Stogie Guys Friday Sampler CIII
Friday, June 6th, 2008In our ongoing effort to make StogieGuys.com as entertaining and informative as possible, each Friday we’ll post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other snippets of interest. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.
1) The industry may finally be getting its act together. Cigar Rights of America (CRA), a grassroots nonprofit hell-bent on battling tobacco taxes and smoking bans, was formed early this week. Sponsored by retailers and manufacturers— including Fuente, Davidoff, General, and Rocky—the organization will fight the “overzealous anti-smoking movement.” IPCPR announced plans to establish its own industry advocacy group one day later.
2) Speaking of the overzealous anti-smoking movement, the Ohio State Supreme Court shot down an exemption for private clubs from the state’s oppressive smoking ban. And while Pennsylvania legislators rejected a bill to ban smoking in most workplaces across the Keystone State, the proposed regulation will likely be reconsidered on Monday after some politicians try to make it stronger.
3) Inside the Industry: Don Giolitoo of Illusione cigars is coming out with a milder line to be called the Cruzado. Famous Smoke’s Cigar Expo & BBQ Bash 2008 starts today in Easton, Pennsylvania with with a golf tournament before a weekend filled with stogies and BBQ. The Metropolitan Cigar Society of Fairfield, New Jersey hosted Rocky Patel at a special dinner Wednesday night.
4) Around the Blogs: Keepers of the Flame lights up the Padrón 7000. Stogie Review smokes the Sancho Panza Double Maduro. Cigar Jack reviews a Camacho Corojo Toro. Matt puffs on a Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic Lancero. The Stogie Baby tries a Montecristo Media Noche.
5) Deal of the Week: Need a Fathers’ Day gift? Cuban Crafters has slashed prices on a number of cigars. Included are boxes of Stogie Guys favorites, including the Cuban Crafters Cabinet Selection, J.L. Salazar, and La Carolina lines—each of which is available at deep discount. See all the deals here.
photo credit: CigarRights.org
You guys need to correct the Ohio news item. Actually, the state Supreme Court ruled the health dept. did not have the right to draft smoking regulations that exempted private clubs. Private clubs arre not exempt.
From the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch:
Ohio’s smoking ban applies to private clubs, high court rules
By James Nash
Veterans’ halls and other members-only clubs will be no-smoking zones despite Gov. Ted Strickland’s quest to exempt them from the statewide smoking ban.
The Ohio Supreme Court extinguished the clubs’ last legal case to get out from under the law that bans smoking at restaurants, bars and nearly all other public buildings.
Without comment today, the state’s highest court let stand rulings from the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals that applied the smoking ban to private clubs because their employees would be exposed to secondhand smoke.
The court’s 4-3 decision left some clubs gasping for air. …
***
You’re 100 percent right, Mike, and thanks for pointing that out. My apologies for the error. I must have been smoking something strong when I was putting together the Sampler last night.
The news item has been corrected.
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation -
from sea to sea- has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed
threat of “second-hand” smoke.
Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a
cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized
throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local
government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved - the cancer of
unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom
menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal
indicates. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper
reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating
people about the potential danger and allowing them to make
their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force
people to make the “right” decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than
attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the
tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have
actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and
offices - places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose
customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local
bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously
negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be
answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment
of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding
every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend
or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married
or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful
consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the
neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must
be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only
his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette
smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and
unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the
power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of
inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your
favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm
at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited
intrusion of government into our lives.
We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.