Future of Cigar Bars: Business Owners Have Time to Figure out Strategies for Survival

The recent veto by Governor Deval Patrick of  Senator Anthony Petruccelli’s bill that would have given Cigar bars a life in perpetuity after 2018 does not indicate a crack in the political dam.

Petruccelli remains a good friend and colleague of the governor and the two are exceptionally cordial and tend to agree on most issues both large and small.

In the race to re-visit expanded gambling and the possibility of a local casino at Suffolk Downs, Senator Petrucelli is the governor’s go to guy in the senate. Petrucelli has the governor’s ear. He has the ear of the senate president. He is a strong go to guy who can help to make things happen.

You can’t win them all, goes the saying on Beacon Hill.

So the governor won this won and Petrucelli lost.

However, 2018 is miles away, ions away right now when it comes to the operators of East Boston’s two cigar bars.

The governor, it is believed, did not wish to step on the toes of local authorities who presently license the cigar bars in Eastie and in Boston in the North End.

The governor said he was not inclined to prevent local authorities from protecting the public health of their citizens.

Cigar bars are only for those wishing to smoke cigars while sipping a brandy or a scotch. They are for women and men although it is largely men who populate the cigar bars.

Cigar bars, therefore, do not bother non-smokers as no non- smoker is going to find himself in such a place.

No one is forced to go to a cigar bar. You have to want to be there and so it is a free will act to enter a cigar bar and to smoke a cigar and to be with others doing the same.

One has to wonder – what harm is there in allowing cigar bars after 2018?

None.

Knowing the governor as we do is to understand that he will not shortly change his mind about the issue.

This leaves about seven years for cigar bar owners to re-think their strategies for survival.

We’d suggest they sit down and have a good smoke and to think it over.

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