Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisan Launches Brand and Tobacco Lounge in Chicago

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Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisan
Launches Brand and Tobacco Lounge in Chicago

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Local Business Finds Way Around Smoking Ban
Smoking Lounge Able To Allow Indoor Smoking
April 4, 2006
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The anti-smoking Taliban

By BETSY HART
23-MAR-06

This week a place called a "tobacco bar," Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans, was all over Chicago and national news. Like other major cities, Chicago has recently gone "smoke-free" in most public places of any kind. Ah, but there is a place that's exempt _ the tobacco bar is set up as a tobacco manufacturer (the place is owned by R.J. Reynolds, the tobacco giant) and it's free from the anti-smoking law. Customers actually choose from loose tobacco blends, and an expensive pack of cigarettes is then made to the customer's order.

And then patrons can puff away _ right there, inside a closed space, and legally.

Scandalous.

Is it possible that the anti-smoking do-gooders will leave such folks alone? After all they are adults, there freely of their own accord, choosing to partake in a legal substance, and not bothering anyone else in the process.

No way. No sooner did news stories of the new establishment surface than do-gooders from the City Council and elsewhere were vowing to stamp out the loophole, so to speak, that allows such "treachery."

(Somehow, I think if it were discovered the place was a gay men's bathhouse many of these same folks vowing to shut it down would be strangely quiet instead.)

I'm not a smoker. Oh I snuck my requisite few in high school, but that was about it. It actually wasn't the health concerns that turned me off of the stuff. It was when I found out that smokers show signs of aging faster than non-smokers that I decided it was not for me.

These days I don't really mind being around smokers and getting the occasional waft. I will avoid heavy, smoke-filled spaces. So I won't be going to the tobacco bar.

But where does this Taliban-like anti-smoking campaign come from? It can't really be this stuff about second-hand smoke. The famous 1992 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study showing a causal relationship between second-hand smoke and cancer was so roundly debunked as junk science (even by other federal agencies) it was finally declared "null and void" by a federal judge. Sure, second-hand smoke can be annoying, and it can't be healthy, but if you relegate smokers to their own enclosed space _ say a bar or a separate part of a restaurant where people, including staff, only go of their own free will _ who can object?

The anti-smoking Taliban, of course.

We are a culture that has been conditioned that we must make no value-judgments about anything that really matters. Adultery, divorce, fornication (and isn't THAT an old fashioned word) addictions of all sorts, rampant obesity, things that hurt or even kill, that are profoundly destructive, directly or indirectly, to our young people, behaviors that involve moral components and choices _ these things are all off the table and rarely are value judgments offered. Most telling, with few exceptions we don't legally try to limit such things.

And if the fellow next door leaves his family for a series of girlfriends, or the mom leaves to "find herself"? We are not to offer a value judgment, and the kids will be fine, don't you know. After all, we don't know what goes on "behind closed doors." But, if after the no-fault divorce the departed parent comes to pick-up the children and is smoking a cigarette as he or she pulls into the driveway? Watch out _ the "Taliban" will swoop down and smugly denounce that mom or dad as a "bad parent."

We are, at our core, moral beings. We want to make appropriate moral value judgments (which is, and should be, different than "condemnation" of others.) But in our culture we no longer dare do so. Worse, we've become a people who don't want to call ourselves to moral standards, to deny our passions, or make choices or sacrifices based on the premise that it's "not all about me." I mean, that's not fun!

So, enter the self-righteous anti-smoking Taliban. Smoking is the stand-in, the scapegoat. It's the one thing, an easy thing, we can dump on. It requires no personal sacrifice, no thoughtful and legitimate value judgments, no change of moral behavior or denial of passions on the part of non-smokers. We can carelessly condemn smokers, quite literally run them out of town, and feel just delicious about ourselves.

We shouldn't be surprised, then, that there is an inverse relationship between our increasingly "tolerant" culture _ and our anti-smoking zealotry.

(Betsy Hart is the author of "It Takes a Parent: How the Culture of Pushover Parenting is Hurting Our Kids _ and What to Do About It." She can be reached at http://www.betsyhart.net/ or betsysblog.com.)
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Tobacco Lounge Blows Smoke in The Face of Chicago's New Ban
By Kari LydersenSpecial to The Washington Post
Monday, March 20, 2006
CHICAGO -- Glasses clink, friends chat in plush chairs and a fire crackles in a stone hearth at Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans, a "tobacco lounge" that has opened in Chicago's trendy Wicker Park neighborhood.
It appears every bit the bar or coffeehouse. But appearances can be deceiving: Marshall McGearty is technically a tobacco retail shop with at least 65 percent of its sales in tobacco.
And that means it is exempt from Chicago's new ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places.
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Welcome To The Smoking Lounge
March 20, 2006
Cynthia Bowers
CBS) It looks like a bar.
The customers look like they're in a bar.
But technically speaking, it's not.
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Burke Aims To Snuff 'Smoking Lounges'

2/9/06
Craig Dellimore Reporting
 
CHICAGO (WBBM Newsradio 780)  -- Powerful Chicago Alderman Ed Burke believes he's smoked out a loophole in the City's new Indoor Clean Air ordinance. WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports the finance committee chairman is moving to close it.

14th Ward Alderman Ed Burke wants to prevent so-called smoking lounges from flourishing. One in the Wicker Park area technically is a tobacco shop where smoking is allowed. But Burke notes it's advertising some amenities that might suggest it's a bar or a restaurant.

Burke notes the establishment, owned by R.J. Reynolds, is telling patrons they can have food and drink along with their tobacco. Burke says it was never the intention to allow some places that want to offer food, drink and tobacco to slip through a loophole in the clean air ordinance.

Burke has introduced an ordinance that would snuff out any food licenses for such places.
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Luxury cigarettes sold only in one plush lounge
February 24, 2006  By Stacey Burling
"It goes above and beyond what a traditional advertising agency can do for you," said Brian Stebbins, senior marketing director at R.J. Reynolds.
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This lounge leaves tobacco lovers alone
January 26, 2006  
BY SUSANNA HOMAN
For smokers, this isn't just the best place in town -- in a few years it may end up being one of the only places in town to smoke freely. Non-smokers, you'll be glad to know that public chain-smoking will soon be confined to one, easy-to-avoid place.
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Watch the video!
January 19, 2006
CNBC. Debate between Audrey Silk and John Banzhaff.
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As Smoke Clears, Tobacco Maker Opens Lounge
By MONICA DAVEY  January 19, 2006
CHICAGO, Jan. 18 , 2006- The room is lined with vintage ashtrays, delicate lighters, matches and pens shaped like cigarettes. The scent, naturally, is of smoke.
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'Tobacco lounge' debuts with smoking ban
January 16, 2006  BY LESLIE BALDACCI Staff Reporter
The same week the city's new smoking ban goes into effect, a first-anywhere, upscale "tobacco lounge" owned by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. officially opens in Wicker Park.
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Field report: Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge, Chicago.
January 06, 2006
Okay, so right before Christmas, I heard about something that sounded almost too audacious to be true - that on the same day Chicago passed a sweeping new anti-smoking bill, the RJ Reynolds tobacco corporation decided to open what they're calling the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge, a new "experiential marketing" retail store for the company, where they can promote high-end new brands in a smoker-friendly environment, much like cigar stores cultivate high-end clients as well. And then right after Christmas, I actually got a mailing from McGearty, offering me a free cup of coffee if I wanted to come down and check things out. And hey, hoity-toity cigarettes and free coffee? How can I say no to that? And besides, a bunch of you have mentioned how you wanted me to visit and file a report as well, since apparently this is the first and so far only store of its kind in the world right now.
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RJR opens trendy smoking lounge in Chicago

December 9, 2005 
The Associated Press
 
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.- On the same day Chicago officials banned smoking in many public places, one of the nation's largest cigarette makers opened a private smoke shop featuring a tobacconist, plush leather couches and custom cigarettes for $8 a pack.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which is based in Winston-Salem and makes Camel and Winston cigarettes among other brands, opened the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge in Chicago on Wednesday, when it showcased its new "super-premium" Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans brand.

The lounge is exempt from the new law approved by the Chicago City Council because it is defined as a retail tobacco store.

"We're pleased that we're not going to have to change our business model," Brian Stebbins, a marketing manager at Reynolds, said Thursday. Plans for the lounge were made before the smoking-ban issue started gaining steam, he said.

The smoking ban does not go into effect until July 1, 2008. After that date, smoking would be permitted if a restaurant or bar installs air-filtration systems.

The Marshall McGearty lounge already has a powerful air-ventilation system, said Fred McConnell, a Reynolds spokesman.

That's one indication of RJR's claim that the Marshall McGearty lounge is no ordinary smoke shop. Besides a tobacconist whose role is to explain the different blends of tobacco, it also has small cigarette-making devices so customers can custom-order packs of cigarettes.

The Marshall McGearty cigarettes will be available only in the Chicago store.

"It wouldn't work if it were something on a rack in a gas station," Stebbins said.

Places where smokers can feel comfortable are becoming rare and the lounge is a place that welcomes smokers and where they can enjoy themselves, Stebbins said.

"We're calling it a smokers' paradise," he said.

The lounge also offers light food, baked goods and a selection of coffee beverages, including lattes and espressos. There are plans to sell alcoholic beverages. The lounge also has cafe tables, leather couches and a fireplace.

Both the brand and lounge get their names from Jerry Marshall and Larry McGearty, the two men who came up with the idea. Marshall is a senior staff blends specialist in Reynolds' research and development department. McGearty is the creative director for Gyro Worldwide, an advertising agency.

Reynolds, a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., plans to test the idea and see how the brand does before potentially expanding the concept

"If the brand does well, it could be an important contributor to Reynolds American's bottom line," he said.

RJR opens trendy smoking lounge in Chicago
The Ledger, FL - Dec 9, 2005
On the same day Chicago officials banned smoking in many public places, one of the nation's largest cigarette makers opened a private smoke shop featuring a ...

RJR Opens Trendy Smoking Lounge In Chicago
WFMY News 2, NC - Dec 9, 2005
On the same day Chicago officials voted to ban smoking in many public places, the North Carolina cigarette maker opened a private smoke shop in the city. ...

Can a new tobacco lounge smoke out the competition?

By Chris McNamara
Special to the Tribune
Published December 29, 2005

The hand-drawn sign outside the new Marshall McGearty Lounge is the first indication this place isn't your normal coffeehouse. It reads: EAT, DRINK, SMOKE--BE MERRY.

As tobacco-loving Chicagoans brace for the city's phased-in ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, this new Wicker Park spot is welcoming the cigarette set with open arms and premium products. "We're bringing the connoisseur experience to the cigarette category," says Brian Stebbins of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, which owns the lounge named after the company's Marshall McGearty line of tobacco blends.

Nine Marshall McGearty flavors are on display in the tobacco counter at the front of the handsome lounge; they range from the sweet and nutty Virginian blend to the peppercorn and tea-flavored Earl. Patrons can purchase pre-packed boxes of 20 or watch as their smokes are created before their eyes with a manual cigarette machine. Either way, the premium packs cost $8 (including all taxes).

Just beyond the tobacco counter is an area known as The Library, complete with crackling fire, leather couch and Hemmingway and Scrabble on the bookshelves. The ceiling is built to resemble the slats in a barn on which tobacco is dried, while the cork floor adds to the masculine feel of the space.

A few yards farther, tucked into the rear, is the Back Porch, furnished with mod chairs and tables straight out of a '60s Bond flick.

Display cases throughout the lounge hold vintage smoking accouterments--hand-blown glass ashtrays and antique lighters. Most items can be purchased, while the vintage ashtrays on the tables are meant for use.

Even as the ashtrays fill, the breathing is easy thanks to an industrial-strength ventilation system that is designed to completely replace the air 10 times an hour. Marshall McGearty's offers non-smoking lures too, such as free WiFi service, a coffee and tea bar, and a limited selection of pastries, salads and soft drinks.

Should a pending liquor license be obtained, they'll be serving beer and wine alongside the Red Bull and OJ.

But because the place is registered as a retail tobacco store, Stebbins believes the smoking ban does not apply. Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who wrote the original ordinance, isn't so sure and says he will have to review the ban. "I don't care where it is, smoke kills," he says when asked about the Marshall McGearty lounge. "If you're inhaling smoke, it's a bad idea."

So will this "smoking sanctuary," which Stebbins believes to be the first cigarette lounge in the nation, catch fire in the Windy City or burn out amid a butt backlash? Time--and patrons' dollars--will tell.

"This is a unique experience you can't have anywhere else," says Mark Palmer, 44, smoking a Virginian while playing backgammon with a friend. "This place [corrects] what is wrong with bars--ventilation. If you notice, every place that is full of smoke is full of people."

Marshall McGearty Lounge
1553 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Hours: 9 a.m.-midnight daily
More info: 773-772-8410 or http://www.mmsmokes.com/ (registration required)
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