LCBO employees could be off the job as soon as Friday.

The union representing workers has set that day – the start of the Victoria Day weekend – as a strike deadline.

If a work stoppage does occur, LCBO officials say they will attempt to keep some stores open with management personnel.

But for some, the labour dispute is just another reason to abolish the agency altogether.

“I think we see a government that is drunk off of the revenues of unfair competition of the alcohol monopoly,” says Candice Malcolm of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The LCBO passed along $1.6 billion to the provincial government in 2012 – off of about $4.7 million in alcohol sales – which critics of the LCBO call a sign that consumers are losing out.

LCBO officials say the system works just fine. So does the provincial government.

In a statement, finance minister Charles Sousa tells CTV that LCBO revenues are funnelled into education, health care and infrastructure.

“Our government believes that Ontarians are well served by the current retail system,” the statement says.

The government and the LCBO say there’s a public trust with the LCBO that may not be the same for individual retailers selling alcohol under a privatization scenario.

“Part of the concern is that the standards may or may not be enforced as vehemently as they are at the LCBO,” says LCBO spokesperson Heather MacGregor.

Last year, LCBO employees checked the ID of 7.8 million people, and turned away 322,000 of them.

But in a 2010 study by the Ontario Convenience Stores Association, only 41 per cent of participants aged 19 to 24 had their ID checked by the LCBO – compared to 61 per cent at The Beer Store and 73 per cent at convenience stores.

“People are sick of this kind of system,” says Malcolm.

“It’s time for choice and competition to be brought in.”

The union representing local LCBO employees disagrees with that idea.

“Social responsibility would disappear,” says Chris Patterson, president of OPSEU Local 285.

“You would have the price of alcohol increasing, and at the end of the day, the overall selection and availability would also drastically decrease.”

CTV’s Priya Mann is examining the LCBO in a three-part series airing this week on CTV News.