When it comes to liquor licensing in Ontario, one size does not fit all.

That’s why a Toronto MPP wants provincial laws changed to give municipalities more power over controlling bars and other establishments that sell booze.

NDP MPP Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina) will table private member’s legislation Monday that, if passed, would enable towns and cities to create different classes of licensed cafés, clubs, and restaurants.

That could limit the concentration of potential problems — such as too many nightclubs in one neighbourhood — without affecting other businesses as has happened on Ossington Ave. and Queen St. W. in recent years.

“At the moment, every business establishment is considered the same — a bakery, a deli, and a bar all have the same (liquor licence) classification,” Marchese said in an interview.

“These changes would give municipalities the tools that they could use to respond to different issues, to different problems,” said the veteran MPP.

“The bill would give them the power to limit the concentration of a class of a licensed establishment — i.e. nightlife if that’s what’s causing the problem in a particular neighbourhood.”

Under his proposed amendments to the Municipal Act, the City of Toronto Act, the Licence Appeal Tribunal Act, and the Liquor Licence Act, municipalities could distinguish between restaurants and nightclubs, regulate operating hours, and get notified when licences are transferred to new operators.

Similar regimes are in effect in Montreal, New York, Berlin, and London.

Marchese said some of the headaches that have plagued business owners in Parkdale and on Ossington due to moratoriums on new licensed establishments imposed by city council would have been averted under his law.

“If you use a sledgehammer to control one particular establishment — or a couple — that are causing major headaches for a community them you going to be hurting a whole lot of other people that are going to get angry.”

But under existing laws, city councillors had no choice but impose sweeping one-year bans on new licensed establishments on Queen St. W. in Parkdale last year and on Ossington between Queen and Dundas in 2009.

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“Basically that’s all they had — the control bylaw,” said Marchese of the city’s moratoriums on issuing restaurant licences to put a halt to new provincial liquor licences.

“There is no downside in my mind. It’s something that I believe would solve a lot of headaches. This is not a killjoy bill. This is not a bill that’s designed to go after restaurants. It’s just common sense.”