Businesses Threatened by Smoking Ban … Again
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Kevin Godbee - Aug 21, 2010
- 2 min read
Savannah, Georgia – Today’s sanctuary for and one of the last bastions of camaraderie, friendship and sociability – the corner cigar store – could become history along with many other businesses in Savannah if City Council has its way, says the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.
The current proposal would eliminate exemptions in the Georgia state law by making all workplaces smoke-free. This includes all indoor and outdoor areas of bars, restaurants, private clubs and other businesses, including cigar stores and within 20 feet from the entrance to any such workplace.
The IPCPR, not considered ‘big tobacco’, is comprised of more than 2,000 retailers, manufacturers and distributors of premium cigars, tobacco and related accoutrements. The group is standing up for small, family-owned businesses whose right it is to determine for themselves whether or not to allow smoking on their premises. Three of Savannah’s premium cigar shops are IPCPR members.
"We’re not against all smoking bans. We are against legislated smoking bans," said Chris McCalla, legislative director of the IPCPR. "Many restaurants, bars and other places of business have already declared themselves as ‘no smoking’ venues. That’s their right under the constitution. It’s when the government – local, state or federal – starts telling private citizens how to run their businesses that we have a problem."
McCalla says that the fear of secondhand smoke has been blown out of proportion to reality. Nonetheless, that misplaced fear is what appears to be spinning the issue in favor of the anti-smoking forces, he maintains.
"I’ve read Savannah newspaper articles that are supposed to be writing unbiased articles about the issue saying unattributed things like there are ‘countless studies that show secondhand smoke is dangerous’ and ‘statistics (prove) the lethality of secondhand smoke’ and ‘restaurant servers must wade through smoke to deliver food to patrons.’ Ridiculous!" he said.
"For every such study – many of which are based on bad science if you look at them objectively – there are others that contradict them. And the alleged statistics are mostly fiction, to say the least, concocted out of whole cloth. It’s when you get specific with such broadly biased arguments that their absurdity becomes obvious. Fortunately, most of the online reader comments about such articles are against the proposed ban extension," he said.
McCalla urged City Council members to look at the facts as established by no less than the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Department of Labor – OSHA – which has set safe level standards for secondhand smoke that are up to 25,000 times higher than are normally found in bars and restaurants.
"Those OSHA standards are based primarily on studies by the American Cancer Society which have proven in conducting air quality testing of secondhand smoke that it absolutely does not constitute a health hazard justifying widespread legislated smoking bans," he said.
McCalla complimented those City Council members who are thoughtfully considering all facets of the issue and said he hoped they would see the wisdom in a decision against expanding the state ban in Savannah. He reminded the council that many cities are reversing or reconsidering their earlier decisions to legislate smoking bans because of the negative impact those bans have had on local businesses.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. 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If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. 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It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
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Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
