Liquor at Commodore nightclub (Image credit: CFJC)

By Connor Gunn

INSURANCE INCREASE

Kamloops clubs see significant increase of liquor liability insurance due to the pandemic

Aug 12, 2022 | 4:57 PM

KAMLOOPS — Club owners in B.C. are required to have liquor and liability insurance in the event of an incident happening on the property while alcohol is being served.

A pair of Kamloops businessmen say the costs for this specific insurance has risen significantly.

“From when we started to now, it’s astronomical what we’re paying,” says Dino Bernardo, owner of the Commodore.

He says his liquor liability insurance has increased approximately 500 per cent.

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“Essentially, what they’re saying is, ‘We don’t want to insure you so, we’re going to charge you an astronomical amount of money so that, if we ever do lose a case, we’ve made that money back on you already,” Bernardo adds.

The owner of the Blue Grotto, Pup Johnston, says he has seen a similar increase in liquor and liability insurance since 2019.

“You charge five bucks for a beer and your cost for insurance is three cents a beer for insurance. Then suddenly you have to add 30 cents to that beer or 60 cents to that beer just to cover an insurance cost,” said Johnston. “That’s insane.”

Johnston adds the cost for this specific insurance went to more than $100,000 per year.

There are reportedly few avenues to take to get insured as a club owner, but he’s just hoping something will change.

“Liquor liability insurance is something that they started quite a few years ago, saying, ‘Well if you’re going to be serving alcohol to people and people are going to be getting drunk, there’s normally a lot of claims or there’s a lot more claims — so you have to pay extra to cover that,” Johnston says.

“It doesn’t ever go down. It just constantly goes up, right? And there is forceable ejection insurance, which is super important to us as a nightclub. When we renewed our insurance, only one company was willing to give us insurance. No other company was wanting to touch it,” Bernardo adds.

CFJC contacted numerous insurance companies in Kamloops about this topic and all of them declined to elaborate on why there has been a dramatic increase.

Johnston says prices are so high, he is insured by a company in Ontario in order to get an affordable rate.

Both owners say they are just hoping for a drop in liquor and liability insurance costs.