Photograph by George Sakkestad
Greg Ochinero (front) and Howard Just, executive manager of Havana Hideaway, relax with a couple of stogies at the club.
By Clarence Cromwell
Like speakeasies for the 1990s, cigar clubs are expected to multiply across town this year, as people try to find a place to enjoy a smoke.
The most recent addition, Dominion Premium Cigars at 130 N. Santa Cruz Ave., threw a grand opening Feb. 16--as usual, the cigar was met with uncomfortable wrinkled-nose glances from some parts of town. Havana Hideaway opened at 3 1/2 N. Santa Cruz Ave. (upstairs from The Studio) in December. It's rumored that at least one more shop is planned in Dave Flick's soon-to-be-built Plaza building at 34 E. Main Street. Cigar shop patrons have heard of a fourth shop whose location is uncertain.
Those who smoke cigars say they enjoy tobacco's relaxing effects as well as a stop at the local smoke shop after work to trade cigar wisdom or just chat with other smokers. Upscale clubs let epicureans light up their cigars in a place where they won't be asked to extinguish them by the office smoke police, spouses or waiters.
"The neat thing about a cigar is it forces you to sit down for an hour and think about nothing else," said Havana Hideaway Executive Manager Howard Just.
Those aren't the only reasons for the clubs to open: Soon they will be just about the only legal place smokers can light up indoors. Los Gatos has banned smoking in all buildings except private homes, bars and hotels, where patrons may smoke in their rooms. Smoking in bars will cease when a state law takes effect next December. For social smokers, or those who don't want to ruin their furniture, the well-ventilated smoking clubs are the only practical choice.
They also can be meeting places for the elite. Havana Hideaway rents cedar cigar lockers to the San Francisco 49ers organization, at least two Sharks players and high-tech celebrities. The lockers give smokers a safe place to stow their delicate smokes without taking them from the carefully humidified, temperature-controlled club.
Former 49ers Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana have visited the smoking den a handful of times, employees say. A certain Sharks goalie whose name "rhymes with poopa" is a member of the club, hinted Just, the Hideaway manager.
Weeknights last week, however, the clientele of both local clubs consisted of regular-Joe Los Gatans and local business people looking to network with potential customers.
"Besides a place to relax, it's business," said Brett Riesenhuber, a personal fitness trainer who combs cigar-puffing clientele at Dominion for people in need of his expertise.
The upscale clientele attracts not only networkers, but marketeers who want to show their goods to proven epicureans. Havana Hideaway customers can surf the Internet on a Web TV computer with a remote, wireless keyboard that a high-tech company donated to the club. Two local wineries expressed interest in rolling out barrels for wine tasting.
All the hedonism notwithstanding, some Los Gatans did not rejoice when the cigar shops came to town. Although invited to the opening of the Dominion cigar shop last month, none of the Town Council members made an appearance.
Last week, councilmembers would not speak against cigar smoking.
The shops are OK because they're legal and everyone who enters probably plans to smoke, Councilmember Linda Lubeck said.
"They're going to know what they're walking into," she said. Asked how she feels about smoking, Lubeck, like most other council members, declined to answer.
Councilmember Steve Blanton, who in 1991 spearheaded the town's current anti-smoking ordinance, agreed.
Blanton said the smoking is acceptable "as long as it doesn't affect somebody who doesn't want to smoke."
Blanton and Mayor Joanne Benjamin both said breathing smoke makes them uncomfortable. Both said they were busy on the Sunday afternoon that Dominion opened.
The cigar is on a roll nationwide, according to L.D. Hirschklau, director of the high school district's anti-smoking project. Cigar sales are the highest they've been in 10 years, she said.
She blames the tobacco industry and the cigar-hyping magazine Cigar Aficionado.
Cigar Aficionado's 538-page winter edition includes an 11-page spread on the most chic cigar bars sprouting around the country. There are also scores of articles about past and present smoking celebrities: Danny DeVito, chocolate baron Milton Hershey, current BMW Chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder [first name pun presumably unintended] and a host of TV news personalities, including Oakland-based KTVU's Brian Copeland, who told Cigar Aficionado he started smoking in eighth grade.
The magazine contains hundreds of cigar-enhanced ads for smoking paraphernalia, designer clothes and liquor, but no articles about the health risks associated with smoking cigars.
Pictures of celebrities puffing, combined with images of hip, up-and-coming professionals chomping their Cohibas, will entice minors to smoke, Hirschklau said. She predicted that sales of cigars to minors will increase because of the publicity and the proliferation of cigar shops.
It's equally bad to entice adults, Hirschklau added, because of the health risk associated with smoking. "Plus, it really makes your breath smell," she said.
"It's another way to sell their product as cigarettes become less and less attractive to adults," Hirschklau added.
The March 1997 Consumer Reports magazine includes an article that says cigar sales are expected to pass $1 billion this year, despite carrying a risk of cancer death 34 percent higher than that faced by nonsmokers.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, March 5, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.