Following is an article from the Globe and Mail by LES PERREAUX.

Montreal’s tempest in a beer cup

A summertime deal between Labatt and the city’s Gay Village raises questions about private interests dominating public spaces.

LES PERREAUX

MONTREAL — Stéphanie Dagenais didn’t mind the Bud Light parasols and cups she was forced to use on her restaurant patio in Montreal’s Gay Village.

It’s when the brewery started telling her Bud Light had to go in those plastic cups that the manager of Kilo bristled.

“I think it’s an aggressive way of doing a sponsorship,” said Ms. Dagenais, who was forced to sell the beer under an exclusive deal struck between Labatt, which brews the beer in Canada, and the Gay Village business improvement group.

The business association sold the right to sell beer on 54 new patios along a stretch of Ste-Catherine Street to Labatt, part of a summer-long festival that will see cars banished from the street. Owners say the $100,000 deal came with minimum sales quotas for each bar and restaurant, including a healthy sample of Bud Light.

The deal irks restaurateurs like Ms. Dagenais, who doesn’t sell much beer at her small restaurant, best known for tasty desserts, and others who try to tempt palates with fine dining, wine and specialty ales.

A representative of the business group even suggested Bud Light is a popular beer among gays in the United States.

While the banishment of cars from the street has been good for many businesses and great for pedestrians, the sponsorship is triggering a broader tempest in a beer cup over how much control private enterprises should have over public space.

“I guess everything has a price,” said Ms. Dagenais, who has several cases of Bud Light collecting dust. “But should it be that way? I don’t think so, but it seems to be the way we work in North America.”

Christopher DeWolf, a writer for Spacing Montreal, an urban affairs website affiliated with the Toronto magazine Spacing, questions how corporate interests were allowed to take over a public street.

“The closure to cars has created a destination, it creates an ambience that is impossible with cars,” Mr. DeWolf said. “But here you have a product foisted on merchants and their customers. It raises the question of how far we should allow private interests to have such control over our public spaces. I think it’s a burden on merchants and it restricts public choice.”

Bernard Plante, director of the Gay Village business association, said the deal is no different than exclusive beer rights negotiated at other city venues.

He pointed to the privately owned Bell Centre where only Molson beer is sold. Mr. Plante brushed aside complaints about the use of public space, saying his business group is provincially legislated and democratically run.

“These are the decisions we made on behalf of businesses on the street,” Mr. Plante said.

Merchants could shed the restraints of sponsorship when the deal runs out after the summer of 2009, he added. But they will have to agree to pay for the street closing, including the cost of street decor and rent to the city for having patios on public streets and sidewalks.

Across North America, summer festivals run by private entities take over parks and streets, often with exclusive rights to allow access and to sell products. Many of the examples are more intrusive than the Montreal beer sponsorship.

In one infamous example in the United States, Washington’s National Mall was fenced off for a Pepsi product launch and concert – a 2003 scene described by the Project for Public Spaces as “singularly shocking for its sheer scope and audacity.”

Steve Davies, a vice-president of the New York-based group that encourages sensible integration of private business in public spaces, says sponsors get in trouble when they start constraining normal commercial activity.

“It goes too far when they use a sponsorship to start telling dozens of private businesses what to do on public land over an entire summer,” Mr. Davies said.

In Montreal, big chunks of major downtown streets are regularly closed to traffic for short periods for everything from the Jazz Festival to Just for Laughs. The Gay Village pedestrian mall will last 2½ months.

Mr. DeWolf said Montreal has one big thing right: The city usually emphasizes free public access, even if access to products like food and drink are often restricted.

Labatt officials could not be reached yesterday. But Jean-Luc Raymond, owner of La Planète, which specializes in international cuisine, says he’s noticed a little more flexibility from his brewery representative since the controversy broke out.

Mr. Raymond has managed to get a little more of the fashionable Stella Artois and a little less Bud Light.

“The Bud Light is still languishing,” he said, “but I’m not like some others who have to try to sell Bud Light and cheesecake.”

Following is an article from the Ottawa Sun by freelance writer DAVID MENZIES. It refers to
the LCBO but is relevant to what we are talking about.

Farewell to LCBO freebies

By DAVID MENZIES

Let’s all raise a glass of bubbly and say mazel tov! as we toast the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

The reason? Nearly a year after being exposed for possibly breaking the Criminal Code over crown corporation employees receiving gifts and gratuities from suppliers, the provincial liquor board has decided to do the right thing.

In other words, the LCBO — which operates under the oft-repeated mantra of “social responsibility” — is putting the cork in freebies.

The back story: Last August it was revealed several LCBO employees were receiving gifts — ranging from magnums of wine and cases of beer to hockey tickets — from the LCBO’s various booze suppliers.

An anonymous LCBO whistleblower alleges that no one at the LCBO is keeping track of which employees are receiving gifts, so it is unknown exactly how widespread the problem is.

The whistleblower also said some LCBO employees are apparently not declaring gifts from suppliers as taxable benefits.

Of note, the LCBO has long had an internal policy pertaining to “gifts and gratuities” in its administration manual. The policy reads: “No LCBO employee should accept any gifts or gratuities from any supplier
organization, except for promotional items of a nominal value. The Board views gifts having a value over $200 per annum from any individual or organization as the nominal threshold.”

For starters, it seems somewhat curious that the LCBO deems a gift of $200 as being “nominal.”

But the issue of what makes a gift nominal and the lack of internal gift tracking is a moot point. That’s because LCBO employees accepting gifts (or “product samples” as the kickbacks are known) may have been in violation of the federal Criminal Code.

Section 121 prohibits Crown employees from demanding, accepting or offering, or agreeing to accept, directly or indirectly, a commission, reward or benefit of any kind, from a person who has dealings with the government or a government agency.

The LCBO’s spokesman, Chris Layton, responded in an e-mail: “The LCBO has clear guidelines in connection with staff accepting and reporting gifts. These guidelines have always included reference to Section 121 of the Criminal Code of Canada.”

Clear as Guinness.

Now the LCBO is clarifying the rules for the booze industry.

In a memo dated July 16, 2008, LCBO president and CEO Bob Peter informs LCBO vendors as well as trade/marketing associations that LCBO employees will no longer be in a position to accept any gifts.

“To minimize conflict of interest situations, we (LCBO) are asking our trade partners not to invite LCBO employees to attend sports events, concerts, charity or other similar events, or to trade-sponsored sports events such as golf, tennis or curling. Our guidelines to LCBO employees are not to accept any such invitations,” says Peter.

It is perversely amusing to see Peter taking the ethical high ground when it comes to putting the kibosh on gifts and gratuities from suppliers. After all, shortly after being appointed LCBO president, Bob Peter’s daughter received a free year of university tuition courtesy of Spirits Canada, the national trade association that represents Canada’s major distillers.

All children of LCBO employees are eligible to apply.

“Bob Peter is a very wealthy man and his daughter doesn’t need this kind of handout,” says an LCBO executive. “When we (LCBO employees) found out about this, morale here just sank.”

The beer world has gone mad!

Big breweries are buying up independent breweries at an alarming rate. Fighting for market share, they offer contracts to pubs and restaurants…giving them price discounts based on volume but limiting them to selling only the brewery’s products plus a few select imports.

THE BREWERY IS DICTATING WHAT BEER THE PUB OWNER IS “ALLOWED” TO SELL…does anyone else find this unsettling?

As the owner of a freehouse, I’m often asked why I don’t have discount beer…why no $4.00 pint nights Len? Because I don’t get product discounts! I have not signed a contract with any brewery and am free to base my product selections not on contract obligations, but on quality, taste and distinction…it’s all about choice.

There are a number of pure freehouses in Canada that are devoted to choice and offer a variety of quality ales and lagers and are not governed by the dictates of the corporate brewer or buying group.

This website is devoted to creating a directory of these pubs and to showcase the breweries that supply them.

Let’s stand up and fight for good beer!

Who’s with me?