October 15, 2024 • 10 mins
Ontario Convenience Stores Association chair & Midway Convenience owner Terry Yaldo joins Jon Liedtke on AM800 CKLW to discuss whether Ontario's retail alcohol expansion is helping to revive the lagging convenience store sector which has been seeing large swaths of store closures, especially in rural areas.
This interview aired on AM800 CKLW
This interview aired on AM800 CKLW
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, you're back John McKee here on AM eight hundred CKLW. Well,
it's been what about a month and a bit since
retail alcohol was expanded to convenience stores across the province,
and we've seen a huge uptick of convenience stores that
have decided to take part in this. You can check
out online maps and see that's scattered across all of
(00:24):
Windsor in Essex County. There are a number of different
outlets that you're able to go to. You step into
them and you can see that the not much has
changed in how convenience stores look on the inside. There's
some different operations and different offerings, of course, And I
gotta say, quite frankly, the sky hasn't seemed to have
started to fall as many people have suggested that it may.
(00:46):
But what I want to know is how is it
actually impacting the convenience stores themselves.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Joining me right now to discuss is the.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Owner of Midway Convenience in the chair of the Ontario
Convenience Stores Association, Terry Aldo, joins me right now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
How you doing good?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
How are you doing John? Thanks for having me on, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Doing really well?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you so much so, As I said, doesn't seem
like the guy has been falling whatsoever. What's it been
like from your perspective, as you know, as an owner
but also as the chair of the Commune Store Association
of Ontario.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What have you been seeing since alcohol was rolled out?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh, we're seeing a lot of happy customers that are
having access to you know, beers, wines, ready to drink
a lot easier than they used to. In terms of business,
it's helping with the traffic blow. We're seeing some new faces,
new customers and that definitely helps with the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yesterday was a big day considering it was Thanksgiving and
traditionally that means if you didn't already have your purchases made,
you were pretty well out of luck. Not the case
though yesterday, because people were able to go to Commune
stores for the first time and purchase.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Did you see people coming in yesterday?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Oh, definitely. We've seen an increase of sales even you
know the average I guess beers from when we started.
We've seen a boost yesterday. Uh, you know, having the
beer stores being closed, so yeah, people appreciate that convenience
and that access. You know, they're not you know, locked
in on you know, getting everything done last minute. Uh well,
I mean before you know, beer stores closed and before Thanksgiving,
(02:16):
if you know, a lot of people were you know,
happy to walk in and grab a couple of bottles
of wine for the dinner. They were going to stop
in a you know whatever relatives.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, and you know that's the convenience is.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Of course, the whole point of what a convenience store
is is to be able to do that without having
to do the whole planning ahead. Are people still coming
in and purchasing other things at the same time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Oh, definitely. Yeah, we're seeing an increase in you know,
other sales. You know, you're going to have some chips,
not you know, chocolate, so bag of ice. Every every
little bit helps. You know, it's been tough times in
this industry and small business and Ontario. So we're definitely
happy to see this change, and you know, see the
government loosen up on some of their restrictions in terms
(02:59):
of you know, the sales.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'll call you know, uh, when we look at how
the situation has been obviously it's been very restrictive and
it's been that way for one hundred years and people
are saying have been saying, who are opposed to this.
Government should have moved slower on this. They shouldn't have
rolled it out as quickly as they did, to which
I said, one hundred years seems like it's a pretty
long time to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It doesn't seem like it was an overnight thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Have there been any growing pains that you've noticed as
a result of this? Have there been any issues that
have popped up?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, I think the biggest issue is getting supply of
certain products I know are ready to drink, Like, We've
had multiple orders in on the queue, and I was
hoping to get one of my bigger orders in before Thanksgiving,
and unfortunately that didn't happen. So we had some you
know AMPSTI shelf space in terms of you know, the
white closet, twisted tees, the cottage spring. So that kind
of hurts because you get people coming in, they see
a great selection and then you know, five days later
(03:50):
they come in and it's like pretty much empty and
they're like, oh, what's going on. So it's unfortunately it
looks bad on us, as you know retailers, but it's
just part of the process. Right now, you know, you're
adding over four thousand stores, to the network, to the
distribution system, you know, more trusting to be on the road,
more drivers. It's just going to take time to you know,
ramp to the proper levels.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It's it's it's the good kind of growing pains, right,
It's it's the kind of problems that you want to have.
There's so much demand for something that they're not able
to keep up. Of course everyone would want that stabilization,
but you could have a lot of worse issues with
people not coming in. And I know that that's been
one of the concerns for convenience stores across the province
is the number of commune stores that have been closing,
especially in rural areas.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Isn't that correct, Yeah, that's that's always a growing issue.
There's you know, other challenges that affect our industry. And
it's unfortunate because you know, we're kind of the last
or one or the last types of business standings in
some of these communities. So you know, to loser communience store,
it's detrimental to the community.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So is alcohol helping to revive the commune store?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Then?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Is this I don't I don't know if it's going
to be a silver bullet, but is it something that
can actually help to maybe turn the trend a different way.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
One hundred percent, because this will either slow it down
or stop it or possibly reverse it, depending on you know,
how things end up. You know, in six months and
one year from now, well we're noticing, like I said,
I know, for us, we notice an increase in traffic
and that definitely helps the bottom line, and that definitely
you know, gives us the ability to employ more people
or keep people employed. So I think this will this
(05:22):
is a positive change in the industry, and this will
save a lot of stores across the province. Uh, but
there will still continue to be other challenges that you know,
make it difficult to run a.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Business such as.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I will one is contraby tobacco, Like so tobacco from
the reserve, if you're avoiding paying tax on a package
cigarettes that it is going to be way cheaper than
buying a pack from you know, a comedience store. So
when we're losing that customer, that hurts. You know, everybody's
squeezed financially. You know, everybody's disposable incomes of have been
h minimum. So you know, when when people don't have
(05:57):
to uh have the money to buy you know, Accola,
barships or some of the diligences you know, you would like,
you know, they cut back on that, so you know
that that hurts us as well. So that's another thing
that affects our industry, you know, losing that customer, losing
their customers continued business, or you know them coming in
(06:17):
three four times a week, and all of a sudden
they're coming in one time a week or one time
every two weeks. So every little bit affects us.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
What more could the government do to help you guys out?
I mean, whether it be in the alcohol side, I
don't know if you'd want to see an expansion of
other things to sell or even just beyond that. How
could the government help Communian stores out the most?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So I think it's they continue to work on the
distribution of the alcohol, kind of get that up and running.
That will help dramatically tackling the contraband issue. This has
been going on for decades. If they did something about that,
that would truly help our business. I know, like in
the Winds area, when you know Reserve opened up within
(07:01):
you know, forty five minutes, you know a lot of
people lost twenty to forty percent of the bacco customers,
so you can see that, you know, trickle into other
areas of the business. So and that's been a bigger
problem problem in other parts of the problems for a
longer time. So we're just feeling it here. So I
can't imagine how it's going to be in five years
from now if nothing changes in terms of.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That would what's what's the appetite like from convenience stores
in regards to the sale of spirit alcohol like you know,
jin vodka, whiskey.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Do people want?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Is there a desire from your operators to sell those products.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
We're always open and willing to look at other products,
but right now we're happy with what we've been given
and we're okay working with that and you know, proving
to the community and consumers and ontarios that you know,
we can do it responsibly and uh you know the
benefits you know for us and the benefits for them. Uh,
you know, let's let that come to light and then
you know, we can do discussed further things down the road.
(08:01):
But in terms of the alcohol category, we're we're happy
with what they've given us at the moment.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Tell you that's that's that's great. To hear that. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
One thing that a lot of people have been concerned
about is you know, who's a cannience store clerk to know.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
How to sell alcohol? They're not even trained.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Can you talk a little bit about what it took
for you to get to the point to be able
to receive a license to sell alcohol?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Well, every clerk has to be certified either through smart
server or there's seven different options now for being a
retail clerk in a community sort of sell alcohol and
if it ends up training just like you know if
you were selling at a bar or selling at a restaurant.
So they're strict guidelines, strict rules, and my staff follows
in most quotes around the city and the province are
(08:50):
going to follow those rules too because there's heart heart
heart pelonies. If it's not a boided by it's a
little bit different than the LGBO and the beer store
work ever by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission. So we
have a lot to lose if we don't follow these rules.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You could lose your license.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
We can lose our license. And that's our little machine
is UH is governed under alcohol and gave me commission,
so we can use that privilege as well, So it's
very detrimental if I were to use either one of
those licenses, pretty much idea out of business. So not
a lot of people want to risk that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
No, I'd imagine not.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Well, Hey, Terry, it sounds like a little bit of
growing pains. But I got to say it's it's heartening
to hear you say that. You know, you're happy with
the way things are right now, aside from a little things.
You know a few things that could change outside of
the alcohol side of things, But rarely do you see
a government roll something out and to have the affected
stakeholders to go, hey, two thumbs up, it's working.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I'm glad to hear that well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Plus, the other positive thing is I'd rather this happen
now and work out these going pains and then wait
till you know, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, because
how many more stores would have closed if they had
to wait. So this will definitely save stores from closing
in the next year two years.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, keeping stores open, making sure that rural communities still
have access to not just again alcohol, but also to
the staples that they need that these stores offer, can, eggs, milk,
those types of things. It's important, but of course then
the jobs as well. Terry, I really appreciate you taking
your time to walk us through how the rollout of
retail alcohol inconmunice stores has been.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Thank you so much, no problem, Thanks for having me
as usual.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Oh you're welcome. All the best,
Hey, you're back John McKee here on AM eight hundred CKLW. Well,
it's been what about a month and a bit since
retail alcohol was expanded to convenience stores across the province,
and we've seen a huge uptick of convenience stores that
have decided to take part in this. You can check
out online maps and see that's scattered across all of
(00:24):
Windsor in Essex County. There are a number of different
outlets that you're able to go to. You step into
them and you can see that the not much has
changed in how convenience stores look on the inside. There's
some different operations and different offerings, of course, And I
gotta say, quite frankly, the sky hasn't seemed to have
started to fall as many people have suggested that it may.
(00:46):
But what I want to know is how is it
actually impacting the convenience stores themselves.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Joining me right now to discuss is the.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Owner of Midway Convenience in the chair of the Ontario
Convenience Stores Association, Terry Aldo, joins me right now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
How you doing good?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
How are you doing John? Thanks for having me on, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Doing really well?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you so much so, As I said, doesn't seem
like the guy has been falling whatsoever. What's it been
like from your perspective, as you know, as an owner
but also as the chair of the Commune Store Association
of Ontario.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What have you been seeing since alcohol was rolled out?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh, we're seeing a lot of happy customers that are
having access to you know, beers, wines, ready to drink
a lot easier than they used to. In terms of business,
it's helping with the traffic blow. We're seeing some new faces,
new customers and that definitely helps with the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yesterday was a big day considering it was Thanksgiving and
traditionally that means if you didn't already have your purchases made,
you were pretty well out of luck. Not the case
though yesterday, because people were able to go to Commune
stores for the first time and purchase.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Did you see people coming in yesterday?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Oh, definitely. We've seen an increase of sales even you
know the average I guess beers from when we started.
We've seen a boost yesterday. Uh, you know, having the
beer stores being closed, so yeah, people appreciate that convenience
and that access. You know, they're not you know, locked
in on you know, getting everything done last minute. Uh well,
I mean before you know, beer stores closed and before Thanksgiving,
(02:16):
if you know, a lot of people were you know,
happy to walk in and grab a couple of bottles
of wine for the dinner. They were going to stop
in a you know whatever relatives.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, and you know that's the convenience is.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Of course, the whole point of what a convenience store
is is to be able to do that without having
to do the whole planning ahead. Are people still coming
in and purchasing other things at the same time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Oh, definitely. Yeah, we're seeing an increase in you know,
other sales. You know, you're going to have some chips,
not you know, chocolate, so bag of ice. Every every
little bit helps. You know, it's been tough times in
this industry and small business and Ontario. So we're definitely
happy to see this change, and you know, see the
government loosen up on some of their restrictions in terms
(02:59):
of you know, the sales.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'll call you know, uh, when we look at how
the situation has been obviously it's been very restrictive and
it's been that way for one hundred years and people
are saying have been saying, who are opposed to this.
Government should have moved slower on this. They shouldn't have
rolled it out as quickly as they did, to which
I said, one hundred years seems like it's a pretty
long time to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It doesn't seem like it was an overnight thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Have there been any growing pains that you've noticed as
a result of this? Have there been any issues that
have popped up?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, I think the biggest issue is getting supply of
certain products I know are ready to drink, Like, We've
had multiple orders in on the queue, and I was
hoping to get one of my bigger orders in before Thanksgiving,
and unfortunately that didn't happen. So we had some you
know AMPSTI shelf space in terms of you know, the
white closet, twisted tees, the cottage spring. So that kind
of hurts because you get people coming in, they see
a great selection and then you know, five days later
(03:50):
they come in and it's like pretty much empty and
they're like, oh, what's going on. So it's unfortunately it
looks bad on us, as you know retailers, but it's
just part of the process. Right now, you know, you're
adding over four thousand stores, to the network, to the
distribution system, you know, more trusting to be on the road,
more drivers. It's just going to take time to you know,
ramp to the proper levels.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It's it's it's the good kind of growing pains, right,
It's it's the kind of problems that you want to have.
There's so much demand for something that they're not able
to keep up. Of course everyone would want that stabilization,
but you could have a lot of worse issues with
people not coming in. And I know that that's been
one of the concerns for convenience stores across the province
is the number of commune stores that have been closing,
especially in rural areas.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Isn't that correct, Yeah, that's that's always a growing issue.
There's you know, other challenges that affect our industry. And
it's unfortunate because you know, we're kind of the last
or one or the last types of business standings in
some of these communities. So you know, to loser communience store,
it's detrimental to the community.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So is alcohol helping to revive the commune store?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Then?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Is this I don't I don't know if it's going
to be a silver bullet, but is it something that
can actually help to maybe turn the trend a different way.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
One hundred percent, because this will either slow it down
or stop it or possibly reverse it, depending on you know,
how things end up. You know, in six months and
one year from now, well we're noticing, like I said,
I know, for us, we notice an increase in traffic
and that definitely helps the bottom line, and that definitely
you know, gives us the ability to employ more people
or keep people employed. So I think this will this
(05:22):
is a positive change in the industry, and this will
save a lot of stores across the province. Uh, but
there will still continue to be other challenges that you know,
make it difficult to run a.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Business such as.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I will one is contraby tobacco, Like so tobacco from
the reserve, if you're avoiding paying tax on a package
cigarettes that it is going to be way cheaper than
buying a pack from you know, a comedience store. So
when we're losing that customer, that hurts. You know, everybody's
squeezed financially. You know, everybody's disposable incomes of have been
h minimum. So you know, when when people don't have
(05:57):
to uh have the money to buy you know, Accola,
barships or some of the diligences you know, you would like,
you know, they cut back on that, so you know
that that hurts us as well. So that's another thing
that affects our industry, you know, losing that customer, losing
their customers continued business, or you know them coming in
(06:17):
three four times a week, and all of a sudden
they're coming in one time a week or one time
every two weeks. So every little bit affects us.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
What more could the government do to help you guys out?
I mean, whether it be in the alcohol side, I
don't know if you'd want to see an expansion of
other things to sell or even just beyond that. How
could the government help Communian stores out the most?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So I think it's they continue to work on the
distribution of the alcohol, kind of get that up and running.
That will help dramatically tackling the contraband issue. This has
been going on for decades. If they did something about that,
that would truly help our business. I know, like in
the Winds area, when you know Reserve opened up within
(07:01):
you know, forty five minutes, you know a lot of
people lost twenty to forty percent of the bacco customers,
so you can see that, you know, trickle into other
areas of the business. So and that's been a bigger
problem problem in other parts of the problems for a
longer time. So we're just feeling it here. So I
can't imagine how it's going to be in five years
from now if nothing changes in terms of.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That would what's what's the appetite like from convenience stores
in regards to the sale of spirit alcohol like you know,
jin vodka, whiskey.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Do people want?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Is there a desire from your operators to sell those products.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
We're always open and willing to look at other products,
but right now we're happy with what we've been given
and we're okay working with that and you know, proving
to the community and consumers and ontarios that you know,
we can do it responsibly and uh you know the
benefits you know for us and the benefits for them. Uh,
you know, let's let that come to light and then
you know, we can do discussed further things down the road.
(08:01):
But in terms of the alcohol category, we're we're happy
with what they've given us at the moment.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Tell you that's that's that's great. To hear that. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
One thing that a lot of people have been concerned
about is you know, who's a cannience store clerk to know.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
How to sell alcohol? They're not even trained.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Can you talk a little bit about what it took
for you to get to the point to be able
to receive a license to sell alcohol?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Well, every clerk has to be certified either through smart
server or there's seven different options now for being a
retail clerk in a community sort of sell alcohol and
if it ends up training just like you know if
you were selling at a bar or selling at a restaurant.
So they're strict guidelines, strict rules, and my staff follows
in most quotes around the city and the province are
(08:50):
going to follow those rules too because there's heart heart
heart pelonies. If it's not a boided by it's a
little bit different than the LGBO and the beer store
work ever by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission. So we
have a lot to lose if we don't follow these rules.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
You could lose your license.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
We can lose our license. And that's our little machine
is UH is governed under alcohol and gave me commission,
so we can use that privilege as well, So it's
very detrimental if I were to use either one of
those licenses, pretty much idea out of business. So not
a lot of people want to risk that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
No, I'd imagine not.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Well, Hey, Terry, it sounds like a little bit of
growing pains. But I got to say it's it's heartening
to hear you say that. You know, you're happy with
the way things are right now, aside from a little things.
You know a few things that could change outside of
the alcohol side of things, But rarely do you see
a government roll something out and to have the affected
stakeholders to go, hey, two thumbs up, it's working.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I'm glad to hear that well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Plus, the other positive thing is I'd rather this happen
now and work out these going pains and then wait
till you know, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, because
how many more stores would have closed if they had
to wait. So this will definitely save stores from closing
in the next year two years.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, keeping stores open, making sure that rural communities still
have access to not just again alcohol, but also to
the staples that they need that these stores offer, can, eggs, milk,
those types of things. It's important, but of course then
the jobs as well. Terry, I really appreciate you taking
your time to walk us through how the rollout of
retail alcohol inconmunice stores has been.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Thank you so much, no problem, Thanks for having me
as usual.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Oh you're welcome. All the best,
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