TORNONTO, Ontario – After much campaigning and debated on both sides of the issue, grocery stores in Ontario finally got approval to carry beer – with many strings attached – but convenience stores remain prohibited from such sales.

According to a report in Canada’s Globe and Mail, grocers who want to begin selling alcohol will have to go through the publicly-owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario to buy their supplie aty a potentially higher cost, rather than dealing directly with brewers. Their retail beer prices will be set and margins will likely be slim. However, the retailers are looking forward to the extra customer traffic that beer sales will generate.

Ontario will allow any grocery store “big enough to set up a separate area for the beer” to stock it, but the government has specifically prohibited convenience stores from selling alcohol, with the decision-making advisory panel stating that “to sell liquor in convenience stores would not be a socially responsible decision.”

Needless to say, convenience retailers are not please by what they say is an unfair advantage for other retail channels. According to the Globe and Mail article, 7-Eleven Canada’s government affairs manager Victor Vrsnik said the chain strongly disagrees with any law or regulation that “would create a competitive advantage for one retail industry over another.”

In the interview, Vrsnik pointed particularly to the blurring of the lines between grocery stores, pharmacies and convenience stores because they all stock similar products and chase the same customers. “There is tough competition, and we compete with grocers head to head,” Vrsnik told the news source.