From Rich at CigarCyclopedia comes this news:

Another draconian smoking ban goes into effect today in the Canadian province of Ontario, including the formerly cosmopolitan city of Toronto.

“There is a cigar culture in Toronto,” noted Stephen Hajtun, speaking to The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most respected newspaper in an interview last week. Not any more, Stephen.

The ban covers smoking in all enclosed spaces, including retail tobacco stores!

“The impact will be disastrous” was the comment from well-known tobacconist Thomas Hinds, whose store in the Yorkville section of Toronto has been a destination for smokers for 35 years.

Hinds told reporter Paul French, “People come here for a cigar because they don’t want to smoke in front of their kids at home, and that’s what the law is supposed to be about, protecting children, and I’m all for that.“Now we have a situation where [smokers] won’t have a place to go.”

French points out that as many as a dozen smoking lounges will have to close, “putting cigar smokers out on the street, and lumping them in with cigarette smokers, with whom they say they have little in common.” . . .

“The new law may also end up offending non-smokers even more than before.

“Prego Della Piazza, across the street from Casa del Habano, is one of only a few Toronto restaurants where cigar smoking is allowed in a separate dining room. But when the ban comes into effect, cigar smokers will have to move to a patio outside.

“‘Cigar smell always travels and it’s worse outside than inside because it gets carried by wind,’ general manager Vince Carrere said.”

So what should be done? The correct note was sounded by smoker John Perrone while enjoying a cigar in the upstairs lounge at Thomas Hinds:

“The new law has an edge of maliciousness to it. Give us our small corner and we’ll stay there.”

For now, the corner of the room is gone, traded for the street corner.

Toronto just experienced a resurgence of interest in cigars in the late 1990’s, with several cigar bars opening…and thriving. Like New York City and Chicago (and we won’t even talk about La La Land on the West Coast, another major metropolitan area falls victim to propaganda, deliberate misinformation and “doublethink.”

Life in one of my favorite cities has just become a little less civilized, and a lot less free.

Welcome to the New Dark Ages.