A price increase that was supposed to kick in at Nova Scotia liquor stores today instead took effect on Saturday.

The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is blaming the error on a computer glitch, but not everyone is buying it, and some customers who bought beer on the weekend want their money back.

“On Saturday it went up and it wasn’t supposed to go up until Monday,” says John Wedge.

The Halifax resident doesn’t drink, but he ran an errand at the NSLC on Saturday for his son. He paid $22.99 for a dozen beer, which was $1 more than the posted price.

He says he questioned the cashier about the price, and was told it was a computer glitch.

“I said ‘I don’t want to buy it from here. I’ll go over to the other store that didn’t get screwed up.’ They said ‘no, it’s all over the province.’”

The price increase was scheduled for today, but Opposition leaders say there was no notice of it.

“A glitch would have been one store. Something else might have come up, but the fact of the matter is, this was a direct way to bring in revenue before the end of the year,” says Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil.

“People deserve an apology because they were unfairly charged more than they were supposed to be,” says Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie. “Any other business would be apologizing and making it right.”

In a telephone conversation with CTV News, an NSLC spokesman said the prices didn’t go up on Saturday. But he said no one from the corporation would be available for an interview because while the liquor stores are open today, corporate offices are not.

This afternoon, another NSLC spokesperson admitted in an email that 1,000 prices were increased on Saturday.

She explained that in order to fix the error, the NSLC would have had to close all 105 stores across the province for an hour on one of the busiest days of the year.

“I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt,” says Wedge.

“I believe there’s a real cash grab going on in advance of the budget,” says Baillie. “This may be part of it.”

“Somebody decided to move these prices up on Saturday, hoping that nobody would pick up on it,” says McNeil.

Wedge did, and he went back to the NSLC today to get his $1 back, on principle.

“There’s thousands of dollars, not just one dollar,” he says.

Both McNeil and Baillie pointed out the glitch comes three days after the province announced fee hikes of nearly six per cent on 1,300 fees.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Rick Grant