[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

In the middle of your meal?

Your analogy only makes sense if you are a vegan, going to a restaurant that serves meat, and insist patrons at the other table not be served the hamburger they ordered.

The restaurant was not serving alcohol, that is why observant patrons went there.  You and Viper are changing the facts to fit your narrative.

[Zoupa]

In the middle of your meal?

Your analogy only makes sense if you are a vegan, going to a restaurant that serves meat, and insist patrons at the other table not be served the hamburger they ordered.

The restaurant was not serving alcohol, that is why observant patrons went there.  You and Viper are changing the facts to fit your narrative.

What? It's bring your own alcohol.

Group 1 arrives with a bottle. Proceeds to order, start eating and drinking.

Group 2 arrives later and asks the owner to remove the alcohol from their sight.

Owner asks group 1 to hide their bottle. Group 1 is offended and leaves, contacts newspaper.

That is the sequence of events. If you read french, you can find the original article. Nobody broke the law. Group 2 are assholes and the owner is a coward and/or idiot.

That's the sequence of events. It is undisputable.

[Oexmelin]

I am not changing anything. (and what is my narrative exactly?) It's a BYOB. It's an expected, and well understood format of restaurant in Quebec. It means you can drink your booze and it's a selling point for restaurants who advertise it as such, because it's a cheaper licence than a full liquor licence. I have actually eaten at that specific restaurant it's delicious, and it's being advertised everywhere « bring your own wine ». The restaurant charges a corking fee. It's part of the expectation of the patrons that they bring their booze. It's part of everyone's expectation that, in a BYOB, no one gets to decide whether their booze is acceptable or not.

So yeah, the case was really that a group didn't want alcohol consumed in the entire restaurant while they were there. Of course, it was perfectly within the owner's rights to cave in to the demand of that group. But it's still caving to an unreasonable request. 

[garbon]

Of course, it was perfectly within the owner's rights to cave in to the demand of that group. But it's still caving to an unreasonable request. 

And then customers are free not to go to such a restaurant anymore given it has such an easily moldable owner. And totally up to the owner to decide who they would like their restaurant to cater to - as perhaps a more reliable base of customer (or perhaps not and this jerky owner will rightfully go out of business).

While certainly it sucks for the people who'd brought their alcohol (and I'm with Yi that I would have refused to pay), I don't see any injustice here.

[Razgovory]

This whole thing must have been an enormous scandal that shook Canada to its core.  Weird that the only people in the US who covered this crisis was some psycho Trumpists.

[Admiral Yi]

This whole thing must have been an enormous scandal that shook Canada to its core.

I don't see any evidence for this assertion.

[crazy canuck]

I am not changing anything. (and what is my narrative exactly?) It's a BYOB. It's an expected, and well understood format of restaurant in Quebec. It means you can drink your booze and it's a selling point for restaurants who advertise it as such, because it's a cheaper licence than a full liquor licence. I have actually eaten at that specific restaurant it's delicious, and it's being advertised everywhere « bring your own wine ». The restaurant charges a corking fee. It's part of the expectation of the patrons that they bring their booze. It's part of everyone's expectation that, in a BYOB, no one gets to decide whether their booze is acceptable or not.

So yeah, the case was really that a group didn't want alcohol consumed in the entire restaurant while they were there. Of course, it was perfectly within the owner's rights to cave in to the demand of that group. But it's still caving to an unreasonable request.

We have BYOB licensing here to.  Have had for decades.   The use of the verb "serve" is where we differ.  If the restaurant did actually serve alcohol you would have a much stronger point.  But serving alcohol means the restaurant supplies it.  But even then a restaurant could suspend its bar service for any number of reasons.

I see nothing unreasonable for a restaurant that does not supply (so as to avoid the linguistic difficulty) alcohol showing a preference toward patrons who wish to dine in an alcohol free restaurant.

What would be unreasonable is the state telling businesses they cannot prefer non drinking customers.  This argument is becoming a proxy for the argument about the religious symbol ban in Quebec.  You deem the actions of the restaurant to be unreasonable because it interfered with the dominant cultural value whereas I deem protection of the minority to be not only reasonable but laudable.

[Oexmelin]

What would be unreasonable is the state telling businesses they cannot prefer non drinking customers.  This argument is becoming a proxy for the argument about the religious symbol ban in Quebec.  You deem the actions of the restaurant to be unreasonable because it interfered with the dominant cultural value whereas I deem protection of the minority to be not only reasonable but laudable.

There are two things here. One, is the idea that a BYOB reflects a preference for not serving alcohol, which is a curious one, and one that is not aligned with the experience of a BYOB in Quebec. Otherwise all the BYOBs would keep their status as such quiet, and alcohol would be a tolerance, rather than an actual selling point. For me, it reflects a preference for not going through an expensive bureaucratic process, not some sort of attitude towards alcohol. 

But the whole issue is that of using the law as a proxy for morality. I don't wish the state to tell businesses that they cannot prefer non drinking customers. But, yes, I do find the attitude unreasonable. The whole point about tolerance is that I don't care if observant Muslims don't drink alcohol. And I do care, and find it unreasonable, that they use the power of their numbers to pressure an owner into policing the behavior of others *who have not interfered with them in any way*. If they wanted to reserve the restaurant all for themselves, that's fine. But they did not. A situation reversed, where xenophobic Quebecers would insist that observant Muslims dining in a restaurant have alcohol delivered to their table would rightly be denounced.

Ultimately, this goes to our conception of the public sphere, and this is where the law is not a great guide. To live in a democratic society is to agree to interact with people whose behavior, ideas, and customs will be different from ours. It is to afford them the dignity of considering them as full persons nonetheless. It is in that public sphere of multitude that we invest the value of our political system. It is in the name of these same principles that we have agreed to let groups who *actually refuse such a conception* to live out their fantasies of total isolation to a great extent. But such a fantasy is a rejection of pluralist democratic ideals. We should be able to denounce it as such, while at the same time recognizing that most legal remedies are not desirable. 

Lastly, I think situations like this also show the limits of the law as guide in situations of power. Power is not a quality that is held, or withheld at any one moment. It can be exercised by minority groups for a variety of reasons, and in a variety of ways, in varying circumstances. Here, you had circumstances which afforded greater power to a group of observant Muslims, which they used to police the behavior of others who did not share in their beliefs but actually did not interact with them in any way, except by sharing space. To reduce that to an owner's choice, or to defer judgment to an eventual sanction from the free market, is to abdicate politics in favor of force. It may be an easier choice on the moment, than a complicated and contested discussion. But I think we pay the price down the line. 

I think we should be careful that, in our promotion of the value of difference, we do not make a virtue of indifference to one another. 

[Oexmelin]

This whole thing must have been an enormous scandal that shook Canada to its core.  Weird that the only people in the US who covered this crisis was some psycho Trumpists.

I know you get frothy at the mouth the moment Quebec is mentioned, but I think you have a better chance of grasping the situation in Missouri, and the potential to do something there, rather than make ill-informed pronouncements of virtue and vice about a place you clearly don't understand very well.

[Malthus]

This argument reminds me that going to a restaurant, with alcohol or not, is something none of us will be doing for a long time. 😟

[Malthus]

What would be unreasonable is the state telling businesses they cannot prefer non drinking customers.  This argument is becoming a proxy for the argument about the religious symbol ban in Quebec.  You deem the actions of the restaurant to be unreasonable because it interfered with the dominant cultural value whereas I deem protection of the minority to be not only reasonable but laudable.

There are two things here. One, is the idea that a BYOB reflects a preference for not serving alcohol, which is a curious one, and one that is not aligned with the experience of a BYOB in Quebec. Otherwise all the BYOBs would keep their status as such quiet, and alcohol would be a tolerance, rather than an actual selling point. For me, it reflects a preference for not going through an expensive bureaucratic process, not some sort of attitude towards alcohol. 

But the whole issue is that of using the law as a proxy for morality. I don't wish the state to tell businesses that they cannot prefer non drinking customers. But, yes, I do find the attitude unreasonable. The whole point about tolerance is that I don't care if observant Muslims don't drink alcohol. And I do care, and find it unreasonable, that they use the power of their numbers to pressure an owner into policing the behavior of others *who have not interfered with them in any way*. If they wanted to reserve the restaurant all for themselves, that's fine. But they did not. A situation reversed, where xenophobic Quebecers would insist that observant Muslims dining in a restaurant have alcohol delivered to their table would rightly be denounced.

Ultimately, this goes to our conception of the public sphere, and this is where the law is not a great guide. To live in a democratic society is to agree to interact with people whose behavior, ideas, and customs will be different from ours. It is to afford them the dignity of considering them as full persons nonetheless. It is in that public sphere of multitude that we invest the value of our political system. It is in the name of these same principles that we have agreed to let groups who *actually refuse such a conception* to live out their fantasies of total isolation to a great extent. But such a fantasy is a rejection of pluralist democratic ideals. We should be able to denounce it as such, while at the same time recognizing that most legal remedies are not desirable. 

Lastly, I think situations like this also show the limits of the law as guide in situations of power. Power is not a quality that is held, or withheld at any one moment. It can be exercised by minority groups for a variety of reasons, and in a variety of ways, in varying circumstances. Here, you had circumstances which afforded greater power to a group of observant Muslims, which they used to police the behavior of others who did not share in their beliefs but actually did not interact with them in any way, except by sharing space. To reduce that to an owner's choice, or to defer judgment to an eventual sanction from the free market, is to abdicate politics in favor of force. It may be an easier choice on the moment, than a complicated and contested discussion. But I think we pay the price down the line. 

I think we should be careful that, in our promotion of the value of difference, we do not make a virtue of indifference to one another.

It just appears that the business had a choice: prefer drinking customers, or prefer hardcore non-drinking customers. They chose the latter. Not sure whether this represents anything more significant, or where "force" comes into it - they could presumably have made the opposite choice.

[Oexmelin]

Because the expectation is that a BYOB is still a functioning restaurant and does not make that determination alcohol/no alcohol on the spot and at the whim of some of the patrons.

[garbon]

Because the expectation is that a BYOB is still a functioning restaurant and does not make that determination alcohol/no alcohol on the spot and at the whim of some of the patrons.

And so if they choose that path and they lose customers as a result, then they'll go out of business.

[Zoupa]

Because the expectation is that a BYOB is still a functioning restaurant and does not make that determination alcohol/no alcohol on the spot and at the whim of some of the patrons.

And so if they choose that path and they lose customers as a result, then they'll go out of business.

Sure, but the market doesn't solve everything. Plus that's an after the fact solution.

Why not educate folks as to what is Cool^tm and Not Cool^tm instead? Wouldn't that solve the issue before it even happens?

[crazy canuck]

Because the expectation is that a BYOB is still a functioning restaurant and does not make that determination alcohol/no alcohol on the spot and at the whim of some of the patrons.

And so if they choose that path and they lose customers as a result, then they'll go out of business.

Sure, but the market doesn't solve everything. Plus that's an after the fact solution.

Why not educate folks as to what is Cool^tm and Not Cool^tm instead? Wouldn't that solve the issue before it even happens?

The difficulty is we here have difficulty agreeing what is cool.  Becomes more problematic if we don't let the business owner decide that for themselves.