Cigar Lounge Etiquette

I was fortunate enough to be a guest on a radio show with my good friend and fellow cigar smoker SeriousBok from Broad & Luxe, and the segment of the show was called Cigars and Scotches, with a segway to Cigar Lounge Etiquette, in which I dropped some jewels for the listeners. After the show was over, and we were tweeting about it,  and my good friend Ryan (BOTSRyan) from BOTSCAST- Black Ops Tobacco Society had a post about this and I wanted to share it with everyone.... Read it and tell me if you agree.

You know, it just absolutely boggles my mind that there are guys out there who strut into a cigar shop/lounge, toting a cigar they purchased elsewhere. This guy is easily identified: Button-down shirt (what the heck is Beverly Hills Polo Club?), top 3 buttons are mandatorily open. Cuffs of a contrasting color are folded once, crisply and not buttoned. He’s rocking the heck out of a gaudy, yellow gold bracelet that is 2 sizes too big, and every few seconds he jerks his wrist to adjust it. This guy will sit in a chair like it was owed to him, only after brushing off the seat with his hand. He will lift his dark blue, distressed boot cut jeans a little before sitting (I don’t know what that motion is called), revealing white athletic socks and slip on ”Italian” loafers/driving mocs. He licks the end of his cigar, then demands a house cutter and lighter. Yeah..of course he uses the house cutter after slobbering all over it. There is a real negative side effect of fine cigars that seem to affect a few bags of douche out there. What is it about a cigar that transforms one into a walking taint..grundle…perineum? This guy also likes to pocket the table lighter, feels the urge to get up to spit frequently, talks loudly about financial endeavours that are un-cleverly contrived, and loves to bother everyone else surrounding him, trying to get anyone to engage him in a conversation he can dominate. After that he’ll snuff out his cigar in the ashtray like an over-sized cigarette. So, ok…I’m a bit of a hater, so why not turn my evil, into good? Ok I will try, but the rage is strong my friends…
Here is the deal…You can’t be “that guy”. I wanted to give a nice little list of all the appropriate behaviors of a human inside a tobacco shop/ cigar lounge..But here’s the deal: EVERYONE KNOWS THEM. Better yet, they are instinct..Those like me, who are unsure at times, will ask questions. Except for aforementioned douchebag. For these types, there is no help. Just set them on fire when they infiltrate your sanctuary. There may be a grey area in the unspoken code though, hovering over guys that drop shitloads of money in an establishment, rent an overpriced locker there, and bring the guy behind the counter lunch and a cigars all the time..Those guys are probably permitted to do whatever they want, rightfully so. ..Here is an overlooked query though: Ok, we know what NOT to do in a cigar lounge while smoking a cigar…I say cigar lounge because; like it or not Brothers of the Briar, cigar sales are keeping these Brick and Mortar operations open, and the lounges are there for the cigar smokers. Pipe smokers are always welcome, if you can stand up to a little razz once in awhile, and don’t mind humbly answering a few questions about your hobby. What is the pipe smoking etiquette for a lounge? Must we smoke only a pipe purchased at that location? I wouldn’t think..But I would think it may grease the wheels a little bit (I’m sure I didn’t use that analogy in the right context) if we came in with an empty pipe, and smoked a tobacco purchased at that establishment. Possibly with a lighter and tamper purchased there as well. In many lounges, tobacconists have just a small section for pipes/pipe tobacco. It is really just a courtesy, as they are not making a bulk of profits from that sort of thing, so it’s really on us to follow the rules of the lounge. Here’s another one..I haven’t run into any personally, but what about a FULL SERVICE lounge/shop? This place sells everything tobacco: Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, smokeless…If they have a lounge, is it available to the guy that just bought a sleeve of dip, or a carton of cigs? I live in the Northeast where restrictions are pretty tight, so I don’t see that sort of thing at all.
So take me to tobacco charm school, or finishing school..Whatever you want to call it. Stay classy tobacco users, for there is just a tacky gold necklace with an Italian Corno amulet separating us, from the savages.