Rogersville, N.B. residents worried co-op losing liquor contract could lead to closure

The Rogersville Co-op will be losing its contract as an NB Liquor agency store in June after losing the bid to renew it.

This represents a major hit to its profits, as alcohol sales make up a quarter of its annual revenue.

Rogersville residents like Nadine Fournier are worried this could lead to the closure of the community’s only grocery store.

“We have a lot of aging population and vulnerable people that wouldn’t be able, necessarily, to go outside of the area to do their groceries. It would be the end of our community,” she said in an interview.

Rogersville is part of the newly amalgamated community of Nouvelle-Arcadie.

The nearest grocery stores outside of Rogersville are roughly 50 kilometres away.

Fournier has organized a letter-writing campaign and amassed more than 800 signatures in a petition for the Co-op to keep the contract.

NB Liquor spokesperson Emilie Dow told Global News in an emailed statement that the request for proposals process is automatically launched once a contract term is close to ending.

“Once the evaluation starts all bidders are assessed against the same criteria,” the statement read.

Dow listed criteria such as storage space, parking, traffic visibility and “previous business and retail experience” in the email.

She said the contract had been awarded to Rogersville Plaza Ltd., a company that owns a nearby gas station.

Kent North MLA Kevin Arseneau said NB Liquor needs to review this process in an interview on Monday.

“NB liquor needs to take into account some social criteria,” he said, such as “what effect agency stores are having on the community and not only be looking at profits and only profits.”

He compared the situation to a convenience store in Grand Manan losing its NB Liquor contract to a large grocery chain in August 2022.

“This is a situation in Rogersville right now but this could be a situation all over the province,” he said.

“Agency stores from (NB Liquor) are helping small communities. In some places it might be grocery stores, in some places it might be diversified convenience stores.”

He plans to raise the issue in the legislature, asking for the contract to be rendered void “until a new process that includes socially oriented criteria are built into NB Liquor’s tendering system,” he said.

Fournier is planning a community meeting about this issue on Thursday and said some residents have discussed the possibility of a protest.