Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994 TAG: 9406170126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Well, there's one corollary: "Buy 'em, if ya need 'em," then light up.
To give smokers a refuge from an increasingly hostile anti-smoking society, Milan Brothers' owner, Don Roy, set up a smoking lounge a couple of weeks ago. He bought a black leather couch and two chairs, put some big ashtrays around and scattered magazines on a coffee table in the back of the store.
"A fellow buys a cigar," Roy said, "and he can't smoke it anywhere. It's nice to have a cigar after lunch, with nobody telling him how much it smells."
That's just what Jim DeSchepper, general manager of WSLS-TV, was doing Friday: sitting in one of the leather chairs at lunchtime, reading a magazine, puffing on a Honduran cigar he bought at the store.
He doesn't usually eat lunch, but a couple of times a week he leaves the office at lunchtime and goes to the tobacco shop.
``I say, `I'm going out for lunch; I'm going to have a Honduran hot dog,''' DeSchepper said. ``Sometimes I bring my own stuff to read, and it's a walk - it gets you away from the office.''
Since he took over Milan Brothers earlier this spring, Roy has taken a more active role than the Milans did in putting up a counteroffensive against an anti-smoking society. His $75-a-head black-tie smoker at the Shenandoah Club two weeks ago drew 55 men and women.
Roy, who had a tobacco shop in Coral Gables, Fla., before buying Milan Brothers, said he has never smoked cigarettes, but he smokes three or four cigars a day.
"This is such a good alternative to cigarettes," he said, waving a cigar he had been smoking. "This has a fraction of the nicotine of one cigarette, and you don't inhale it. It's a great relief for anxiety, which is a big killer in itself."
Roy had a "tobacco bar" at his Coral Gables store: four bar stools where patrons could sit, smoke and schmooze. Thursday and Friday during the lunch hour, as Roy explained his plans to formalize the smoking lounge, businessmen trickled into the store, buying handfuls of cigars.
Most took it as a fact of life that they had to sneak outside somewhere to enjoy their smoking.
"It's the coming wave," Joe Miller said. "You're not going to be able to smoke anywhere. I'm conscious that it bothers people, and I would never walk into somebody's house and light up. On the other hand, I think I ought to have a right to smoke if it doesn't bother anybody."
Tom Venable explained that smoking a good cigar takes more than an hour, and there aren't many places where a person can linger that long and blow cigar smoke into the air.
``I used to walk and smoke,'' Venable said. ``Put on my walking shoes, my jogging suit and walk, but my girlfriend said, `That's ridiculous; you're trying to do this for your health.'''
DeSchepper theorized that with smoking, drinking and many other things on the good-health hit list, people are careful to get the most out of their guilty pleasures.
"As the whole second-hand smoke and tobacco thing goes on, people are going to look for a place to indulge themselves," DeSchepper said. "Our society is moving more toward one good beer instead of a six-pack, or one expensive cigar instead of a pack of cigarettes."
by CNB