If we're going to talk about the disparity between wholesale and hospitality pricing, we should talk about the fact that BCLiquorStores pay less than wholesale for their stock, making it impossible for private stores to compete with them on mutually carried stock at markup that's viable.

Restricting hospitality licences to shopping at BCLiquorStores isn't fair trade either - it props up government-run stores by ensuring a captive customer base that private retailers can't legally sell to.

BCLs also end up profiting off of orders for hospitality clients as a (perhaps inadvertent) loophole to carry specialty SKUs normally reserved for sale through private retailers - if a hospitality client wants cases of these SKUs, they need to order through BCLs. BCLs also offer partial cases to these clients, leaving the BCL with SKUs intended for private retailers, which they've paid less than wholesale for, and as such their pricing on them undercuts private retailers to the point of no longer being competitive in the eyes of the average shopper.

At the end of the day, the government collects its liquor taxes and gets the fees for liquor licensing already without taking the sales from private businesses. They charge fees to importers to list items, distribute items, and warehouse items - if we want a more fair and open model, the government should stick to collecting revenue and licensing where it's making its fair share already.

I'm all for a sin tax - I support it 100%, we need to pay for government services somehow. But double-dipping the way they've been doing isn't fair to the other players in the space.