In 1993, Alberta said a private liquor model would bring more choice and stable prices. Did it? [Video]

“The Alberta Liquor Control Board is no longer our spiritual leader,” Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin declared in a Sept. 3, 1993, column.

Martin was reacting to news that the Alberta government would give up exclusive control over liquor, having regulated sales via the Alberta Liquor Control Board since prohibition ended in the province in 1924.

“It could be the best retail opportunity since the dawn of rental videos,” Martin went on to say.

While shares of Blockbuster Video no longer hold the same appeal they once did, Alberta’s 1993 venture into privatized booze has led to a dramatic reshaping of the liquor landscape. 

In recent weeks, as Ontario has been engaged in debate around the future of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), some in that province have turned their eyes to this other “Alberta model.” 

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