Stogie Guys Friday Sampler XIII

In our ongoing effort to make StogieGuys.com as entertaining and reader-friendly as possible, each Friday we’ll post a sampler of quick cigar news and stogie-related snippets to tide you over for the weekend. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.

1) The Associated Press is running a story about the resurgence of handmade cigars and asking if another cigar boom is upon us. Just last week StogieGuys.com special correspondent George Edmonson discussed that possibility with a famed cigar maker, Charlie Torano, who told George, “I think we’ve learned our lesson” from the last boom. Torano says instead of rushing cigars to market like in the mid-90s, the remaining producers are competing for the best tobacco to make sure that quality doesn’t suffer this time around.

2) Our article on the two latest, and most unlikely, victims of smoking bans – 007 and the French – prompted a post over at Reason Magazine’s Hit & Run blog wondering if the vodka martini would soon be replaced with a Shirley Temple. The post also unearthed other examples of censorship of smoking such as a US Postage Stamp of Jackson Pollock and a photo of the author of the children’s book Good Night Moon – both of which had cigarettes airbrushed out by anti-smoking zealots.

3) Meanwhile, a smoking ban in Suffolk County, Long Island is so restrictive it even bans smoking in cigar bars! This prompts the question: Who exactly is being protected by banning smoking in a cigar bar? The workers who chose to work in a cigar bar? The patrons who chose to go there? Oh, right! Smoking bans aren’t about protecting people…They’re about imposing the will of anti-smokers on others and eliminating individuals’ choices.

4) The Pittsburgh Pirates just announced they are promoting to vice president the man responsible for creating and marketing the Montecristo Club at PNC Ballpark. Cigars and baseball…Why didn’t we think of that?

5) Finally, the award for obvious headline of the week goes to KDKA in Pittsburgh, who came up this gem: “Not Everyone Agrees With Smoking Ban.” No shit.

–The Stogie Guys