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There were plenty of other familiar faces at the event, including actor Ron Perlman (“Hellboy”), the husband-and-wife team of Richard Gilliland and Jean Smart and the legendary father-and-son movie producers Frank Mancuso and Frank Mancuso, Jr. Sadly, this may be the last of the God of Fire dinners if a current proposal in the Los Angeles City Council ends up banning smoking in all outdoor dining areas in the City. Outlaw Cigar owner pushing for smoking ban exemption The voter-approved smoking ban in Kansas City did not include any exemption for cigar stores and Curt Diebel of Diebel’s Sportsmens Gallery and Kendall Culbertson of the Outlaw Cigar Co. (logo above) has been working to change that. The ban was approved in April and took effect in June. It was challenged immediately in court by a group of nine plaintiffs which included Diebel’s Sportsmens Gallery, and while the case continues, their request for an injunction to stop the ban during the case was denied. Culbertson has been working with the City Council to get an amendment to the ban to allow smoking in cigar shops, which requires nine votes out of 13 on the Council since the amendment would be to a law which is less than a year old. “I still think I can get it done,” he wrote in an e-mail message last week. “I have worked through the Council and the City Attorney to get the new amendment written . . . and I need to work even harder to solidify those commitments,” he added. Culbertson and Diebel both testified at the Public Safety Committee hearing last week and will do so in front of the full Council this week. The effort has not gone unnoticed, with extensive coverage of the issue in the Kansas City Star and on local television. Culbertson’s store is known for its lavish monthly promotional parties, sometimes including visits from U.S. Army attack helicopters or tanks from a neighboring base (next up is Avo Uvezian on October 1), but he told the Kansas City Public Safety Commission he would move his store to a smoking-allowed county if the ban on in-store smoking is not lifted. A vote could come as early as September 25. From the Cubador First reports from Cuba on the damage from Hurricane Ike indicated that the Pinar del Rio area, center of tobacco production in the country, was drenched again with more damage to the tobacco curing barns. Some damage to buildings in Havana was reported, but there were no indications of specific damage to any of the cigar factories. The tobacco industry appeared to fare better than some others on the island as the banana, corn, rice and coffee crops were partially or totally destroyed and substantial damage to the cattle and poultry populations were noted. Fully a quarter of the people on the island – about 2.7 million people, including 2,800 foreign tourists – were evacuated from their homes and a half-million residential buildings suffered damage. So far, seven people are reported to have died in Cuba as a result of Ike. Tobacco planting annually begins in October, but it is not clear whether the fields will be cleared by then, or whether enough seedlings will be available. ~ Rich Perelman CLASSIFIED ADVERTISINGCigar Humidors and Cigar Accessories at Humidor Vault! Your online cigar humidor source, with rock-bottom pricing and fantastic customer support!A limited amount of classified advertising is available in this space on a weekly basis. For details, call Pat Harris at (213) 365-7965 or inquire by email by clicking here. Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below! Don’t forget to register for our drawing for free cigars and accessories! Just click on the “Register & Win” button above; enter today! Looking for a cigar party? Take a look at our exclusive list of hundreds of cigar events across the country, listed by state and date, only on CigarCyclopedia.com!
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Did you know?
“Cigars were introduced to the American Colonies by British Col. Israel Putnam on his return from Cuba in 1762.
