Red Tape Tales - The wine butler

I own a micro-winery in Toronto called The Wine Butler. We import grape juice from around the world and make small batches of wine with our clients. We are a small, locally owned business producing over 100,000 bottles of wine every year.

Admittedly, our business is highly regulated because it involves alcohol. There are a lot of rules (that are made more confusing because they differ at the federal and provincial levels). We are not allowed to carry our customer's orders out to their cars.

Nor assist them physically in any way while they package their products. We are not allowed to offer perspective customers samples of our products, yet our competitors (ie. the LCBO) can. Underage children are not allowed in our facility with their Guardians, yet they are allowed on our competitor's premises. Some 10 to 15 minutes of paper work must be completed to satisfy government regulations to complete one order. We are not allowed to market the cost of our product per unit.

We are not allowed to take orders over the phone. Our customers must start orders by being physically present, a rule that is an incredible burden to our business, forcing us to start orders one at a time, which logistically presents countless challenges. In addition to which fact, means twice as many cars visiting our store (environmentally wasteful and not carbon friendly). Recently new laws regulating phone marketing and email have been legislated by other levels of government, making cold calling or contacting perspective customers unwieldy and confusing.

There are guidelines for what we can advertise -- and they are sanitized to a level of being more or less useless. It is suggested we can market our business, with approval of marketing creative by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission.

Notwithstanding all of these challenges, my little business is growing and thriving. My opinion is that less regulation and a common sense revolution for business would help cut Canada's deficit, spur industry, and ensure Canada's competitiveness on a world scale.