IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY
Cambridge Bay senior administrative officer Marla Limousin said she hopes community support for a beer and wine store in the town will help drive area bootleggers out of business.
Cambridge Bay SAO Marla Limousin hopes a beer and wine store will help to shutdown bootleggers. - photo courtesy of Wayne Gregory |
On May 1, 349 eligible voters -or 83 per cent of those who cast ballots -said yes to a beer and wine store, in a non-binding plebiscite. Of 825 residents eligible to cast ballots, 51 per cent voted.
That's higher than recent plebiscites in Cambridge Bay. Thirty-seven per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 municipal land sales plebiscite.
The territorial Cabinet has the final say on whether to allow a wine and beer store.
"What this does is that it deters the bootleggers," said Limousin, who noted she has no opinion on whether the hamlet should have such a store. "That's one of the main pros about this that we hear from the community is that it will limit the bootleggers who charge these crazy prices. We're also seeing these prices where someone going to the bootlegger then has no money left over for food.
"You would hope that this puts them out of business."
Limousin said concerns about bootleggers selling to youth came up at a public meeting held on April 19. She said that measures are already in place to talk to the hamlet's young people about the dangers of alcohol. Limousin said that before her time in Cambridge Bay, there was a 'beer-line' in the hamlet.
"Local people who have been here for a while talk about the beer line up, and that was getting a case of beer from the Northern store. So there's been experience with low-alcohol content," she said. "That five per cent alcohol with beer and that 12 per cent with wine."
Limousin said that she is well aware that some people in the community adamantly oppose the idea of the beer and wine store. A total of 71 people voted against the measure. However she added that safeguards are in place to help people struggling with alcohol addiction.
"We have a beautiful wellness centre. We're now dealing with alcohol abuse with on-the-land camps where healing happens. I have some studies from Northern Quebec where they have gone through this process," Limousin said. "They had prohibition and then they opened it up to beer and wine and there was an adjustment period for sure. But it leveled out and now they have less alcohol abuse. It's hopeful that a beer and wine store here will decrease the number of people binge drinking."
Finance assistant deputy minister Dan Carlson oversees alcohol sales in Nunavut. He pointed out that unlike Rankin Inlet -which voted in favour of its own beer and wine store the same day by a slimmer margin of 372 for to 127 against -there is currently not a liquor warehouse that could be converted for sales in Cambridge Bay. Carlson added that he heard opposition to the store when he was in the hamlet for the public meeting.
"They were speaking out ... against the view that the government was endorsing alcohol or supporting its distribution - we know alcohol causes harm so why would the government go out and make it more available," Carlson said. "The answer is straightforward. What we are trying to do is help people change their behaviour toward alcohol, moving away from the current practice, which tends to be binge-drinking vodka."
Carlson said that by putting alcohol sales in the hands of the government it allows store staff to make sure someone who is already intoxicated is not able to buy more alcohol and also restricting sales to people that are of the legal drinking age. He added that the plebiscite was done at the request of the municipal government, not as an initiative of the GN.
