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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015
his customers go especially crazy over:
“homemade crab gravy over macaroni”
and a fish/spinach/cream sauce bake
layered like lasagna and topped with
Italian breadcrumbs.
The food is such a draw, he says, that
it is partly the reason his cigar vendors
agree to do something they typically
hate to do—participate in a multi-
vendor setup. In the case of this year’s
Let My People Smoke, 26 vendors
were on hand (including La Jugada,
Arturo Fuente, Drew Estate, DBL,
Dram, Villiger, Alec Bradley, Oliva,
Rocky Patel, Padron, Ortega, Perdomo
and more), each one giving a cigar to
every attendee (totaling about 300 this
year).
“It is very hard to get a multi-vendor
event going; they like to feature just
their brands,” says Renzulli. “That’s
why they usually agree to do an event.
But tobacco times are changing and
we have a great turnout with a good
message. The attendees are not just
customers from my store, they come
from all over the New York/New
Jersey/Delaware area because the word
is out.”
The Let My People Smoke message
is one Renzulli came up with and
trademarked for his event (and just
recently sold to a T-shirt company
so that they could get the marketing
message out on a larger scale to the
entire country, hopefully “for the good
of the industry,” he says).
“In these times, events that are
well-marketed are important to get
the message out to let us cigar lovers
smoke. We want to be known as
separate from the cigarette industry,”
Renzulli states.“There is no connection
between us and the cigarette industry,
and we want the FDA especially to
understand that.”
That message is also relayed on a
smaller scale at Twin Smoke Shoppe’s
single-vendor store events held every
month or so, where food can still be
the draw—along with some big names.
“Vito from ‘The Sopranos’ [TV show]
(Vito Spatafore Sr., a role that was
played by Joseph R. Gannascoli) is
going to cook with us this fall,” relays
Renzulli.
Tickets for Let My People Smoke
sold for $150 a person and included the
all-you-can-eat food spread, 26 cigars
from the 26 participating vendors, and
an open bar from 6-11 p.m.
Ribs & Blues—
Like Twin Smoke
Shoppe, The Cigar Republic (with
its flagship store of two decades in
Elmsford, New York and a second
location opened two years ago in
Danbury, Connecticut) put a focus on
food at its big annual cigar event. But
instead of an Italian feast, The Cigar
Republic’s hook is a rib fest—what
it calls its “Famous Ribs” of beef and
pork, this year to be joined by a live
blues band at both store events held
a few days apart in the store lounges
themselves, right around press time in
August.
“I really started taking off with
events at the New York store in 2006 as
a way to generate business,” says owner
Anthony Scipioni. “Online kills me in
prices, but we kill online with a lounge
atmosphere and killer events that let
cigar smokers hang out and enjoy good
food and music.”
Because vendors “can be a little
stubborn” regarding multi-vendor
events, The Cigar Republic used to
feature and hand out its own private
label cigars at the rib fest, he explains.
But at this year’s IPCPR show, he got
together with a few cigar vendors, and
after discussions and enthusiasm for
the event, five agreed to be featured
and distributed in a sample pack for
attendees this year: My Father, La
Jugada, Alec Bradley, AJ Fernandez
and La Tribu.
“This is new to us—to have more
than one cigar featured at an event—
but because it’s our 20th anniversary
for the New York site, and because the
“In these times, events that are well-marketed are
important to get the message out to let us cigar lovers smoke.”