“Yukon’s COVID-19 vaccination rate is still slowly climbing, but one Whitehorse business is hoping to speed things up a bit — with free beer. ‘There’s a lot of discussion online about, particularly, younger people being [vaccine] hesitant, not seeing much of a benefit,’ said Eric Miller, who with his brother runs Polarity Brewing, a restaurant and brewpub in Whitehorse. “We figured, why not just give them a little nudge over the line?’ The young entrepreneurs — who opened their bar last year — have launched a promotion this week where anybody who gets their first jab can then drop by the bar that day or the next with their immunization card and enjoy a draft, on the house,” reports the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.
“The catch is that the customer must also order food. The bar can’t just hand out free beer, so instead the price of a draft will be knocked off the total bill. ‘If you guys can make this cost us a lot of money, we’ll be thrilled,’ said Eric’s brother Kai Miller, Polarity’s brewer. The Millers describe themselves as ‘nerdy’ and say they’ve been closely watching the Yukon government’s online vaccine tracker. They’ve noticed that the rate of vaccine uptake has slowed in recent weeks — something that’s also been noticed by territorial health officials. “At a certain point, earnest public health advice and scolding and peer pressure is only going to reach so many people,’ Kai said. ‘So we thought, let’s give a little more carrot, a little less stick — and see if we can get those numbers where we want them.'”