Drink Canadian.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war against Canada has shaken up a potent cocktail of anger and patriotism in Windsor-Essex, and it’s showing at the liquor store.
While the LCBO clears American alcohol off the shelves, Windsor restaurants, grocery stores, and individual customers are going cold turkey on U.S. booze amid a Buy Canadian fervour.
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“We’re stocked full of Canada,” Matt Komsa, who co-owns six bars and restaurants, told the Star. “We as a group made a decision not to stock up on American booze and go fully Canadian. We’re obviously going to go through the stock that we have. But after that, we’re not purchasing any more American products.”
Trump sparked a trade war on Tuesday by imposing the hefty tariffs on virtually all Canadian products that he’d been threatening for months.
The Canadian response was immediate, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing retaliatory tariffs to citizens cancelling U.S. trips and swearing off American products.
Under Premier Doug Ford’s orders, LCBO employees began relegating Kentucky bourbon, California wine and other American alcohol to the storage room on Tuesday.
No one seemed to be buying it anyway.
“Yes, 100 per cent, I’ve been already buying Canadian stuff at the grocery store,” said Jane Broughton, who picked up some wine at the Howard Avenue LCBO the day tariffs took effect.
“I’m making sure. It supports our economy. We don’t want to be supporting that idiot over there. I don’t want to support anything American. I’m going to support Canadian for sure.”
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Donna Heimann, heading into the LCBO, said turmoil with the U.S. has also changed the way she shops, travels, and drinks.
“We buy Canadian as much as possible,” she said. “We were going to take a trip down to Virginia this summer, but we’ve changed our mind on that too. In fact, I just came from a doctor’s appointment, and even the doctor said he doesn’t want to cross the border. So yeah, we’ve definitely made changes.”
The radical change in buying habits appears to be spurred on by feelings of betrayal as much as patriotism.
“I’m upset with Trump for doing all this, attacking his allies and putting tariffs on and causing all this chaos,” said Broughton. “And I’m also happy that Trudeau has decided to fight back and not let us be bullied by Trump.”
Mike Brkovich, co-owner of Walkerville Brewery, is hearing similar sentiments on a larger scale.
On the day the tariffs took effect, he said six grocery stores reached out to say they’re taking American beer off the shelves and replacing it with Walkverille Brewery products.
“We’ve had what I would call this push to buy Canadian,” said Brkovich. “There are certain products that we were told by our customers, ‘we want it off the shelf because it’s an American product, and we want to replace it with your product because it’s made locally and it’s a Canadian product.’”
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He said there’s also been a “bump” in business at the brewery’s bar and retail shop.
“We’ve had some people come in and say we really support our local businesses,” said Brkovich. “I think without question there’s going to be an impetus for a lot of people in our local community to buy Canadian. What it’s done is made us all kind of look at ourselves. We’re very patriotic.”
Komsa said all six of his bars and restaurants, including Bull and Barrell, Wild Child Nightlife, Disco Inferno, and several locations of The GOAT Tap and Eatery, are ditching American products.
He said his businesses go week by week with inventory, so the American alcohol won’t last long. His teams spent the day on Tuesday making sure that all of their other supplies, including food, also come from Canadian sources.
“We’re fully behind Canada, and we think what’s going on is completely unfair and unjust,” he said.
While Brkovich hopes the tariffs and tension with the U.S. is “just a temporary situation,” he said there has been a positive side effect.
“If you talk to other people like myself that own local, we’re very pleased and surprised how it has brought us all together to support local and Canadian products,” he said. “I’m proud to be a Canadian, and I think maybe it’s going to make the country stronger.”
twilhelm@postmedia.com
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