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HAPPY TO BE FAMOUS

Innovative Famous Smoke Shop leads new opportunities for smokers to enjoy multiple brands for less money

Los Angeles, August 23 – Arthur Zaretsky loves cigars. I’ve rarely seen him without one.

The second-generation tobacconist who leads Easton, Pennsylvania-based Famous Smoke Shop, one of the nation’s largest retail, mail-order and on-line cigar merchants, says “business has never been better.”

Famous has plenty of fans for its value-packed catalog. In the last couple of years, Zaretsky has been one of the leaders is offering a new opportunity to try a variety of cigars by offering brands in packs of five.

This requires taking a risk by breaking up full boxes of 20 or 25 as produced by the manufacturer and re-packing them into fives. It’s a move we heartily support and Famous offers as many five-packs as anyone.

“Our first choice for five packs was the brands we own to get them into people’s hands,” noted Zaretsky. Those brands include Rafael Gonzalez, Olor, Creme de Jamaica, Value Line and others.

Then the concept spread to other many others. Last week, Famous added new five-pack options to sensational brands like La Gloria Cubana Serie R, Romeo y Julieta Reserva Real and Carlos Torano’s Signature and Tribute Series.

“We’re constantly testing the concept,” says Zaretsky, “in our catalog and on our web site and we are constantly adjusting the pricing to see what point is right.

“As more people like it, we’re going to expand it to more brands in the future.”

Famous will looking at other high-profile brands like Arturo Fuente and Macanudo for its five-pack program, but only in the hot-selling sizes. For some of the ultra-hot brands such as the Fuente Fuente Opus X and Padron 30th Aniversario, small packs will be offered on Famous’s unique Cigar Auctioneer site, where smokers can bid for packs of cigars with starting prices near wholesale cost.

That’s a long way from where Famous started, as a combination corner store and luncheonette started by Zaretsky’s parents in the 1950s, but their shop in the Washington Heights district of New York City burned in 1961. Soon after, the Famous Smoke Shop known to so many in the Broadway District opened in 1962 at 55 West 39th Street and continued through 2000.

In 2001, Zaretsky reluctantly bowed to a combination of factors: the increasing tax burden on tobacco merchants in New York, a ban on mail-order sales from within New York to others in New York State and the operational difficulties of running an expanding national sales operation in crowded (and expensive) midtown Manhattan, and moved the entire operation to its current home in Easton, Pa.

The town is not that well known, other than for being the hometown of former heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes, but that’s fine with Zaretsky. As long as he can offer more smokers an opportunity to enjoy new brands and a continuously expanding selection of accessories, maybe Easton will be famous . . . for being the home of Famous.
~ Rich Perelman

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