As the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's workers move toward a return to work, a modest majority of readers say that their sympathies are more with the union than with the employer:
As for how readers have been adapting, about 60 per cent said they drank too little for it to affect them, and the remainder were more or less equally split between those who normally buy alcohol from non-LCBO sources, those who had switched to non-LCBO sources, and those who had cut back consumption:
There is a mild correlation with age, and a much stronger one with gender, and a history of union membership:
Not surprisingly, there is a very strong connection to voter preference:
Across income bands, views are quite consistent until we reach higher-income readers, whose views are more strongly opposed to the union:
Mashing the two polls together: perhaps not surprisingly, people who don't drink enough to be affected by the strike are more likely to support the union. People who support the employer are more likely to have switched consumption to the private sector.
And that carries over into party support: PC voters are more likely to have moved buying to the private sector. New Democrats seem to have consumed less in the first place.
More women than men are abstainers or near-abstainers:
And younger readers are more likely to consume alcohol regularly. It's not hard to interpret this graph as showing a gradual move toward drinking less or abstaining as people age, for health or interpersonal reasons.
We have a growing number of questions that deal, broadly, with the balance between pleasure and risk with issues that involve the body. I wondered if there was a link between a less open or permissive attitude to some of these and alcohol consumption, but to be honest it's hard to see. (Interestingly, people with tattoos seem somewhat less likely to drink alcohol regularly, though there may be a generational element here.)