Stogie Guys Friday Sampler CLIII
7 Aug 2009
As we have since July 2006, each Friday we’ll post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.
1) Starting tomorrow, StogieGuys.com will be reporting on location from the 77th annual International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers (IPCPR) Trade Show in New Orleans. Be sure to check back frequently for live updates from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (pictured at right). You can also follow our twitter feed for more coverage. In the meantime, click here for pre-IPCPR information about many of the new cigars that are set to debut in the coming days. And feel free to leave a comment below if you have a burning question you’d like us to ask any of the cigar makers who will be in attendance.
2) With anti-tobacco laws sweeping the nation, it’s worthwhile to look at the tactics anti-smoking zealots use to push smoking bans. This document (pdf), created by a coalition of anti-tobacco groups, details their strategy. It includes fighting against exemptions for private clubs and cigar shops, not agreeing to so-called hardship exemptions (for businesses that suffer from bans), and avoiding ballot initiatives where citizens get a vote (in favor of less transparent legislative strategies).
3) Inside the Industry: According to a Cigar Insider poll, this year Tatuaje eclipsed Padrón and Opus X as the most requested cigar brand in America.
4) Around the Blogs: Keepers of the Flame tests an aged Cubao. Stogie Review lights up a Graycliff. A Cigar Smoker checks out the Corona Cigar Company 10th Anniversary. Cigar Choice reviews the Benchmade. Perfect Draw smokes the Fuente Opus X.
5) Deal of the Week: The robusto is the most popular cigar size, and this “World Famous Robusto Sampler” has some fine examples of the vitola. Included are robustos by Cohiba, Rocky Patel, CAO, Gran Habano, Padilla Hybrid, Toraño, and Fonseca. In all, you get ten robustos and free shipping for $45. Get yours here.
photo credit: Morial Convention Center
Patrick Ashby
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Patrick Semmens
Co-Founder & Publisher
George Edmonson
Tampa Bureau Chief
Reading through that anti-tobacco strategy PDF, I am beginning to think we are all living in a high-tech version of Puritan New England. My only question is this: when Jonathan Edwards and the other elders show up at my door to drag me down to the public square for the witch trial, can I at least have one final smoke before I am dunked in the river? Sheesh. Maybe if Cuba turns democratic in the next 10 years we can all seek a colony down there.
ESPN is showing what sounds like a fascinating documentary on Luis Tiant, former pitching great who's appeared in Stogie Guys with his El Tiante cigars, (
http://www.stogieguys.com/2007/08/08222007-cigar-… and his return trip to Cuba after 46 years. There's a review in today's WSJ. Show premieres in ENglish Monday at 10 p.m.
If you look the original publication date of that "smoke-free fundamentals" document, that's been the playbook for at least a couple years. A lot of common-sense exemptions antis once easily accepted, like smoke shops, are now opposed.
The only good news, at least at the state level, is most bans passed recently still exempt tobacco-based businesses over their objections.
The law they are currently proposing in St Louis City was copy and pasted directly from this document. I think in a way we were lucky, it was so extreme that it got everyone against it. Even some of the busybody dogooders here thought it was extreme.
@Mike: I've been seeing the opposite, there are less exemptions for tobacco-based businesses. As an example go over to Chief Hava's blog where he talks about a smoking ban in Galveston, Texas. TEXAS!!