Smoking ordinace meets its match

Taking advantage of the loophole, Liggett has decided to make up for his loss in revenue by opening Nostalgia Gourmet, a tobacco, wine and spirits shop, next door to Grand Cru. Construction is under way and is expected to be finished in 30 days, he said.

Kevin Goodwin also owns a tobacco shop exempt from the Columbia smoking ban: the Tinderbox, a franchise selling tobacco and fine spirits at 2703 E. Broadway. Goodwin has a back room, with leather chairs and a large-screen television, where tobacco-buyers can smoke. Customers have small, individual lockers serving as humidors for their purchases.

Hemingway’s, at 10 W. Nifong, offers customers a wide range of cigars but does not allow customers to smoke indoors and has no plans to do so.

Liggett’s shop a few feet away from Grand Cru will feature two solariums, matching the solarium on the restaurant’s south side where cigar smokers used to hold business meetings. One solarium in the new store will house retail sales, and the second will hold a well-appointed 50-seat-capacity clubby mingling area where customers can lounge in thick leather chairs, smoke their favorite cigars and sip scotch or other drinks.

Liggett will offer a catering service so that patrons can call next door to order some items from Grand Cru’s menu, just as they might order a pizza delivery. Customers will be able to watch sports on a large television screen. Lockers serving as mini-humidors will be available for regular clients to store goods they have purchased. The retail shop will be open past regular business hours to match the restaurant’s hours.

Following the letter of the law, there will be no access between the Nostalgia Gourmet and Grand Cru. Each business will have a separate entrance and its own street address. The two structures cannot even use the same water line. Instead of simply extending the restaurant’s existing water line, Liggett is tearing up his parking lot and installing a separate line running out to the city’s water main.

“I don’t want anyone to think I am trying to flip one over on the community,” Liggett said. “What I am doing is putting my retail store next to my restaurant. I am going by the letter of the law, which is you can’t smoke in a restaurant.”

“I understand the perception of how the community feels about tobacco. I don’t want to be branded as an evil entity because I am not,” he said. “I am not a cigarette smoker. I don’t sell American cigarettes. I took a fiscal hit, but I have complied with the city. The restaurant is smoke-free. We’ve cleaned the bar up, and I think it is a better bar with no smoking. I would never have believed that before. If you asked me a year ago, I would have said it’s the kiss of death.”

“I built this restaurant on the success of cigars,” Liggett said. “The whole philosophy was ‘cigar,’ and that is why it is unique. I went into the restaurant business as a tobacconist and not as a restaurateur.”

Unlike Liggett, Goodwin of the Tinderbox does not operate a restaurant and admits he has suffered no fiscal loss with the passing of the ordinance. However, he is highly critical of supporters of the smoking ban, based, he said, on “principle.”

“If you don’t want to go into a bar or shop that allows smoking, no one is forcing you,” Goodwin said. “The government is now forcing their citizens to comply with a policy of social engineering. They have stripped away the private rights of the business owner.”

Goodwin refers to the Columbia City Council members and others supporting the ban as “nanny-sayers.”

“None of these other people had a single ounce of sweat or invested one penny or worked one minute in my shop,” he said.

Cigar smokers, while a minority of Grand Cru’s customers, are critical to profit margins, Liggett said.

“Cigar smokers are high rollers,” Liggett said. “They buy more, they drink more, and they tip more. They always have a higher tab, and they socialize with others like them. Cigar smokers are high-end people, where cigarette smokers are perceived to be the ‘junkies.’ Cigarettes are almost like heroin.”

Liggett and Flynn plan to keep their Nostalgia Shop on Walnut Street open, despite the increased city congestion and a shortage of parking, which has cost them some customers, they said.

Liggett is moving about half of the downtown store’s Spanish cedar humidors to the new location. The soft brick floors must be disassembled, and each brick must be numbered and replaced. Once set up, the shop will be open to smokers.