KITCHENER — It started, as the best ideas usually do, over beers.

Two former BlackBerry employees are diving into Ontario's hotly debated liquor retailing laws in a new documentary project called Straight Up.

Financed through a Kickstarter campaign, Peter Lenardon and A.J. Wykes are taking on the Beer Store's and the LCBO's near-monopoly on booze sales in the province in their first full-length film project.

"We were sitting out on the back deck having a beer and A.J. said, 'Why don't we make a documentary about all the strange rules the LCBO has?' " said Lenardon. "So we started tentatively looking into the subject and asking the same questions consumers ask."

Lenardon, a Kitchener-based photographer and videographer, and Wykes, a British-born sound engineer, ask some basic questions in their project — including why can't you buy alcohol at convenience stores in Ontario, why some products are kept off shelves entirely, and why prices seem higher here.

The pair, who plan to have their documentary finished in time for a spring election, give viewers some historical context for Ontario's liquor regulations and interview local craft brewers and wine makers, economists and other academics, too.

Straight Up includes a healthy dose of Waterloo Region content, including Grand River Brewing's Bob Hanenberg and Rob Creighton, Brick Brewing founder Jim Brickman and the University of Waterloo's Anindya Sen.

Lenardon and Wykes take aim at the privately-run Beer Store, the chain of retail outlets owned by three multinational brewing companies, which redirects hundreds of millions in profits away from Ontario every year, Lenardon said.

"We thought, 'Well, that's a lot of money.' And it seems strange there's this monopoly, although they don't like to say it's a monopoly," he said. "It doesn't seem like there's a lot of benefit to the province of Ontario."

Combined with the LCBO's "arbitrary" restrictions on Ontario-made wineries, locally-produced beer and wines are being held back. They deserve better access to consumers, he said.

"I don't think they're given the opportunity in their home market that they deserve," Lenardon said. "To us, it seems like there's this fantastic industry that's kind of being stifled."

To finish their project, Lenardon and Wykes are hoping to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter.com by March 21. They created an independent film startup, homebrewpictures.com, and collected more than $6,600 in donations at last check.

The filmmakers says they're not pushing for a revolution. Instead they suggest looking to Quebec or California for examples of how domestic producers can be better supported and consumers can have more variety and convenience.

"We're not for some kind of radical privatization," Lenardon said. "We're not making villains out of anyone here. We just think there's room for a fairer system."

gmercer@therecord.com ; Twitter: @MercerRecord