VANCOUVER, BC – The Campaign for Real Ale Society of British Columbia (CAMRA BC) has announced the launch of Save The Growler, an awareness campaign aimed at convincing the British Columbia government to reconsider a legislation change planned for next month that will lead to an increase the amount of tax charged on growler refills at breweries in the province.
As reported by the Van East Beer Blog late last month, initial purchases of full growlers are currently taxed using a “packaged” beer rate, which varies from $1.04 to $1.75 per litre depending on the size of the brewery, while growler refills are charged at the “draught” beer rate, which ranges from $0.72 to $1.20 per litre.
Under the new legislation, growler refills will be charged the “packaged” tax rate, which will result in a price increase of between $0.60 to $1.04 per refill for a 1.89L growler.
This change comes at a time when the number of small breweries in BC is increasing rapidly, with many of them using growlers as their main or only format for take-home sales, leading to concerns that sales and profits could be adversely affected by this change.
CAMRA BC has already gathered more than 1700 signatures on a petition about the issue, and intends to use this and other facts about the BC craft brewing scene to pressure the government to step back from this move and allow the tax on growler refills to remain at the lower “draught” level.