From Howard Fischer at Capitol Media Services:

A self-proclaimed cigar aficionado is launching an initiative drive to help preserve his ability and that of other smokers to light up in restaurants and bars.

The measure would let business owners decide whether their establishments have to be smoke free. But those who choose to permit customers to indulge who have to post a “conspicuous sign” that smoking is allowed inside.

These businesses also would have to tell would-be employees that smoking is allowed, permitting them to decide if they want to work their anyway.

But Eric Ulis, who created the “Arizona Cigar Lobby” of tobacco shops, said Tuesday that nothing in his measure would prohibit cities from enacting their own tougher ordinances.

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From Rich Perelman at Cigarcyclopedia:

Tim Luckhurst’s editorial on the debate in Britain’s House of Commons that appeared in the London Times last Tuesday is important and worth repeating, so here goes:

“As MPs choose today between partial or total bans on smoking in public places they must ask themselves whether lying to promote a cause is ever legitimate.

“The question is urgent because the claim that secondary smoking kills is alchemy, not science, and honest anti-smoking lobbyists know it. The theory that cigarette smoke kills non-smokers was dreamt up 30 years ago by anti-smoking activists; only after inventing it did they attempt to prove it.

“Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have followed. All point to a compelling consensus that there is no casual link between passive smoking and fatal illness. One of the most comprehensive studies was published in the British Medical Journal in 2003. It concluded: ‘The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality.’

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Westin Hotels and Resorts is going smoke-free next month and will add $200.00 to the bill of anyone who violates the policy, said Senior Vice President Sue Brush. Smoking indoors and poolside will be banned at all 77 of the chain’s properties in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean beginning January 1. After that date, smokers will have to go to a designated outdoor area, she said.

Eight Westin hotels were previously designated smoke-free, and at least 5 percent of the rooms at the others had been set aside for nonsmokers, Brush said. But market research found that 92 percent of Westin’s guests were requesting nonsmoking rooms, and some of those who couldn’t get them were “quite upset,” she said.

Brush said that customers will be advised about the anti-smoking policy at check-in. If a guest violates the rule — “when we can observe it by smelling it or whatever” — a $200.00 fee will be added to the bill.

Hang on folks, we’re just getting warmed up.

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Cigar Jack points out a Forbes article that explores how teenagers are turning to cigar smoking in record numbers, and decries the consequent health risks.

Putting aside the issue of how dangerous to your health proper cigar smoking is, since I’ve covered that recently in another article, we ought to turn to the issue of whether what today’s teens are smoking are really cigars. As Jack puts it:

“A new name needs to be thought up for those cigars canine fecal matter sticks sold at gas stations. I’ve smoked ACID and CAO Flavors and I’ve yet to come across grape flavored premium cigars. Did I just say premium flavored cigars. heh… This was another sign they were discussing that cheap gas station crap.”

You know, despite those harsh words, perhaps there is something to this flavored cigar thing that I’ve overlooked. In the interest of reaching out to a new generation of cigar aficionados, perhaps I ought to expand the review section here at Cigar Envy to include the cigars that this younger generation knows and loves. Why just focus on those crusty old standbys like Partagas, Romeo y Julieta, Punch, Davidoff, Arturo Fuente and the like? You have to move with the times, change or be left behind.

So don’t be surprised if you see a full-blown review here soon of a White Owl Wild Apple or a Philly Blunt Mango.

(…blogger…journalist…media whore…decisions, decisions.)

In the meantime, while I struggle with career issues, check out Cigar Jack’s comments.

From Cigar Jack comes a tip about the Georgetown Cigar Party, a protest against the anti-smoking legislation recently passed in the state of Washington.

I’m in the process of getting more information from contacts in Washington which I hope to pass along later today, but the gist of the idea is to have a protest modelled after the Boston Tea Party. It will be held on Friday, December 2, 2005 from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at Rain City Cigar, 5963 Corson Ave., S., Suite 130, Seattle, Washington. Phone number for the store is (206) 767-3619 and their email address is raincitycigar@qwest.net.

Some of the tobacco industry people who will be at the Party include: Patrick Dewitt of General Cigar Co., Steve Martin of Altadis USA, and Don Hanes of Monarch Marketing. The event is being characterized in a flyer put out by Rain City Cigar as “an Act of Resistance,” where “great blue clouds of smoke” will be cast into the air before a copy of Initiative 901 will be symbolically thrown into the trash and the group will prepare for a protest march on Washington’s capital, Olympia.

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There is a very interesting post up over at Our House Blog by David on the comparative health risks of smoking cigarettes versus smoking cigars.

It is a good post, with links to some information from the National Cancer Institute and also has some quotations from FDA spokespeople and the New England Journal of Medicine. Anyone who smokes cigars will want to read it.

The information in the article is an anti-smoking crusader’s worst nightmare.

Why?

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