Drinking in Toronto

The provincial government owns the rights to sell alcohol in Ontario. In England I could order a nice bottle of Chianti or vinho verde to arrive with my groceries from Sainsbury's, or I could pop round the corner to pick up a six-pack of beer. When we arrived in Toronto, new friends came to visit and generally brought along with them a bottle of wine, so for the first few weeks, we did not really notice that things worked differently here.

Parents and in-laws arrived from afar to view us in our new habitat, and we wanted to serve them something convivial. Tea or coffee worked in the mornings but by nightfall we wanted (perhaps even needed) stronger stuff. At least, some of us did. Where to get it? I enquired of a local friend. 'Oh, at the Elsibio,' she told me, giving me general directions. 'It is big, you can't miss it, it has everything.' I did miss it, so got nothing. But never mind, more friends came for dinner, more bottles arrived, crisis averted.

It was in fact the 'L.C.B.O.' that we wanted: the Licence Control Board of Ontario (or maybe L is for 'liquor'). It is big, it has a lot, it all costs a fortune. It closes at 9:00 pm, it is shut on certain days, it requires some forethought to keep wine and beer in the house. I read a newspaper article this morning bemoaning both the expense and the paternalism imposed on Ontarians by the government monopoly of liquor sales. The primness of the province's imposition of temperance is out of step, out of place, out of its time, said the writer. I agree, I am outraged, I despise being forced to acquire alcohol at the LCBO. How dare they.

And yet I love to walk out my front door in the morning to pick up the paper, and not find beer cans or wine bottles strewn on our urban, downtown street. I love walking along of an evening and not fearing groups of men or boys approaching from the opposite direction. I love overhearing, from our window at midnight, cogent conversations, not shouted strings of slurred syllables. The discussions are sometimes about philosophy, or politics, or perhaps just the streetcar schedule, but the speakers are not inebriated.

People drink here, of course they do. Alcohol abuse is a problem, as is drug addiction, poverty, social injustice. What I notice in comparison with England, though, is that drunkenness is more unusual. It is unexpected, noted, censured. How different to the UK, with its much more liberal access to alcohol. Cause? Correlation? Imagination? I don't know. But I like it.