Gatherings by Frank Seltzer
Well the weather is getting colder and that leads lots of us to look for warmer climes..there are a couple of gatherings coming up in much warmer weather. Both are in February.
One is Pro Cigar, which I have written about before. It is a week long blast in the Dominican Republic and you get to spend time with the cigar makers there. The week long event is February 17-22. I will be there and you might want to consider it. The group’s website is found here. The cost for Pro Cigar is $895 and reservation deadline is Feb 6th.
Aloha
Royal Hawaiian Hotel
It that is a bit too long or too pricey, here is another idea. Go to Hawaii. The Endless Summer Cigar Festival is taking place on Sunday February 10th at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach. The cost for this 4 hour event is $125 and it includes entertainment, a hula show, a full dinner, a silent auction benefiting Operation Homefront Hawaii, which serves Hawaiian veterans, and the chance to hang out with Don Pepin, Jaime Garcia and their families, Pete Johnson, Robert Levin of Ashton and Rocky Patel. You can reserve a spot here…but the tickets are almost gone so do it fast. Not bad, a weekend in Honolulu.
What is interesting about the Endless Summer Cigar Festival is that it also marks the 200th anniversary of when tobacco was cultivated in Hawaii and cigars were made there commercially. Yup, the big anti-smoking state used to grow tobacco. According to cigar smoker and Hawaii researcher extraordinaire and Maui friend, Bill Medieros, Don Francisco de Paula Marin was a Spaniard who came to Hawaii around 1793. He became influential with the monarchy, specifically King Kamehameha 1. In an old journal Bill found, in 1813 Marin was growing tobacco along with other crops and had been making cigars for sale to the vessels that came to visit the islands.
Today, Hawaii does have a cigar maker –Kauai Cigar Company. Les Drent, who was profiled in CA’s 20th anniversary edition, uses tobacco grown and aged on his Kauai farm for the fillers of his cigars but then he has to ship the tobacco to Nicaragua to have them rolled because of Hawaii’s tax structure. Les is the primary mover behind the Hawaii cigar event and it is being held in conjunction with the IPCPR and CRA in an effort to lobby the state legislature to impose a 50-cent cap on premium cigars. Right now in Hawaii, the tax is 50% of the wholesale cost. I’ll have more on both Pro Cigar and the Endless Summer Cigar Festival in coming weeks.
Consumers at Trade Show?
Speaking of the IPCPR, its trade show is coming up this summer in Las Vegas and the organization is considering a new addition on the last day of the show – a consumer day. According to the organization’s release—
Each ticket will include a pre-packaged assortment of select cigars purchased by the IPCPR from volunteer manufacturers, as well as a chance to walk the trade show floor to meet and interface with the individuals behind the brands in the industry.
This event will be limited to the first 500 consumers who purchase tickets (ticket price TBD based on cigar selections & cost) Each ticket will include a pre-packaged assortment of select cigars purchased by the IPCPR from volunteer manufacturers, as well as a chance to walk the trade show floor to meet and interface with the individuals behind the brands in the industry.
This event will be limited to the first 500 consumers who purchase tickets (ticket price TBD based on cigar selections & cost)
The reason for the consumer event is to try to raise money for the IPCPR’s lobbying efforts. The group was very active in the last session of Congress trying to get a bill through that would exempt premium cigars from the FDA’s control. That bill did not get passed but IPCPR and CRA will try again.
Also the group is fighting state efforts to try to impose smoking bans.
For example, Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Anti Tobacco) already has reintroduced his smoking ban for Texas in the senate. (Remember they never give up.)
Ellis has tried repeatedly to ban smoking everywhere in the state..Austin became the first major Texas city to ban smoking in 2005. Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are part of the 40 cities with smoking bans but that is not good enough for Ellis. You see many suburbs have NOT banned smoking and are seeing the positive financial results.
“It’ll pass in Austin, Texas. It won’t pass in a conservative state like Texas,” said Bob Woody, president of the East 6th Street Community Association and owner of several Austin bars.
Woody said the Austin ban resulted in a roughly 40 percent decrease in revenue for his properties. Although business has largely recovered since, Woody said it’s still down 15 percent from what it was before the ban.
“There have been no positive effects,” Woody said.
At Players billiards in Pflugerville, the Austin ban doesn’t apply. Smokers are welcome, but a new law isn’t.
“I don’t think that anyone should tell any bar owner how to run their establishment,” said bartender and manager Terri Moebus.
“It’s a bar. People come, they drink, they smoke. If you don’t want to be in that situation, don’t show up,” said Patron Dave Koehn. “I think you ought to have a choice. There ought to be a sign on the front door, ‘This is a smoking establishment, you’ve been warned.’”
Richard Smith, a non-smoker, said the smoke from others doesn’t bother him.
“If it did, I’d go to the bar across the street because there’s no smoking over there,” said Smith. “Most smokers, if the smoke is going your way and they know you don’t smoke, they’ll move their cigarette out of the way. They have respect for non-smokers.”
So fights are coming and your help is needed.
