Finns formed long lines outside the country’s rare liquor shops that remained open on Thursday after a strike by employees of state-owned monopoly distributor Alko.
The company said that only about 40 out of 336 outlets were expected to be open during the strike over employment conditions that was to last until Saturday.
Alko sells wine, spirits and the stronger beers, with only light beer available in supermarkets.
In the capital, Helsinki, just one Alko store was functioning in the city centre and two in other areas, and dozens of customers waited outside in the cold until they opened, national news agency STT reported.
Alko said stocks should hold out until Monday.
Finns do not have the habit of stocking food and drink, preferring to shop every day, despite the development of hypermarkets, and the strike seemed to have caught them unawares.
About 2 000 Alko sales staff struck in a demand for minimum working hours and a reduction in the part-time contracts that concern 85% of them.
Despite heavy taxation of alcohol in Finland, abuse has since 2005 been the leading cause of death among Finns aged 15 to 64. The number of deaths from cirrhosis of the liver has increased 100-fold since the 1960s.
Consumption has risen from the equivalent of 2,6 litres of pure alcohol per person per year in 1967, three years before booze stopped being rationed, to 11 litres in 2006, according to the Finnish temperance league. — Sapa-AFP