British Columbia is seeing rising support for its wine laws to be changed so as to permit corkage (allowing customers to bring their own wine into restaurants for service with a meal). Corkage is permitted in many jurisdictions including our neighbours, Alberta and Washington, and is generally regarded as being beneficial to a thriving food and wine culture. Tinhorn Creek winemaker, Sandra Oldfield, hosted a \”BC Wine Chat\” on twitter on Wednesday evening which was so active that it registered as a trending topic in the region: see Globe and Mail story \”You\’ve Gotta Tweet For Your Right to BYOB\”. This morning, CBC radio covered the story, with Sandra advocating for change and with Ian Tostenson of the BC Restaurant and Food Association also indicating that his organization supported change. Tostenson indicated that he expects government to act in this matter \”soon\”.
Update (May 28, 2012): The Minister Responsible for Liquor, Rich Coleman, stated on CKNW over this past weekend that it was likely that the government would act on this issue within the next 30-60 days.