I still can remember the January morning in 1986 when my dad and I were sitting at his kitchen table; he was drinking Greek coffee reading the Vancouver Province newspaper. I snagged the sports section from him as I wanted to look over the hockey scores from the night before.With his glasses perched on the edge of his nose, he turned to me and said, hey zun; look at this, whadda ya think? He showed me an article about a fellow who was selling wine store franchises.At that time private wine shops were not allowed in British Columbia, all the stores were government owned. I told my dad I thought this looked like a pretty good idea. We also agreed that many other people have done pretty well in the wine business and that we should give it a shot. We talked about it for a while longer and then he then told me why don't you call them, so I did.This was my first lesson on government bureaucracy. I am not sure on the precise series of events, we signed a variety of papers, I had meetings with the liquor board, and it was all very official and at times intimidating and frustrating. We persevered and some ten months later, November 19, 1986, we opened. Our first day of sales was about $110.00.We soon woke up to the reality of the wine business in British Columbia; our dreams of wine being wine barons were quickly diminished, we were only allowed to carry British Columbia wine from one winery and their cider and coolers. As serendipity would have it, two years later the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement of Tariffs and Treaties (GATT) were ratified. These two agreements grandfathered the wine stores and allowed us to carry American wines and other imported wines respectively. This set the foundation in place, allowing me to pursue my dream of building Marquis Wine Cellars into one of the finest wine stores in North America. more... See more text