The BC Government has announced that is is amending the Liquor Control & Licensing Regulation to permit liquor to be served in movie theatres. The press release is here: Movie Theatres Now Eligible for Liquor Licenses. The last attempt at addressing this issue ran into problems when it made matters worse in some respects: see Liquor Regulation Amendments.
The actual amendments are contained in Order-in-Council 217. They simply state: \”…s.8 of the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation, BC Reg. 244/2002 is amended by repealing subsections (2)(b), (2.1) and (5).\”. As a result, the changes remove subsection (2)(b) of section 8 of the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation, which was the subsection that prevented the issuance of a liquor primary license to a movie theatre. They also remove subsections (2.1) and (5) of the Regulation which are the provisions related to \”live event theatres\” which were recently included as part of the earlier problematic effort to address the issue referred to above. The effect of these changes will be that the LCLB can now change their \”policy\” such that movie theatres can serve liquor. A new policy directive 12-02 (PDF) has also been issued which repeals policy directive 12-01 and largely fixes the problems that were generated earlier.