Mixed results from reducing liquor store hours in Prince Albert

“The good news is that’s starting to come down.”

In 2024, the Community Alcohol Strategy Steering Committee asked council to consider reducing hours because data showed an association between late night sales, levels of intoxication and acute harm.

Council agreed to try it for one year and then wanted to see what kind of impact there was.

Woodcock said the updated data came from Victoria Hospital data, Prince Albert Mobile Crisis and Prince Albert Fire Department.

When it comes to hospital visits involving alcohol, the data showed a clear drop after the bylaw changes.

“The average visits pre by-law change was 27 per week and the average post, was 22.7,” Woodcock explained.

The numbers were derived from people with health card addresses inside the city and by doing a chart review.

When it came to the fire department, there was no noticeable change in numbers at first but when they eliminated the numbers from two months with unusually high volumes, they showed a reduction.

Mobile Crisis reported an overall reduction in calls in the reference year but because there was no noticeable drop following the bylaw change, it can’t be connected as a direct result.

“It might be influenced by the bylaw, it not or it might be indirectly influenced,” Woodcock said.

They also got numbers from the SLGA to see if consumption levels had changed and found out that sales had steadily declined but there was no sudden drop that could be attributed to the bylaw.

SLGA numbers do not include alcohol produced inside Saskatchewan.

As for why they did not get numbers from police, Woodcock was asked that question by councillors and said police data is difficult to use for their purposes. It can vary wildly by the willingness of people to report and who is in jail during the time in question.

Staff recommendations based on the results were twofold; the city should adopt a Municipal Alcohol Strategy that includes promoting alcohol-free events and should also advocate to the SLGA to create a provincial strategy.

In 2010 SLGA adopted social index pricing which means that a surcharge is added that increases as the level of alcohol in the drink increases. He suggested that the city also advocate to have the surcharge indexed to inflation.

This was where councillors balked, with some suggesting there will be unintended consequences such as reduced ability of non-profits to raise money through events which include alcohol.

Coun. Blake Edwards said he would not support the suggested changes and said he believes that a lot of the issues in Prince Albert are due to use of drugs like crystal meth and that is the issue that needs to be studied.

“I guarantee that if intoxication is the desired outcome, they’ll choose other drugs,” he said.

In this case, council recommended working with the committee that brought forward the proposal to make a local alcohol strategy and also advocate for the province to take similar action. They did not want to advocate for social index pricing, however.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Mixed results from reducing liquor store hours in Prince Albert

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