Distilleries Ordered To Cease Making Hand Sanitizer

B.C. distilleries that pivoted to making hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic are now being ordered to stop.  

B.C. distilleries that pivoted to making hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic are now being ordered to stop.  

Clay Potter, co-owner of the Moon Under Water Brewery, Pub and Distillery in Victoria, said he's invested in ingredients like glycerin and other materials to make sanitizer and planned to continue producing the alcohol-based disinfectant. But he received a notice by email April 7th, and follow-up letter a few days later, from the province stating all production of sanitizer must stop by May 8. All remaining stock must be sold or donated by November.

Distillers say there is no need for a hard deadline to stop producing sanitizer and they feel betrayed after stepping up for the public good during the pandemic.

Hand sanitizer production got a temporary authorization from B.C.'s Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch in March 2020, the early days of the pandemic.

Tyler Dyck is the president of the Craft Distillers Guild of British Columbia and the owner of Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery in Kelowna and Vernon. He said putting distilleries on a deadline is adding unnecessary stress to an industry already hard hit during the pandemic.

His family-run business still has thousands of bottles of sanitizer left over, which they plan to donate to women's shelters and medical frontline workers.

The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General said the temporary authorization was an "interim measure intended to address the shortage of hand sanitizer early in the pandemic." The move to now stop sanitizer production is in line with the province lifting mask mandates and vaccine card requirements.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the prime minister called on Canadian industry to help produce protective supplies that were hard to find. At the height of the shortage, about a dozen distilleries in B.C. were supplying hospitals, government offices and emergency workers throughout the province, and producing tens of thousands of litres for free.

Dyck says during that time period, the federal government spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars procuring sanitizer from outside Canada. Because the market was flooded with imported, foreign-made sanitizer, some B.C. distilleries are left with stockpiles they now can't sell.

Dyck said the latest notice from B.C.'s Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch is like putting salt in the wounds of distillers who were hemorrhaging money due to COVID-19 restrictions but still took on hefty upfront costs to make sanitizer.