Of all the lowdown dives where beer is sold, a Beer Store on Dundas St. W. is as grubby and neglected as any.

Why is it that Beer Stores are so drab? Could it be that the big breweries enjoy a monopoly on retail sales and don’t have to compete for customers?

Most look no different than 30 years ago; dingy brick buildings with tile floors made sticky from spilled beer, empty bottles to display brands for sale and roller belts along walls, travelled by boxes of beer and clattering empties.

We could call them dispiriting, but that might not be the right word, given the refreshing nature of their product. A lot of people leave the Beer Store with a spring in their step.

Jacques Desjardins sent us photos of a Beer Store on Dundas, near Howard Park Ave., which he says is “the most desolate, rundown, ugly (beer) store in Toronto. And the inside is no better.”

“This would not happen in Rosedale or Forest Hill,” said Desjardins, adding he inquired about the store a few years ago and was told improvements were imminent.

“Tear the place down and build a new store or do a major renovation,” he said, adding the breweries can afford it.

We found a grimy, neglected storefront with a metal façade that is rusted and curling where it meets the sidewalk. The entrance is so scuffed by boots and bottle carts that the faded beige paint has turned grey.

Inside, old-fashioned hot water registers are used to heat the place, while the walls look as though they haven’t been painted in 20 years.

The kids at the cash registers laughed when we asked how old it was, saying it’s been a beer store for at least 50 years and is one of the oldest in the city.

We don’t usually take on private enterprise, but big breweries have enjoyed the exclusive right to sell beer since 1927. When only they can provide what drinkers want, why spend even a penny on ambience?

LCBO stores, the government’s monopoly on liquor sales, underwent a major overhaul about 10 years ago, which transformed similarly dowdy outlets. Surely the brewers could do the same.

It strengthens the case made by grocery and convenience stores earlier this summer that they should also be allowed to sell suds.

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STATUS: We put in calls Friday to Jeff Newton, who deals with media at the Beer Store’s corporate offices, and also to his assistant, but they didn’t call back. Maybe there’s no explaining it.

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