Free wine

Just for the record, I do enjoy a glass of white wine. However...

Yesterday, while doing the last of my Christmas returns at Carlingwood Mall, here in Ottawa, I saw a pathetic sight. In a hallway, outside a small wine store, a young employee was standing, looking rather forlorn. Over his head he held a large sign, proclaiming, "Free Wine Tasting." He looked so bored. I realize there are a lot worse jobs out there, but what must it be like to stand there, bored out of your skull, while trying to entice people to taste and buy wine?

Free wine tasting in shopping malls is one of my current pet peeves. Yes, after I finish tromping all over Superstore buying groceries I do feel worn out and look forward to getting the heck out of there. I'm ready for a break. However, that does not mean that when I roll my overloaded cart past the wine store, that I want someone to put a tray of plastic wine glasses in front of my face and offer me a taste. Can we do nothing, not even grocery shop, without alcohol?

Before Christmas, when offered the wine, I told the young man that I thought it was wrong to offer alcohol so freely, at all times of day, in a public place. I told him my concern was for all those trying to stay away from booze, those struggling with addiction. Why put it right under their noses? The young man was not impressed with my concern and dismissed my comments with a heartless laugh.

So I was interested when I saw a headline in The Ottawa Citizen on January 9th. "Easily available alcohol a problem, doctor warns" was written by David Reevely. It's an interesting piece about Ottawa's top public health doctor, Isra Levy and his reaction to the provincial government's trend to making booze more available. "I'm not a prohibitionist about just about anything,"Levy says. "But I am interested in mitigating harm, when harm can result." Amen.