquor stores, with benefits on par with those afforded BC’s world-class wines.

Elbows Up for Craft BC everyone…Let’s make some noise!

The most impactful action you can do is to sign the petition and to share it with as many friends and family as possible. 

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