Which way to the liquor aisle?
   I often want a glass of wine in the evening. Occasionally I'll have one at supper. Once in a blue moon I feel like a gin and tonic. (How does a gin and tonic feel, you ask? Don't be a wise guy.)
   The nearest liquor store is inconveniently far. But there's a very well-run Valu-mart just four blocks away. I want it to have wines and spirits along with all the coffee, corn flakes and cake mixes.
  The store owner would like nothing better, and says all his customers want it too. Everyone I know wants it. A poll done this month for the Ontario Convenience Store Association found 61 per cent of Ontarians want it. What's the hold-up?
   It's not as though it's hard. In any European country it's normal. The English shopper in Sainsbury's thinks nothing of picking up a bottle of Beaune or Bergerac with his groceries. In Quebec, any backwoods dépanneur offers a modest selection of good French wines.
   Here in the land of drag-your-feet, our politicians have only got around to letting some of the biggest  supermarkets pair with some of the biggest Ontario wineries to set up in-store wine outlets separate from the grocery side — each store selling only one winery's plonk.
   It can be done better, though. In small centres where demand is sufficient for profitability but not for a stand-alone liquor store, the LCBO does sometimes set up separate little operations in — are you ready? — convenience stores. A good example is just down the road in Thamesford, where you can pick up a Pinot or a Piesporter in the 7-Eleven.
   At last report, Thamesford had not fallen into anarchy.