By Joanna Lavoie  Beach Mirror Left Field Brewery can sell to LCBO, Beer Store and licensed establishments - but not to festivals Left Field Brewery, which is set to open its brewery in a 100-year-old former brick factory near Greenwood Avenue and Gerrard Street East early next year, won’t be serving beer at festivals in Toronto this summer. The baseball-themed craft brewery, owned by Leslieville residents Mark and Mandie Murphy, currently brews its beers at Grand River Brewing in Cambridge, Ontario and Barley Days Brewery in Picton, Ontario. Considered by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) as a “contract brewer”, Left Field Brewery learned May 2 that it won’t be permitted to sell its beer to Special Occasion Permit (SOP) holders including beer festival organizers. Technically, contract brewers, like Left Field Brewery, are only allowed to sell to the LCBO, The Beer Store, and licensed bars and restaurants. Despite this usually-not-enforced law, contract brewers have been selling their products in SOP festivals and events for years as this law is rarely enforced. “Despite the fact that our beer is brewed at licensed breweries, has been lab tested by the LCBO and is consumed safely at over 60 bars and restaurants every day, we’ve learned that the AGCO deems the activity of us selling directly to SOP permit holders, including beer festival organizers, as illegal,” Left Field Brewery said in a May 2 release. “That’s right, a brewery who is licensed to sell beer in Ontario cannot sell beer to beer festivals. ... Unless a policy change takes place rather quickly, our weekend plans of pouring at festivals were just crushed pretty badly.” Ironically, Left Field Brewery, which co-hosted a dim sum festival called ‘YumCha! 2 East-Meets-West’ on Sunday, May 4 at the space next to its future home on Wagstaff Drive, was left with no other choice than to serve beer produced by other craft breweries. “There are a lot of alcohol control laws in Ontario that don’t seem to make a heck of a lot of sense. There are even more laws that are just outright ignored by most suppliers. In our view, the only solution in this case is for us to lobby for policy change,” Left Field Brewery wrote in a release. The Murphys are asking anyone who agrees that the ACGO laws for Special Occasion Permit holders should be changed write their local MPP, the Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Employment, Eric Hoskins and to the office of Premier Kathleen Wynne to ask that small contract breweries be allowed to take part in beer festivals.