A local brewery has been forced to stop its home delivery partnership with a charity for at-risk youth after a complaint from another brewery.
Beau's Brewery in Vankleek Hill was launching its home delivery service Thursday along with Operation Come Home, a non-profit agency helping homeless youth.
It said it was forced to stop their Bottleworks service, which gave jobs to the agency's clients, after a complaint from an unspecified brewery to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
"Both Beau's and Bottleworks were advised that liquor deliver services must purchase for customers either from the Beer Store or the LCBO so delivery by Bottleworks directly from Beau's was not permitted under the (Liquor License Act)," said Lisa Murray with the AGCO.
"Stipulating that delivery services can only buy from The LCBO or The Beer Store doesn't seem fair," said Beau's co-founder Steve Beauchesne in a news release. "If a delivery service can buy alcohol from a retail store owned by Molson and Labatt's - which is what The Beer Store is - why not from our retail store? Our customers should be able to make that choice."
He said the regulation comes from a time when microbreweries and wineries weren't as popular, as they aren't mentioned in the regulation.
"One of our competitors was obviously looking for loopholes to have the service shut down," he said. "The unfortunate result is the end of a service that would have benefitted the Ottawa community."
The AGCO said it's not stopping Bottleworks from making deliveries, just enforcing the act.
"A non-compliant matter could lead to a warning letter, it could lead to a monetary penalty, it could lead to the suspension of a license or it could lead to a revokation of a license," Murray said.
Operation Come Home said they spent "considerable" time, money and effort creating and developing the service, which would have also served as a fundraiser.
"It was going to create lots of jobs for unemployed youth, it was going to provide a really good service to customers in the City of Ottawa who wanted to purchase Beau's products," said Elspeth McKay, Operation Come Home's executive director.
"Beau's would be able to get their products into the marketplace as a small microbrewery that wanted to do a good thing."
Kyle Baker said he was hoping his job delivering Beau's could help him find other work.
"I'm currently residing at the Ottawa Mission so it would have helped me get out of there . . . into an apartment or something," he said. "I have troubles finding a job due to lack of phone number, lack of an address."
"I'm pretty upset by it," said Cory Illingworth. "I need the money because I'm going through college and the money would really help, but hopefully we can arrange something."
Operation Come Home said it's exploring its options, including appealing the ruling.
However, they said that option takes time, money and a lawyer and right now they don't have the resources for that.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Katie Griffin
