Yesterday (June 3, 2010) was the final day of the current legislature session in British Columbia. Happily, the package of reforms to BC\’s liquor laws which I previously wrote about (\”BC Reforms Some Liquor and Wine Laws\”) received \”royal assent\” yesterday which in layperson\’s terms means that the changes were approved or passed by the legislature. This is good news for the industry because there are some substantial changes in terms of modernizing certain aspects of our archaic liquor laws: e.g. tied house laws, co-op advertising, sponsorship (see the previous article for the details). However, you should be aware that most of the major changes do not come into effect immediately – they do so at such time as they are made effective by action of the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Since many of the changes require that new accompanying regulations be drafted, it is unclear when the effective date of the changes will be. Still, this is a significant step in the right direction.
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