Letter from the President
THE REAL ISSUES
Today, Quebec has a Liberal majority government led by a premier who cares about the economy and “real issues.”
The laws governing us must be updated.
Think about the requirement for multiple liquor permits in the same establishment — in order to have as many operating bars as active permits. A single customer in a space with a liquor permit requires the presence of a server (RACJ’s decision line).
Multiple alcohol permits and video lottery terminal licences represent high, recurring annual costs.
This is in addition to the maintenance and the presence of equipment, a diverse inventory, additional purchases and stock turnover for each space with a liquor permit.
Additional charges come from increasing the number of employees to meet the decision line requirement, not to mention the allocation of staff during certain periods that do not warrant their presence and salary and, in turn, the payment of source deductions and remittances to the CSST.
We must also take into account the overhead from the administration and accounting that would come with this type of decision-making, not to mention the multitude of sales reports, forms to fill out, tax remittances and, of course, archiving for to satisfy the tax authorities.
We already deal with enough red tape and the arrival of the SRM in our institutions will only add a whole new level of business priorities. It is clearly time to focus on our business and administrative operations, keeping the government requirements we must meet to a minimum.
It is extremely easy to let our members assign their staff according to the traffic in their establishments, which would translate almost immediately into economic and tax relief for every liquor permit holder in Quebec.
The « Real Issue » here? Simplifying our operations.
Mr. Jean-Jacques Beauchamp
Chairman of the Board
Corporation of Bar, Pub and Tavern Owners of Quebec
