If you’re fortunate enough to have been well-lunched at an establishment like the Ritz or 5 Hertford Street, your host may ask if you fancy a cigar. You would be forgiven for declining the opportunity to step out into the December chill. Say as much and a proud gleam may then enter your host’s eyes as he tells you that there is no need to shiver on a wintry terrace or, even worse, stand in the street. There are two dozen premises, mostly around St James’s Street in the centre of London, that managed to evade the vagaries of the smoking ban in 2007 and continue to offer their patrons the chance to smoke expensive cigars in comfort on their premises.
The reason for this loophole is that cigars, rather than cigarettes, pipes or any other tobacco product, are counted as a luxury product to be ‘sampled’, rather than a vehicle for frantic puffing, and are therefore not treated in the same way as the rest. This has worked well enough over the past 18 years. The most upmarket, JJ Fox on 19 St James’s Street, proudly states that ‘our sampling lounge is one of the few places in London where you can sample a cigar purchased at our store indoors’. Here, you can while away an afternoon in a leather armchair, expensive stogie in hand and with complimentary tea and coffee. There is also the chance to sample something stronger if so desired. What could possibly be more civilised?
The health police obviously do not agree with this. It has been suggested that, with the imminent passing into law of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that will outlaw smoking in all its forms, this time-honoured loophole should be closed. They want the distinction that has been drawn between expensive cigars – which JJ Fox sell for as much as £7,000 for a box of ten Cohiba Behike 56 – and rather humbler tobacco products to come to an end. Both are, after all, equally hazardous to one’s health, in the strict medical definition of the term. Surely it is wrong to allow cigar smoking to continue indoors simply because patrons have considerable money and leisure time?
This may be true, but it is also another example of how the politics of envy have taken over our society. As someone who has never been a smoker but does take a certain delight in an occasional cigar, I would relish the chance to misspend an afternoon in like-minded company. It is depressing that the nanny state wants to intervene and scold me. And it is hard not to feel that if these cigar lounges were to be found on, say, the Edgware Road, there would be less of a rush to ban them.
The enjoyment of tobacco is a great national tradition, whatever the downsides to one’s health. The eagerness with which well-heeled Americans descend on St James’s stores – Cuban cigars, of course, not being available in their home country – demonstrates that the Special Relationship is best enjoyed over a large stogie. To remove the opportunity for such fraternising would be worse than simply regrettable; it would be another insidious blow to life in our country.
Banish the cigar lounges, and we banish that very English sense of fun and naughty misbehaviour. Churchill was, of course, a famous aficionado of the cheroot, in a less censorious, more tolerant age. If he could see what’s going on today, he would likely offer his famous V sign, turned squarely in the direction of the killjoys. So if someone offers you a wee dram and an indoor cigar this Christmas season, accept with alacrity. It could be your last chance.
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