Important LDB Service Update
Dear ABLE BC members and industry colleagues,
Last night, the LDB shared with us the following important service update:
We are pleased to inform wholesale customers of some encouraging news regarding our ongoing efforts to mitigate the impacts to customers as a result of transportation disruptions.
The BC Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) is transferring product from the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) with the first shipment to arrive at the Kamloops Distribution Centre (KDC) tomorrow.
We are continuing to explore options with vendors and freight carriers to transfer product and reroute shipments, if and when possible, including via the United States.
Highway 3 was reopened to alternating single lane traffic this past weekend. As liquor distribution is deemed an essential service, our transportation providers immediately started to use this route as an alternate connection between the LDB’s Delta Distribution Centre (DDC), pick up from third party agent warehouses and KDC.
Update for customers serviced by KDC
Priority items from DDC to KDC are in various stages of being shipped and include a mix of regular stocked items, non-stocked wholesale product and single bottle-picks from last week (Monday and Tuesday orders that were placed before the cut-off on Wednesday). We can expect this route to remain slower than normal due to certain highway restrictions, volume of traffic and weather conditions such as today’s temporary closure.
As we continue to utilize additional transportation routes, LDB Liquor Wholesale plans to resume shipments of DDC fulfilled product to KDC serviced customers, which include non-stocked wholesale product and single bottle picks, starting this week. While we will attempt to deliver these orders to KDC- serviced customers as soon as possible, there may be delays due to traffic volume and certain restrictions on the newly reopened highways.
We thank you in advance for your patience with these orders and kindly request that you remain flexible. To ensure we can get product to customers as soon as possible, we may need to deliver outside of normal delivery windows. While we will make every attempt to keep customers informed of their delivery times, this may not be possible.
Update for customers serviced by DDC
The DDC is maintaining regular inventory levels and will continue to service customers in the region with current available stocked product, non-stocked product and bottle picks.
As always, we greatly appreciate your patience and flexibility as we work together to navigate these challenging and unique times. We will continue to work with our vendors to identify alternative solutions to service our customers and maintain service levels, where possible. And, we would like to remind customers that many of our province’s liquor producers are also available to direct deliver product as noted in the November 19 service update posted on the LDB Wholesale website.
If you have any questions, please contact the Wholesale Customer Centre at: wholesalehelp@bcldb.com or 1-888-775-0681.
We hope you are staying safe and well.
LDB Wholesale Operations