Almost as quick as you can roll up your Tim Hortons rim, Premier Ed Stelmach has rolled back the liquor levy he announced three months ago, but it won’t mean savings to the consumer just yet.

Jasper liquor store owners are describing Stelmach’s decision as “frustrating” noting that until all the stock bought at their busiest time of year at the increased tax-rate is sold, the savings won’t be passed onto consumers.

An announcement made at a news conference last Wednesday is nothing but a case of politicking, said Jasper Wine Merchants owner Cam Jenkins and Jasper Park Liquor owner Tammy Vathje.

“It was just another impromptu press conference,” said Jenkins.

“He was losing popularity in the polls and thought this would be an easy grab,” said Vathje, adding that she didn’t think the government had “thought anything through” including the initial increase.

For Liquor Lodge owner Marc LeBlanc, while it was a frustrating maneuver, he is happy to have a government that “obviously looks at what they’re doing and sees the mistakes they make.” 

All the owners agreed that despite a lot of extra labour-intensive work for them all, it was what the public wanted. 

“The customers will be happy,” said LeBlanc adding that he understood the original reason for upping the tax that had remained stagnant since 2002. 

“It makes a lot of extra work, but it’s great for the industry.” he added.

However, that extra work is just unacceptable, said Vathje, who will be lobbying the Alberta liquor store association to have the tax paid retroactively from April 7. 

“I’m absolutely furious, because if you have any sort of retail experience, especially in a store like mine, it took me two weeks in the first place to get the price increased,” said Vathje. 

Especially for Jasperites, the months in question – April to July – are some of the busiest, as owners stock up on their inventory for the busy summer months ahead.

“The timing just seems all off,” said Jenkins who added that the staffing needed to re-adjust all the prices in the store made it a labour intensive project. “It’s the same as doing it to the big cities in between Christmas and New Years Eve,” he added.

“The problem now, it’s summer and we’re incredibly busy. We have staffing problems per usual and I don’t have half the time that I had previously,” added Vathje. With some items sure to sell quicker than others, it’s a difficult adjustment that has to be made individually.

“It’s a huge waste of our small, independent resources,” Jenkins said, noting that it wasn’t as simple as getting someone off the street to do the adjusting, because of the legal ramifications of any errors made.

While some of Jenkin’s purchases made at the higher tax-rate might sell out as quick as this week, others might still be around later this year, he said. 

“I’ll be passing on the savings as soon as I receive them,” said LeBlanc.

According to Vathje, it might take until September for consumers to see a price difference in her store.

“I have to drop them by the end of September,” she said, “we do most of our sales May long weekend to Thanksgiving. I’m sort of at a loss, I don’t want to screw over the consumer, however it has been extremely difficult.”

Each owner said that part of the frustration of the situation comes from dealing with angry customers when the tax first went onto the items.

“We’ve had lots of very irritated customers,” said Vathje, “they’ve yelled at us or stomped out of the store.”

“It was a rude awakening,” said LeBlanc. 

Jenkins said that although people were a little frustrated at first, they had got used to the tax, so he didn’t really understand why the government decided to roll the tax back.