MLL floats $409-M liquor profit, cannabis revenue doubles

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This article was published 29/09/2020 (1451 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A rise in sales boosted by panic-buying early in the coronavirus pandemic helped Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. finish its fiscal year with liquor profits of $409 million — an increase of nearly $9 million from the year before.

The growth is due to increased Liquor Mart sales and a surge “due to uncertainty regarding potential closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to MLL’s 2019-20 annual report.

Meanwhile, the report released this week does not say how much the Crown corporation spent on making Liquor Mart outlets safer, in response to public outcry over brazen thefts, including a violent robbery that sent an employee to hospital in November.

Early in the fiscal year, it launched a theft reduction strategy to install controlled entrances at all Liquor Marts in Winnipeg. It had completed work at most of them by March 31. On Wednesday, a MLL spokeswoman said there is still work to do at locations outside the city, and the corporation won’t reveal a cost total until it’s all done.

“The controlled entrance project is currently in the last few months of completion, with the entrances being rolled out at select locations outside of Winnipeg,” she said in an email. “We anticipate the installations of the controlled entrances at these final Liquor Mart locations will be completed by early-mid December.”

Revealing costs and budgets before that point could compromise the competitive bidding process, she said.

Booze thefts amounted to $2.9 million in product taken from store shelves, doubling the total from the previous fiscal year, MLL president and chief executive officer Manny Atwal told a Crown corporations committee meeting at the legislature in May. In the annual report, Atwal said thefts and robberies “have declined significantly,” with staff and customers confirming an improved sense of “safety and security.”

Almost half of the revenue earned from liquor sales goes toward covering the cost of selling booze, the report shows.

Liquor revenues rose to $807 million from $794 million the previous year, while the costs of selling liquor increased by $5 million to $396 million in 2019-20.

Licensed establishments, meanwhile, logged a $11.8-million decrease in liquor sales from the previous year, as more Manitobans opted for “entertaining” at home, the annual report says.

The province’s gambling revenue also took a hit.

Casinos were ordered to close March 18 because of the pandemic, with temporary layoffs affecting 1,300 employees. The COVID-19 public health orders also impacted VLT lounges. Together, casinos and VLTs represent 40 per cent of the Crown corporation’s overall income.

Casino revenues dropped by $8.6 million, to $246.6 million in 2019-20. VLT revenues dropped by more than $1 million to $354 million, and lottery revenues declined by $111,000 to $1.9 million.

The first full year of legalized cannabis sales resulted in weed revenue growing to $51 million — a $24.5-million increase from the partial year it was first offered for sale in Manitoba, starting in October 2018.

In the final total, the province took in $606.3 million from MLL in 2019-20 — $10 million less than the $616 million allocated the previous year. It was far less than the budgeted allocation forecast of $630 million.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

MLL annual report 2019-20