Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars

CIGAR (STATUES) GO NASCAR

Plus: Pinocchio and secondhand smoke studies

Los Angeles, September 28 – Our friend Darren Hussey at AllClassics in Delaware is one of the nation’s top producers of cigar-store statues, whether Indians, Punch, Fidel Castro, a British gentlemen’s gentleman or some other character.

But now he’s really lost it.

He’s offering a life-sized, all-wood, cigar-store-ready sculpture of the late Dale Earnhardt on eBay for a starting bid of $275 with a “Buy It Now” price of $375. It weighs 300 pounds and was created from a solid block of mahogany.

It’s not the best likeness of Earnhardt we’ve ever seen, but it’s unusual. Only on eBay.

The most unusual item we saw up for bid right now is a Sterling Silver Russian-made humidor from 1896. It’s not large at 5 1/4-inches long and 4 1/4-inches wide, but it has marvelous detail with the words “Habana” and “Flor” surrounded by etched representations of what appear to be Russian import and tax stamps. Bids have reached $2,617 with a day to go, but the reserve price has yet to be met.

There are some interesting cigars on the site, despite eBay’s policy against sales of tobacco. The top bids were for a box of 10 Partagas 150 Don Ramons (7x52), which reached $480.00 at hammer time yesterday ($48 a stick!), but still fell short of the reserve price! Still up is a box of Partagas 150 “B”-size cigars (6 1/2 x 47), with that auction ending on Sunday evening.

Carrie Nation Alert:
Fans of one of the leaders of the Prohibition movement which helped to spawn a national syndicate in organized crime in the 20th Century were likely getting their tomahawks out as anti-tobacco zealots push for the failed experiment of the 21st Century:

A story carried on the national Associated Press wire last week was headlined “Study Reports Air Worse in Smoky Bars.”

How about that?

The AP story goes in 17 paragraphs to report a study by James Repace, identified as a “biophysicist who works as a secondhand-smoke consultant.” Repace is also credited as “the researcher who first showed secondhand smoke causes thousands of U.S. lung cancer deaths each year.”

His newest report says that smoke in some indoor venues in Delaware can be worse than outdoor air, even at rush hour in the Wilmington, Delaware area. Boy oh boy, it’s hard to believe that an enclosed area retains more pollutants than an open-air roadway. Amazing!

The backbone of most of the secondhand-smoke-related legislation in the U.S. in a 1992 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which reported secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen. The fallout from this report has been state and local legislation against smokers across the country despite the fact that U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen wrote, in 1998, that a careful review of the EPA’s report created a situation in which “The court is faced with the ugly possibility that EPA adopted a methodology for each chapter [of the report], without explanation, based on the outcome sought in that chapter” (Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corporation, et al vs. United States Environmental Protection Agency, et al, 4 F. Supp.2d 435, 456 (M.D.N.C. 1998)).

Osteen’s conclusion noted “In this case, EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating the [Radon] Act’s procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency’s public conclusion, and aggressively utilized the Act’s authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiff’s products and to influence public opinion” (4 F.Supp.2d at 465-66).

We must consider that view of the EPA report which Repace may have worked on during his tenure as a federal researcher when evaluating his latest “contribution.” I wonder if he knows a fellow named Pinocchio?

Carrie Nation Alert II:
As tobacco taxes continue to rise, cigarettes and cigars are becoming and more and more tempting target for thieves and possible organized crime. Once acquired, tobacco items available for retail sale are almost impossible to trace and present a potential windfall for an efficient criminal theft organization.

That’s exactly what’s happening in Canada, as a driver of a large delivery truck was tied up while three robbers stole cases of cigarettes last Friday morning. It’s the fourth time since April that, according to the story filed by Canadian Press, “masked men have tied people up at gunpoint to steal cigarettes in Nova Scotia.”

Are you listening, state legislatures? Who wants to be the home to the Al Capone of the 21st Century?
~ Rich Perelman

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