With an election imminent, I wanted to squeeze in one more light, easy column before the grind of the upcoming campaign gets underway. Ontario’s struggling and fitful efforts to accommodate “pedal pubs,” large multi-person bicycles that function throughout much of the world as mobile bars, seemed an easy target. Unfortunately, the more I looked into it, the more I realized this was actually a really interesting issue deserving of serious scrutiny. So much for my light, easy column.
Pedal pubs are fun. On my recent visit to the United States, I saw many of them patrolling the streets of some beautiful cities, with riders cheerfully pumping their legs and sipping on pints in plastic cups. Ontario recently passed some legislation to enable such pubs to operate here during the warm months. The City of Toronto, in its usual race to embrace the next big thing, thought about maybe doing a pilot where two licences for these vehicles would be issued. Wow! Such vision! Ultimately, the city did go a bit further and granted eight licences for a pilot project.
But you won’t be able to drink on them.
This is where I was originally planning to have some fun. My home province’s, and home town’s, comically puritanical handling of all issues related to alcohol is the gift that keeps on giving when I’m reaching for a quick column thesis. A few days ago, I sent out a snarky tweet about the Toronto pilot and almost immediately got a call from a friend in the Ontario government. “Hang on there, Matt,” they told me. “Don’t go too hard on Toronto. This one is our fault.”
Indeed.
Let’s cut to the heart of the matter. What is a pedal pub? According to the Ontario government, it’s a “large quadricycle,” which means it must have (deep breath) “at least 12 seats including a driver seat; pedals to provide propulsion power; a steering wheel or a handlebar for steering; working brakes; parking or emergency brakes; a horn; good-quality tires; turn signals; brake lights; [and] reflectors.” It must not be capable of exceeding 17 kilometres per hour on a flat surface, must not carry combustible material, and must not tow other vehicles. It can be entirely pedal-powered or have an electric-assistance motor. The passengers pedal, but a driver steers and is the operator at all times.
So that’s what it is, what it must do, what it can’t do, and what it may do. But it’s not entirely clear whether it’s a vehicle, per se. Is this thing a car or a bike? A read of the Ontario regulations suggests both and neither. It doesn’t need auto insurance, but the Highway Traffic Act and some Criminal Code provisions apply as if it were a car.
TVO.org spoke with Lyle Jones, co-owner of Pedal Pub Toronto, which plans to operate four of the “large quadricycles” this summer. I asked him what he understood the vehicles to be, and he said a bike — which was, he stressed, necessary to operate them, as getting auto insurance would have been a huge challenge. (The Toronto pilot-project regulations do require owners have $2 million in insurance, but business insurance is not the same thing as car insurance.) The city, Jones said, is treating them as akin to pedicabs, whereas the province is treating them as something new and unique in terms of regulations. The province is essentially creating this from nothing — it’s only been under consideration since 2018, when the first proposals were made, and two of those years were lost to COVID-19 chaos, anyway. Jones plans to operate his four vehicles in a loop between breweries downtown; people will pedal along from location to location and enjoy drinks there, but not on the pubs themselves. (The driver, or “chauffeur,” as Jones described them, must be sober and is subject to impaired-driving laws if not.)
I asked him whether he was interested in passengers being able to enjoy a drink while on the move. “That’s the common business model,” he replied, citing the U.S. and Alberta as jurisdictions where this is routine. But he hasn’t even brought it up yet in Toronto. The goal was to get the vehicles on the road under some kind of framework. Serving alcohol aboard wasn’t under discussion.
And fair enough. Jones is focused on getting his business going here, and I wish him every success. Toronto needs more fun. But the booze component may prove surprisingly tricky.
Because other than a “large quadricycle,” what is a pedal pub? A vehicle? You can’t drink in a vehicle, at least not when it’s in motion. (This is not particularly honoured in limos and party buses, as I suspect the reader knows, but that’s the law.) Hell, even if the pedal pub wasn’t in motion, you can barely drink alcohol out of doors in this province and city. Remember all the hilarity that ensued when Toronto contemplated the nightmare scenario of someone having a beer in a park? So even if your pedal pub isn’t moving, are you on a patio? Out of doors? At a bar? What?
I poked around. No one knows. Jones didn’t; as stated, he’s just focused on making the trial work for now. Several sources at the City of Toronto had no idea; two of them suggested only that the vehicle would need a liquor licence. The vehicle or the company that owns them? They didn’t know. A provincial source was asked whether the law around moving vehicles could be waived in this case, and they weren’t sure, beyond saying that, yeah, maybe it could be, but that Toronto would then probably shut that down, since it shuts everything down (there was a hint of exasperation in that reply, my friends, believe me). The entire thing seemed a void of confusion.
Another provincial-government source gave me perhaps the only real answer I could get. “We already have a reputation of ‘the party of booze,’” they said. “We don’t need another buck-a-beer just before an election where we get accused of wanting more crashes.” Obviously, people should be able to have a beer on a pedal pub, they agreed. But, like, ask about that later, okay?
Okay! For his part, Jones isn’t worried. He’s excited to get the pilot going. “I’m very happy,” he said. “The city seems to realize that these are going to be fun things for people after two years of COVID lockdowns and anxiety.” Would he want to serve alcohol on them eventually? Sure. “But the city gave us everything we need for the pilot this summer,” he said. He was happy to start with that.
And fair enough. As I said, I wish him well.