The Stogie Guys

On January 4, the DC City Council gave its final approval to a citywide ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, nightclubs, taverns, and other “public” places (never mind these establishments are privately owned and operated).

Although the ban will not be enforced until January 2007 – effectively stomping out individual free choice in the city where freedom is supposedly enshrined – it has already taken its toll on a once-magnificent Washingtonian symbol of power and prestige.

As of Thursday, June 1, the Town and Country Lounge in the Mayflower Hotel succumbed to the meddling, paternalistic city government and banned smoking. A bar once known for its hospitality towards lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists – as well as its tolerance for cigar smoke – is now a teetering has-been, a fossil in what was once a great cigar town.

As the Washington Post reports, attendance has been down significantly at the bar since the fascism set in. That article also printed this not-so-surprising paragraph:

“Oh my gawd. No one can know I smoke,” said a twenty-something woman, holding champagne with a strawberry perched on the rim of the flute in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “I work on ballot measures that ban smoking.”

Thank you, twenty-something woman, for so virulently demonstrating the hypocrisy associated with government-imposed bans on consensual adult behavior.

As a relatively new resident of the Washington metropolitan area, I must admit I have never been to the Town and Country Lounge. You can bet I won’t be going anytime soon.

One final note to our readers: Patrick and I are working to compile a list of cigar-friendly establishments in the Washington area (sadly, thanks to Draconian smoking laws, our list will probably be limited to establishments in the great Commonwealth of Virginia). If you have any favorite stogie hangouts, please feel free to contact us.

-Patrick A

Leave it to politicians and bureaucrats to exploit every loophole in a shameless effort squeeze as many hard-earned tax dollars out of Americans’ pockets as possible.

My home state – the Land of Lincoln – is only the latest addition to a group of 38 other states who are petitioning the federal government to reclassify little cigars as cigarettes. Why? Because, under current law, cigars can’t be taxed and regulated as heavily as cigarettes can.

As a consequence of the 1998 tobacco lawsuit, cigarette producers agreed to pay health care costs associated with cigarettes to state governments. But, with sales doubling in the last decade, state lawmakers see little cigars as thin bars of gold – a potential landmine in additional tax revenue.

As we all know, a little cigar is certainly not a cigarette. Not only is the tobacco completely different, but cigarettes are rolled with paper, not tobacco leaves.

Plus, the tobacco business as a whole is already one of the most taxed industries in the country. And regressive tax structures such as these hurt low-income individuals the most.

If taxation is slavery, then smokers are probably the most enslaved citizens in the United States.

I should mention that I can’t recommend these machine-made mini stogies, but individuals who enjoy them certainly shouldn’t be punished for their preference. With trumped up excise taxes on cigarettes nationwide, it’s no wonder many people are crossing over to little cigars as an alternative. It’s my hope, however, that these disenfranchised, overtaxed smokers make the jump to the full-blown, handmade stogies so many of us have grown to love.

While it’s anything but clear what Big Brother will do about little cigars at this point, the obvious option is to not force little cigar producers – and, in turn, little cigar smokers – to bear the burden of additional taxes on already outrageously-taxed goods.

If you ask me, the government has enough fingers in smokers’ pies as it is.

-Patrick A

Yes, that’s Patrick and I smoking a cigar with New York Times best-selling humorist P.J. O’Rourke.

We had the good fortune of attending the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner gala on Tuesday night at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. At $250 a plate, it was worth every penny (especially since our employer footed the bill).

The evening began with an open bar reception (I couldn’t stop eating the coconut chicken hors d’oeuvres…or drinking the free booze, for that matter). What followed was an elaborate lamb and crab cake dinner complemented by noteworthy addresses from Mr. O’Rourke and famed libertarian journalist John Stossel.

Mr. O’Rourke, the most quoted author in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations and – according to the Wall Street Journal – “the funniest writer in America,” is a stubborn, cigar-smoking critic of government, politicians, and whiny do-gooders. His keynote speech was routinely interrupted with well-deserved laughs and applause from a sell-out audience.

As great as the dinner and speeches were, however, the evening’s pinnacle was hands down the after-party in the “Liberty Lounge,” a smoky, open bar affair with – get this – loads of free stogies from our friends at JR Cigar!

Needless to say, having a cigar with the man who is credited as saying, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys,” was not an experience I shall soon forget.

-Patrick A

Cigar Aficionado is reporting that a coalition of cigar manufacturers and other cigar organizations are preparing a lawsuit to challenge a proposed California state tobacco tax.

To coordinate the fight against this new extraordinary tax, officials at the Ashton Cigar Company, Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia., Davidoff U.S.A., J.C. Newman Cigar Company, and Prometheus International Inc. are teaming up with the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America to form the California Association of Liberty and Choice, which will lead a grassroots opposition to the tax.

If approved by ballot initiative in November, the “Tobacco Tax of 2006” will impose a tax of 135 percent on tobacco products, including on our beloved stogies.

According to C.A., David Berkebile, President of the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America trade association, predicts that if enacted, “every tobacco shop in California will be out of business.”

Stogie Guys Analysis

Taxes that target smokers are wrong. When politicians and well-funded “activists” target taxes on unpopular or unorganized groups in order to fund their pet projects, it is the political equivalent of a schoolyard bully picking on the weakest kid in school. If politicians cannot convince citizens that taxes to fund their projects should be spread broadly across the tax base, they should reevaluate the necessity of the program, not look for a more vulnerable group with which they can saddle the burden.

And as if that were not enough, the Left-Coasters behind the “Tobacco Tax of 2006” have set the tax rate so high that, at least for hand-rolled cigars, it is unlikely to raise any additional revenues at all because it will drive nearly all cigar stores out of business.

Fortunately for California’s Stogie Guys, online retailers and catalogs will allow smokers to purchase tax-free cigars. But if the tobacco tax initiative passes, the days of browsing the humidor at the local cigar shop may be over forever in the Golden State.

What a shame.

-Patrick S

Fort Lauderdale-based Altadis-USA, the world’s largest producer and distributor of cigars, recently declared war on the counterfeit cigar trade. How big is the fake stogie racket, you ask? Well, a crackdown of cigar and law enforcement officials in Miami this week seized over $20 million in fake cigars, wrappers, and packaging.

Altadis – which owns the rights to such famed brands as Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, and H. Upmann – always considered the fake cigar trade troublesome, but they didn’t realize the extent of the illegal industry until company officials participated in raids with Miami police last December.

Altadis had rented two, 25-foot trucks to cart away the fake merchandise, but had to swap those for an 18-wheeler when cops found the stockpiles of boxes, printing presses, and cigars…

But Stogie Guys readers need not worry – fake cigars should be fairly easy to detect. Not only will they have a sourer odor than their more legitimate relatives, but counterfeit stogies will often display different colors, can appear splotchy or moldy, and most will have loose-fitting wrappers.

I just hope the cops didn’t throw away their colossal cigar seizure. A fake smoke is a smoke nonetheless.

-Patrick A