Grand Manan Business Losing Its NB Liquor Contract

A business that has served the Grand Manan community for years is losing its NB Liquor (ANBL) contract.

Castalia Convenience has been the long-time operator of the island’s only ANBL agency store, but it will lose the contract to a large grocery chain.

Faye Guptill has owned the convenience store with her husband, Roger, for 18 years and has served alcohol in the store for the past 12 years.

The Guptills went through the process to renew the contract but received a letter from NB Liquor saying it had been awarded to another business.

In an interview, Guptill said the business that received the contract was Ahmet’s Independent Grocer, which is part of Loblaw Companies Ltd.

“It’s just not fair,” said Guptill. “They can already sell beer and wine at that store, and literally everybody on the island has been so positive towards us. Their support has been amazing. People are really mad, they don’t want the change, they want to keep the small business open.”

“Whether [the owner of the grocer] applied for it or not, he wouldn’t have lost anything. They have the groceries, they have the gas, and to take this little bit of income away from us, it will ruin our business.”

Over the years, the Guptills have put $500,000 into the business to have the necessary infrastructure to sell liquor.

“Things like coolers, parking lot pavement, and all that stuff, just to sell their product for a seven per cent profit margin,” said Guptill.

“The only reason we wanted the contract was because the liquor store was down the road from us, and we always sold ice, chips, and pop because customers would stop to our store and get that, but when they closed the corporate store, we sort of needed the contract to keep us afloat. We got it, and we were doing really good, so I don’t know why the grocer would want it.”

The Guptills have received a lot of support from Grand Manan residents, as well as many from mainland New Brunswick.

An online petition is also circulating and had almost 1,500 signatures as of Monday.

In a statement, NB Liquor said it went to tender for its agency store in Grand Manan, which is a normal business process when agency agreements are nearing the end of their contract terms.

“Once a contract term is close to ending, agents are notified that a tender process will be launched, and have the option to bid again. In order to be fair to all bidders, once the evaluation starts all bidders are assessed against the same criteria,” reads the statement.

“The tendering process is done through an unbiased and prescribed Request for Proposal (RFP) process via the NBON (New Brunswick Opportunities Network) platform.”

NB Liquor said this process is done through a point system based on various criteria, such as:

• Traffic visibility
• Hours of operations
• Storage space
• Cold room space
• Alcohol selection
• Available parking
• Previous business and retail experience etc

“NB Liquor mentioned to me that a [representative] is coming down to let me know how the scoring went … but I don’t think they should be allowed to remove someone’s livelihood when they are already doing a good job selling their products just because of a scoring system,” said Guptill.

“That’s wrong. It needs to be dissolved. They should have never used it. They should have just looked at how well it was run, and if it wasn’t what they wanted, then they should take it out.”