Seventy-six more grocery stores across Ontario have been approved to start selling beer and cider, including 11 in our part of the province.
The province announced the list Tuesday, saying the 76 stores would be legally able to start selling beer as of June 30.
The list includes the Sobeys store in Stratford and the Walmart in Woodstock. In both cases, those stores will be the first supermarkets in their cities to be allowed to sell beer.
In Kitchener, where the Real Canadian Superstore and Farm Boy already had licences to sell alcohol, two more stores will be added to the list – the Walmart at Fischer-Hallman Road and Ottawa Street, and the Sobeys at Fischer-Hallman Road and Max Becker Drive.
Waterloo will have two stores joining the Sobeys at Weber Street and Parkside Drive in alcohol sales, as licences have been granted to the Zehrs at Erb Street and Fischer-Hallman Road, and the Sobeys at Weber Street and Bridgeport Road.
Cambridge is seeing its number of beer-selling grocery stores double to four, with the Zehrs on Conestoga Boulevard and Farm Boy joined by the FreshCo on Hespeler Road and Walmart on Pinebush Road.
The same doubling is happening in Cambridge, where pre-existing beer shelves at the Metro supermarket and the Clair Road Food Basics location will be joined by the Zehrs stores on Paisley and Eramosa roads.
Rounding out the list of local stores approved for beer sales is the Walmart on King George Road in Brantford, where a nearby Farm Boy and Food Basics are already selling beer.
Beer and cider sales have slowly been introduced to Ontario supermarkets since 2015.
Tuesday’s announcement brings the total number of stores in the province allowed to sell beer to 206. The province expects that number to rise to 450 over time.
