Cigars, Bans and a Dog by Frank Seltzer
Last week, we told you about a new AVO 6” x 60 Heritage Special Toro. This week, the company is announcing a special cigar to mark AVO’s 25th anniversary. The release says AVO is sharing his two passions…cigars and the piano. (If you did not know Avo is an extremely talented musician. He wrote what became Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night.) For this AVO 25th Anniversary edition, the box is a cool looking black lacquered wooden piano shaped box which contains a short term humidification device and a small storage space. The special toro is a 6” x 52 with a silky Sun-Grown Dominican Criollo wrapper over a Piloto Cubano binder and Dominican fillers. The edition is limited to 2,000 boxes and the retail price will be $16. The AVO 25th should start showing up in stores this week.
“No Effect” from Smoking Ban
Right, that is the usual line so why am I surprised that yet another “study” shows that to be the case. This time in Michigan. The University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research claims the smoking ban caused no negative impact on businesses.
“It is important to note that while some establishments saw sales fluctuations after the passage (of the law), bars and restaurants as a whole were not adversely affected,” health department Director James Haveman said in a news release.
But not everyone in the real world agrees.
For 17 years, Bo Burton has managed the Blarney Stone Pub, which sits on the west side of Woodward Avenue in Berkley. And the 19-month period from the start of the ban until last December was one of the slowest periods he has seen.
“Our overall sales dropped immediately by close to 30 percent,” he said. “And this was at a time when the economy was already down. The timing couldn’t have been worse.”
And in another article proclaiming the “solid “research:
Scott Ellis, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, which opposed the ban, expressed skepticism about the new study. Analysis by MLBA and the Dept. of Treasury has found a real decline in tax collections and Keno lottery sales linked to the smoking ban, Ellis said.
“I get phone calls on a daily basis from people who are hurting,” he said, “I’m surprised (by Levy’s findings). She may have looked at the numbers, but I don’t think she talked to (bar) owners.”
Fine research indeed.
Big Gulp Spared
As expected, Nanny Bloomberg’s hand-picked health panel voted to ban sodas over 16 ounces. But the board of health exempted convenience stores—hello Big Gulp. The vote was unanimous with one abstention—a doctor who thought it wouldn’t do much. Bloomberg says this will save lives…so will his trans-fat ban, smoking ban…and starting this month New York City hospitals will be encouraging new mothers not to use formula. Golly New York must be a healthy paradise.
According to the experts:
They say the proposal strikes at a leading cause of obesity simply by giving people a built-in reason to stop at 16 ounces: 200 calories, if it’s a regular Coke, compared to 240 in a 20-ounce size. For someone who drinks a soda a day, the difference amounts to 14,600 calories a year, or the equivalent of 70 Hershey bars, enough to add about four pounds of fat to a person’s body.
Wow, 4 whole pounds a year…yeah that will help. Reason says it is win-win for Bloomberg:
If the city’s obesity numbers drop, it will be an argument that the ban worked and it should be expanded. If the obesity numbers don’t drop, it means the ban obviously didn’t go far enough and should be expanded.
This echos the outdoor smoking ban logic. The ban begins in 6 months and in the meantime there will likely be lawsuits.
Bye Jake
Jake
Excuse me for a personal note, but this is a blog after all…if you did not know, we had to put our dog Jake to sleep on Wednesday. Dog owners should know about Old Dog Syndrome, which is vertigo. Jake had it in January but as predicted in vet articles he recovered within 72 hours. Apparently when dogs get old, they can get severe vertigo. For the owner it is tough, but the dog makes it ok. On September 6th Jake started having trouble again. We kept him quiet and hand fed him and by Sunday he was doing much better. By Monday, he was feeling good. On Tuesday he was back to his old self, going on a long walk and even barking at a nearby cat. Then at 3am Tuesday morning, he began to tank. That afternoon, we gave him a cortisone shot per the vet to try to help him heal faster. A couple of hours later he stopped breathing for a short time, but then recovered, barely. We knew at that point, he was suffering and it was time. The vet agreed saying he had just put his dog down for a similar problem 3 weeks earlier. This is the fourth dog we have had to put to sleep and it never gets easier. To celebrate Jake’s life, I smoked a great cigar gifted to me by Jonathan Drew at this year’s trade show on Thursday. (Mandatory cigar content.)
Jake was a great dog and I still remember the day we found him 12 years ago. We had lost our yellow lab Barney a short while before. We weren’t looking for another dog, but then here he was, next door, running around with a bird in his mouth…happy as could be. No collar, so we brought him in and he immediately became friends with our black lab Buddy. We tried to find who owned him and found out another neighbor was fostering him. Jake had been shot in the neck as a puppy and had been nursed back to health. They asked if we wanted him and we said yes.
Jake became an important part of our family. He is the reason we have a cat now too. When this kitten got into our back yard, Jake went after him, biting him. We had to nurse the little stray back to health and eventually brought him in to the house. Jake and Izzy, the cat, became fast friends and often slept together. Now, our home is emptier. The cat and other two dogs are looking for their friend. One piece of advice…you can never have too many pictures of your pets nor loved ones.
