Public attitudes around drinking have shifted and this has meant fewer people around Greater Victoria consuming alcohol, said Jeff Guignard, executive director of the Alliance of Beverage Licensees.
The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction announced that Canadians only consume two standard drinks in one week. But Guignard said that this shift happened before the new guidelines were publicized.
“It’s interesting because Health Canada’s guidance has stayed the same. Certainly, the public consciousness around all this has shifted — as well as the media campaigns and the number of articles. The discussion is much more active than it ever has been. What is the long-term impact going to be? We have no idea. Still, we’ve already been noticing customers shifting. Some of it involved the pandemic when people were locked up in their homes. People drank a lot,” said Guignard.
Even though there was a massive consumption of alcohol amid pandemic restrictions, these increases have mostly disappeared and are starting to resemble standard drinking patterns, he said.
The most significant change in consumption has been with Generation Z and younger millennials, as cannabis has become more frequent and accepted in mainstream society. Guignard said young people prefer to smoke a joint rather than drink a pint of beer.
“We’ve done a pretty successful job over the past several decades, making people understand the harms associated with excess consumption and that you must responsibly consume whatever you consume. Additionally, in 2018, we legalized recreational cannabis, and in some cases, they’re substitution goods where some younger consumers will choose to smoke or vape cannabis instead of going to a bar.”
The new healthy drinking guidelines have had no material effect on how people in Victoria consume alcohol when dining out, says Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of BC Restaurant Association.
“We might see people being a little bit more conscious and saying, ‘gee, no, do I need to, you know, do I need to have that extra glass of wine, maybe.’ I’m sure some of that has probably happened with the new guidelines to raise awareness, but that happens anyway. Restaurants tend to be a place where drinking is done in moderation.”
Alcohol sales make up around 35 to 40 per cent of the revenue that restaurants make, with food sales being where the bulk of their business is done, said Tostenson.
“It’s an important part of our business but not the main business. So, if we have some shifts in consumption, we tend not to feel it as much as a bar,” he said.
According to Tostenson, there has been a shift in young millennials and Generation Z, who are consuming alcohol less than previous generations, resulting in Metro Vancouver’s opening that does not serve alcohol at all, with none currently operating in Victoria.
“It’s been difficult to determine their success, but they’re addressing a need. But we’ve always been able to serve up a non-alcoholic drink at a restaurant. So it hasn’t affected us greatly.”
Guignard compares these new non-alcoholic bars as a cross-over between a juice bar and a regular bar, something that can provide the ambiance of a bar but serve mocktails for those wishing to stay sober.
“It’s just a sign of the innovation and creativity in the industry when we see a potential demand out there. Somebody who buys into that lifestyle and understands it wants to try and connect with those consumers and build a business around it in their community.”
Guignard said that despite new innovations in the hospitality sector, the industry still needs to recover from COVID-19 lockdowns and has seen many bars and pubs get into a spiral of debt they cannot get out of.
“One person I was talking to last night said, ‘It’s been two years of going up and down his credit line. You know, it goes down from, you know, $50,000 into debt to $5,000, and then the slow period goes back down to $50,000 and back up to five’ like you can’t get ahead.”
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