Beverly Hills and the Threat to the Enjoyment of Cigars

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    On a 4-1 vote within a week of, and based upon the action in Beverly Hills, the city council of Manhattan Beach, California, started the process of drafting its own tobacco sales ban. Councilman Steve Napolitano called it “a logical next step” following banning smoking in all public places. Of course, governments have a creative way of defining “public place” to mean, you know, a private place of business.

    Bad ideas have a way of spreading fast in the arena of tobacco politics. Especially at this juncture, with the legislative plate being full for the industry with state and national issues, the last thing America’s cigar shops (and consumers) need is a city-hall-to-city-hall slate of proposals and ordinances where free enterprise has to be defended, proverbial exemptions have to be justified, choices limited, entrepreneurship stifled and a new era of prohibition launched.

    CRA is currently working with a coalition of cigar shops in the St. Louis, Missouri, region in an effort to prevent a smoking ban due to the consistent threat of a public referendum. We call it “Operation Sanctuary” because America’s cigar shops are truly becoming the last refuge from the agenda of the nanny state.

    For them, the cigar shops and lounges of America, these “rare venues” that offer camaraderie, conversation and relaxation need to be defended in a manner that makes them nonnegotiable in such battles—that local and state governments will not ban the enjoyment of premium cigars in such defined places of business, nor will they threaten the sale of great premium handmade cigars. All it takes is one Michael Bloomberg to enable “The Beverly Hills Model” to be bankrolled and spread across the nation, and the next wave of battles will truly begin.

    Perhaps it’s time to use some language of the U.S. Constitution for our side for a change: Congress shall make no law respecting or prohibiting the right of the people to peaceably assemble. The freedom of assembly seems central to the passion for cigars.

    This story first appeared in the September/October 2019 issue of Tobacco Business magazine. Members of the tobacco industry are eligible for a complimentary subscription to our magazine. Click here for details.

    Contributed by J. Glynn Loope, executive director of Cigar Rights of America.