7-Eleven allows customers to drink inside stores

Customers visiting 7-Eleven convenience stores in Ontario, Canada will soon be allowed to purchase and consume alcohol on the premises.

Next time you visit a 7-Eleven in the Canadian province of Ontario, you may well want to ask for the best drinks pairing with a Big Bite Hot Dog.

In total, there are 59 7-Eleven stores in Ontario, and 58 of these have now been granted liquor licences – the one outlier, according to Toronto’s City News, is the store at Toronto Pearson International airport, where alcohol sales are forbidden. At present, two locations in Ontario currently serve booze (as do 20 in Alberta). It is understood that this new feature will be rolled out across Ontario from next month and over the coming year.

These licences permit alcoholic drinks to be served to customers seated in special new ‘dining sections’ of the stores from midday until 11pm.

According to Marc Goodman, vice president of 7-Eleven Canada, it is a canny move by the chain to adjust to changing consumer habits.

“We look at ourselves as a restaurant first that sells convenience store items,” he argued. “Traditional convenience store items like cigarettes and other products have continuously declined year after year. And so, as an industry, we need to go and re-shape ourselves.”

It is understood that a range of alcoholic drinks will be served, including beer, hard seltzers and wine.

“Our plan is to be competitive with the marketplace, the Beer Store, the LCBO [Liquor Control Board of Ontario],” said Goodman, who has also praised the co-operation of Premier of Ontario Doug Ford “for fulfilling a promise and for modernising alcohol retailing in Ontario”.

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