Concerns from national alcohol brand owners have prompted the Yukon Liquor Corp. to stop affixing warning labels to all bottles and cans being sold in the Whitehorse liquor store, the Star has learned – at least for the time being.

As part of its participation in the federally-funded Northern Territories Alcohol Study, the liquor corporation rolled out new labels in its Whitehorse store in November. They warn of the link between alcohol use and cancer risk, and encourage moderate drinking habits.

The new labels were a Canada-first – and attracted national media attention.

Since the launch of the new labels a month ago, concerns have rolled in from national brand owners in the alcohol industry.

“There’s a large range of concerns,” Patch Groenewegen, a liquor corporation spokesperson, said in an interview this morning.

They centre around “legislative authority, label placement and trademark infringement, defamation and damages related to messages on labels affixed to brand-owner products without consent,” she said.

Groenewegen declined to identify the national brand owners that have approached the corporation with concerns at this point in time.

“We’ve stopped applying labels to any new products coming into the store,” she said, discussing a decision that was made this week.

Labels will remain on products that are already on the shelves.

The liquor corporation is working with the national brand owners and facilitators of the Northern Territories Alcohol Study to determine where to go from here, according to Groenewegen.

This phase of the study and its labels were intended to run for eight months, after which a survey would be conducted to assess its impacts.

While industry concerns centre around the new labels, there have also been issues raised at the local level with the study’s impact on longstanding product labels in liquor corporation stores that read, “Warning, drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause birth defects.”

The liquor corporation has been attaching these labels to bottles and cans since 1991, but stopped doing so in the Whitehorse store in November when the study phase began and the new labels launched.

Wenda Bradley, the executive director of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society Yukon (FASSY), said she was under the impression that the new labels would accompany, rather than replace, the longstanding drinking while pregnant warning labels.

When Bradley realized that was not in fact that case, she approached the liquor corporation –whose officials were very receptive and open to discussion, Bradley told the Star.

“FASD needs to be a focus,” she explained. “It’s a lifespan disability.”

Groenewegen confirmed that the liquor corporation is also working with FASSY as it determines what’s going to happen with the future of the study and its labels.

“As we continue these discussions, we’re also going to make sure we include FASSY’s priorities ... and what to do with labels in general,” she said.

The drinking while pregnant warning labels continue to be applied in the five other liquor corporation stores across the territory at this time.