How to Get a Liquor Licence in Ontario in the Seventies
Right from the start we knew that getting a liquor licence for the Auberge was going to be... interesting, to say the least.
I was from Montreal, where I had spent the Saturday nights of my youth in those evil night clubs that never closed, and Robin was from England, where wine merchants were as common as bakeries (although they did have those weird pub hours).
We had assumed that serving wine with French food would be taken for granted by the LLBO (Liquor Licensing Board of Ontario, subsequently renamed the Liquor Control Board of Ontario). In fact, in Ontario they had a licence category just for restaurants like ours: a beer and wine licence. Perfect.
The LLBO Has Some Unusual Requirements
One bizarre request that had us all stumped was for a sketch of the parking area. What did parking have to do with drinking?, we thought. Why would the liquor authorities encourage people to drink and drive? Yet they insisted that the plans show one parking space for every five restaurant seats. (Later, this would get even worse: one parking space for every 3 seats! But by then we had bought the building, and the little cottage mentioned elsewhere had plenty of parking space.)
With our 18 seats, that meant four parking spaces, but officially the property only had one, and it was in front of the neighbour's half of the house. (I forgot to mention that the place that we rented eventually -- 460 King Street -- was half of a double house.)
There were other strange requirements, such as that the seats had to have padded seats and padded arms. I'm not kidding! Well, to go with the Early Quebec décor I had found some antique chairs that were from a nunnery. No padded seats, no padded arms. No arms, period. We all thought, surely they can't enforce that.
We expected to have to wait a few months for the license, so we applied early. Before presenting the application, I was allowed a consultation with an LLBO staff member at the Toronto head office. Lucky for me, the guy was very nice and he helped me all he could, especially after I shed a few tears. About the padded arms, he told me to apply for an exception for the sake of the décor. About the parking, our argument was that there was plenty of street parking in the area, but he made it very clear that this was not acceptable. With a wink, he suggested that I sketch in four parking spaces over the entire front lawn of the building, including the part in front of the neighbours' half.
I left there feeling pretty optimistic.
The Petition
I don't remember how I found out about the petition. Some memories are very clear, but for some reason this one is really fuzzy. All I know is one day I found out that a neighbour had gathered several signatures against us, in response to the LLBO's newspaper notice calling for objections to our application.
I do remember finding myself in a neighbour's house -- a very nice Chinese lady -- and she told me that she had signed the petition because they had told her that my customers would come out of the restaurant drunk, and that they would rape the neighbourhood children. She said she had children, so what could she do. I remember asking her if she would sign a petition in our favour, now that she knew what the restaurant was about, and she said she would. But I don't remember if we made up such a petition; we must have, because the issue never came up at the hearing.
The Hearing
The LLBO went around the province holding local hearings, but they only came to London twice a year. Several months before the Auberge was scheduled to open, we were notified of the date of our hearing. I showed up full of expectancy, accompanied by our lawyer, Charles Brown. (Robin was there too, I'm sure, but she was still not a Canadian citizen, so the application was in my name.)
The first clue that this was not going to be easy was when they called my name, and I got up and the "judge" shouted, "You're a woman!" He asked me a few questions, but his decision was a definite "No", followed by a condescending invitation to reapply "after you've had more experience". I was thirty years old, and I kid you not, that's what he said. My lawyer asked when we should reapply and the answer shocked everyone: one year!
And so we opened the Auberge without a beer and wine licence.
In spite of that, we did extremely well. We were booked solid pretty well every day, but most of our customers asked about the wine license, and all were willing to be patient, it seemed.
Except one. He wrote his Member of Parliament, expressing his outrage. It worked! Soon, we were invited to apply again at the next hearing, a mere six months after the first one. And, thanks to a perfect stranger, this still-inexperienced woman got her beer and wine license.
The restaurant continued to prosper, and with renewed enthusiasm on everybody's part.
And Robin was finally able to start putting together the Auberge's excellent wine cellar.
I was from Montreal, where I had spent the Saturday nights of my youth in those evil night clubs that never closed, and Robin was from England, where wine merchants were as common as bakeries (although they did have those weird pub hours).
We had assumed that serving wine with French food would be taken for granted by the LLBO (Liquor Licensing Board of Ontario, subsequently renamed the Liquor Control Board of Ontario). In fact, in Ontario they had a licence category just for restaurants like ours: a beer and wine licence. Perfect.
The LLBO Has Some Unusual Requirements
One bizarre request that had us all stumped was for a sketch of the parking area. What did parking have to do with drinking?, we thought. Why would the liquor authorities encourage people to drink and drive? Yet they insisted that the plans show one parking space for every five restaurant seats. (Later, this would get even worse: one parking space for every 3 seats! But by then we had bought the building, and the little cottage mentioned elsewhere had plenty of parking space.)
With our 18 seats, that meant four parking spaces, but officially the property only had one, and it was in front of the neighbour's half of the house. (I forgot to mention that the place that we rented eventually -- 460 King Street -- was half of a double house.)
There were other strange requirements, such as that the seats had to have padded seats and padded arms. I'm not kidding! Well, to go with the Early Quebec décor I had found some antique chairs that were from a nunnery. No padded seats, no padded arms. No arms, period. We all thought, surely they can't enforce that.
We expected to have to wait a few months for the license, so we applied early. Before presenting the application, I was allowed a consultation with an LLBO staff member at the Toronto head office. Lucky for me, the guy was very nice and he helped me all he could, especially after I shed a few tears. About the padded arms, he told me to apply for an exception for the sake of the décor. About the parking, our argument was that there was plenty of street parking in the area, but he made it very clear that this was not acceptable. With a wink, he suggested that I sketch in four parking spaces over the entire front lawn of the building, including the part in front of the neighbours' half.
I left there feeling pretty optimistic.
The Petition
I don't remember how I found out about the petition. Some memories are very clear, but for some reason this one is really fuzzy. All I know is one day I found out that a neighbour had gathered several signatures against us, in response to the LLBO's newspaper notice calling for objections to our application.
I do remember finding myself in a neighbour's house -- a very nice Chinese lady -- and she told me that she had signed the petition because they had told her that my customers would come out of the restaurant drunk, and that they would rape the neighbourhood children. She said she had children, so what could she do. I remember asking her if she would sign a petition in our favour, now that she knew what the restaurant was about, and she said she would. But I don't remember if we made up such a petition; we must have, because the issue never came up at the hearing.
The Hearing
The LLBO went around the province holding local hearings, but they only came to London twice a year. Several months before the Auberge was scheduled to open, we were notified of the date of our hearing. I showed up full of expectancy, accompanied by our lawyer, Charles Brown. (Robin was there too, I'm sure, but she was still not a Canadian citizen, so the application was in my name.)
The first clue that this was not going to be easy was when they called my name, and I got up and the "judge" shouted, "You're a woman!" He asked me a few questions, but his decision was a definite "No", followed by a condescending invitation to reapply "after you've had more experience". I was thirty years old, and I kid you not, that's what he said. My lawyer asked when we should reapply and the answer shocked everyone: one year!
And so we opened the Auberge without a beer and wine licence.
In spite of that, we did extremely well. We were booked solid pretty well every day, but most of our customers asked about the wine license, and all were willing to be patient, it seemed.
Except one. He wrote his Member of Parliament, expressing his outrage. It worked! Soon, we were invited to apply again at the next hearing, a mere six months after the first one. And, thanks to a perfect stranger, this still-inexperienced woman got her beer and wine license.
The restaurant continued to prosper, and with renewed enthusiasm on everybody's part.
And Robin was finally able to start putting together the Auberge's excellent wine cellar.