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LCB leaders highlight education-first approach as complaints rise
Summary
At an LCB executive management meeting on May 13, enforcement leaders said most field contact is education-focused, reported a five-year spike to 2,783 complaints in 2025 and outlined a complaint-vetting process that leaves roughly 80% of external complaints unsubstantiated.
The Liquor and Cannabis Board’s Enforcement and Education leaders told the board on May 13 that the division emphasizes education and voluntary compliance, even as overall complaints rose in 2025.
At the Executive Management Team meeting, the chief said the division’s five-year activity review shows the majority of field contact is proactive and oriented toward licensee support: “78% of our activity is proactive visits,” the chief said, and he pointed out that education and licensee contact make up much of the workload. He added that 2025 was the busiest year in five years, with 2,783 complaints compared with a typical annual baseline near 2,000.
Why it matters: The division framed the increase in external reports as a mixture of public concern and noise. The chief said about 80% of external complaints were unsubstantiated after vetting, while internal reports from officers and compliance consultants were substantiated roughly 80% of the time. That pattern, he said, argues for more proactive public education and improved intake vetting to reduce unnecessary disruption to licensees.
How complaints become formal: Board members pressed the presenters on procedure. The chief described an intake and vetting workflow that begins with customer-service intake and regional admin review, proceeds to a lieutenant or supervisor for field verification, and only becomes a logged complaint when a supervisor determines the report meets the division’s violation criteria. “That is where it actually rolls into a complaint,” the chief said.
What presenters proposed next: Staff said the division will continue to develop dashboards and data products to make trends clearer for internal and external audiences, and to use targeted education campaigns to reduce unsubstantiated external reports. Board members urged the division to do more storytelling about successes so other agency staff and external partners better understand the work being done.
The meeting closed without any formal vote or policy change. The board asked staff to return with deeper dives into the data in future briefings.
