More than 80,000 bottles of alcohol were seized in Quebec by police or trustees in bars and restaurants in 2022, the largest volume recorded in the past five years, learned The Press. The vast majority of these products, sent to the warehouses of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), have been or will be destroyed.
Bankruptcies of establishments, revocations of liquor licenses, absence of stamps on bottles (compulsory for sale in bars and restaurants) are all reasons that can justify seizures by police forces or trustees in the event of insolvency. .
Thus, each year, thousands of bottles of wine and other alcohol are seized and then make their way to the SAQ warehouse, which acts as a “custodian”. Last year, however, thwarted all predictions: 84,580 bottles were thus obtained, according to a provisional assessment calculated at the beginning of December, obtained after an access to information request.
Destruction: this is the fate that awaits the majority of these bottles, confirms the state company in a document. These will be destroyed in the coming months or years, depending on when a judgment is rendered.
At the Association Restauration Québec (ARQ), the vice-president of public and governmental affairs, Martin Vézina, had difficulty explaining why the “harvest” had been so abundant in 2022, adding in the process that the number of bankruptcies n didn’t explode last year. “Maybe there were a lot of stamping errors,” he says. After the pandemic, the police may have returned to the traditional mode of inspections. »
What happens to bottles that are not destroyed? “If the products come from a trustee and are fit for consumption, they can be returned to our branch network, indicates the document provided by the Crown corporation. Under no circumstances are the bottles given to the SAQ offered to employees or consumed by them. »
The covers
It is not just seizures that lead to the destruction of bottles in Quebec. Private import agencies, whose products must be stored in SAQ warehouses, have 211 days to sell them. If the bottles are not sold within this period, the SAQ can legally recover them. Some, filled with their contents, will nevertheless take the path of recycling.
This is what happened to 1,200 cases of alcohol, or 14,400 bottles, which were recovered by the SAQ for the period from March 13, 2020 to December 2022. Of this number, 700 bottles have already been destroyed, for a value of $20,491, confirms the state monopoly.
The bottles are destroyed by an independent company.
At the SAQ, we always seek to reduce our environmental footprint as much as possible, which is why these products are sent directly to a specialized recycling firm that processes alcoholic beverages.
Geneviève Cormier, SAQ spokesperson
Expired or faulty products are also discarded. “Most of the products destroyed are ready-to-drink, considering that they are suitable for consumption over a shorter period and the costs related to the destruction are assumed by the agencies”, specifies the spokesperson.
Unlike seizures, unsold bottles that are not reduced to dust can be purchased by Crown corporation employees. “All the funds generated by these sales are donated to the organization Entraide “, underlines M.me Cormier.
Clear rules
In Quebec, in practice, a “private import” agency does not actually import alcohol. It is the SAQ that pays the winemaker and takes care of the transport of the bottles (with some exceptions, in certain countries) from the place of production to its warehouses in Quebec.
The wine (or another alcohol) from this private import agency can be found on the shelves of SAQ branches, in restaurants or sold directly to clients of the agency. If the agent does not manage to sell his wine within the regulatory deadlines, for whatever reason, he has the possibility of buying back his merchandise to prevent it from being pounded. However, if she does, he will no longer be able to legally sell her.
This situation is not common. But here it is: the pandemic has shaken up the alcohol trade in recent years. Restaurants were closed, then reopened, then closed again. Private import agencies that have restaurants as their main clients have had to review their business model or, at the very least, their planning.
Many also had to deal with delivery times that were complex to manage. The SAQ has given a grace period to the agencies, due to these exceptional circumstances, but now applies the usual rules which also provide for additional costs after 150 days of storage, costs which have more than tripled in 2021.
Despite this, since last spring, there has been a traffic jam in the SAQ warehouses, with the shelves overflowing. Some agencies have thus found themselves stuck, without stock and without the possibility of ordering new merchandise since the SAQ’s maximum storage capacity has been reached. Some are still in this situation.
Relations between the agencies and the SAQ are sometimes strained and, overall, the level of satisfaction is low. According to a survey conducted last summer among its partners, including private import agencies, the SAQ does not obtain a pass mark for any of the criteria evaluated, obtaining a mark of 47% for the business relationship and 54% for leadership and communications. This gives her an overall satisfaction rating of 53% from agents for whom she is an obligated business partner.
The state monopoly refused to pass on to The Press details of this poll and all agencies contacted for this story have declined to speak publicly.
With the collaboration of William Leclerc, The Press