 Plus: anyone remember the Great American Smoke-Out?
Los Angeles, November 16 – “Depressing” is one word used to describe the cigar-smoking situation in England, where a ban in indoor smoking – except for tobacco shops – went into effect in June.
Neil Clark, writing in the Spectator, however, found that elements within the 800,000-strong cigar-smoking population are not only not resigned to defeat, but beginning an offensive:
“Popping outside for a quick Marlboro Light on the pavement is one thing, smoking a Montecristo Especial No. 1 in such circumstances is something else altogether. Cigars are meant to be savoured, not rushed: something which the ban makes almost impossible outside of one’s own home. Gentlemen’s clubs have been badly hit. ‘The ban has completely changed club culture as the post-prandial smoke is no longer to be enjoyed. I think it makes it much more difficult to really get to know someone,’ bemoans Piers Russell-Cobb, managing director of Media Fund. For female cigar smokers, the situation is even worse. ‘In the past I’ve had to get used to the fact that some people see cigar smoking as unfeminine,’ says Sallyann Everett, a tobacconist. ‘Now, I’m worried that whenever I light a cigar I might be committing a crime. The ban has made me feel paranoid.’
“However, all is not lost. After a depressing four months in which smokers, in the words of Sallyann, have been made to feel ‘like third-class citizens’, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The fightback against New Labour’s particularly noxious brand of killjoy illiberalism is being led by the charismatic figure of Ranald Macdonald, elder son of the 24th Captain of Clanranald. Macdonald has worked tirelessly, over 19 years, to build his wonderfully cosy Belgravia club/restaurant Boisdale into an oasis for cigar smokers. Boisdale has the largest selection of Cuban cigars you’ll find in such an establishment (19 brands and over 120 different sizes and vintages). But the ban has hit business hard. ‘My sales were 15 per cent down in September,’ Macdonald told me over a Hoyo de Monterrey smoked on the little seated area outside his restaurant. ‘The evening trade has been badly affected. We have live jazz every night and jazz and cigars go together. You can listen to jazz without a cigar, but it’s somehow not quite the same.’
“Macdonald’s assault is two-pronged. On 1 November, Boisdale opened Britain’s first cigar terrace, a 6 x 9 metre roof area, where patrons will, once again, be able to smoke their Havanas legally. At the same time, Macdonald, together with fellow cigar aficionado Jemma Freeman, managing director of Hunters & Frankau, Britain’s exclusive distributor for Cuban cigars, is launching a new single-purpose campaign to gain exemptions from the ban for bars, pubs and clubs. ‘Seventy-four per cent of the population in Scotland favour exemptions,’ says Macdonald. ‘It’s a question of convincing the politicians that such a move would have public support. The lie put out by the pro-ban lobby was that Britain was only following the European example in imposing a total ban. It wasn’t. Other countries have worked out compromise solutions.’ Macdonald prefers to use the phrase ‘bully state’ to describe the sort of country Britain has become: ‘nanny state sounds too middle-class’. ‘We’ve certainly become a lot less tolerant than we were 30 years ago. I’m afraid there are a lot more unhappy people out there who seem to derive pleasure in telling people what not to do.’”
Hunters & Frankau has led the fight for exemptions to the law and has done significant work to encourage restaurant and pubs to – if possible – create what it calls a “Cozy Outdoor Smoking Area” or “COSA.” The Boisdale example is a template which can be followed if the right outdoor space is available.
If the concept catches on, a national network of such patio cigar bars could be created. It would have to be called, of course, the “COSA Nostra.”
SCHIP negotiations running out of time:
“There’s a consensus that we get this done tomorrow or we just kind of confide in each other that we can’t,” said Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa in comments to Congressional Quarterly.
“Tomorrow” was Thursday and supporters of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that would dramatically raise tobacco taxes – including on cigars – recognize that they are running out of time in this session to cobble together enough votes to override a promised Presidential veto of the bill to re-authorize and seriously expand the program.
Moreover, Altria Corporation – parent of Philip Morris USA – has been quietly putting together a sophisticated political campaign not only on Capitol Hill, but also in some pro-Republican districts where conservative Democrats have been elected. According to Congressional Quarterly, “Some residents of the suburban Virginia district of Democrat James P. Moran received mail this summer from Philip Morris USA that posed the questions: ‘Are you a smoker? Tired of being a target for higher taxes? . . . Tell Congress that raising cigarette taxes 156 percent is going too far.’ The flier did not mention children’s health insurance.”
And the report also included this note: “And a pollster hired by Altria Group has surveyed likely voters in the districts of 11 conservative Democrats, including [Oklahoma Rep. Dan] Boren and some of the party’s potentially vulnerable incumbents.
“According to a Philip Morris USA Web site, respondents were asked whether they agree or disagree with statements such as: ‘Relying on unreliable revenue from a cigarette tax increase to pay for expanding federal programs makes no sense. Congress could find the money for this program from the hundreds of billions of dollars it spends on other programs and pork barrel projects if it wanted to.’
“Sixty-five percent polled in Boren’s district ‘strongly agreed.’”
And the defeat of Oregon’s Measure 50 has had an impact on the SCHIP debate. According to a story in The Hill, a newspaper which covers the Congress, Oregon Rep. David Wu, a Democrat, “said he has become more concerned that the defeat in Oregon would have ramifications for Congress. House members from both parties began questioning him ‘about the implications’ of the outcome of the Oregon debate on the political risks and benefits of the federal SCHIP bill.”
For Democrats planning on adding control of the White House to majorities in both houses of Congress in the 2008 elections, a potential Altria lobbying effort that targets vulnerable Democrats could be a problem. In the 110th Congress, there are 233 Democrats and 202 Republicans; a change of 16 seats for the Republicans would turn the majority back to them, no doubt an outcome that would be welcomed by Altria and others in the tobacco industry.
What happened to the Great American Smoke-Out?
“It's the 31st annual Great American Smoke out. If that's news to you, you're not alone.”
That first sentence from Bud Foster’s story for KOLD News 13, the CBS affiliate in Tucson, Arizona, reveals an interesting view from the anti-tobacco forces into how the public perceives their continuing campaign:
“The Great American Smoke out has likely seen its day. Today, anti-smoking is big business. Millions of dollars are spent annually, new drugs are developed and quitting programs are pitched for a price.
“But that was not always the case. In the past, the day was marked by parades, tents, hundreds of volunteers at each site, people dressed as cigarettes, bands played, people were chided for smoking and urged to quit, "just for a day." Millions of people took them up on the offer. Some of them quit for a lifetime.
“For the past three years, the number of cigarettes smokers has flat lined. 20.8% or 45 million Americans smoked in 2004. The numbers are the same in 2007.
“So, what happened?
“‘When the Great American Smoke out started, there weren't very many options. That's not the case today,’ says Scott Leischow, from the Arizona Cancer Center.
“‘There's a degree of complacency our there,’ he says. ‘There's a sense of we've licked tobacco and now's the time to move on.’”
If Leischow is correct, perhaps the time will come when cigar smokers will be left alone. That’s not happening now, but the insight is interesting, and supported by the defeats suffered by anti-tobacco forces in California and Missouri on ballot initiatives last year and in Oregon earlier this month.
~ Rich Perelman
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