ARCHIVE CIGAR DINNER

LIGHTEN UP, SAY THESE STOGIE AFICIONADOS
BEHOLD THE CIGAR DINNER, WHERE THE BOURBON FLOWS

AND THE SMOKE FLIES. IT'S NOT A MALE-ONLY THING, EITHER.
By Clark DeLeon
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: 1994-11-24
Section: FEATURES MAGAZINE / PEOPLE
You do realize what's behind all of these "cigar dinners" you've been reading and hearing about more and more often during the last few years, don't you?

You know the ones I'm talking about. Those overpriced gastronomic affairs frequented by a defiant confederacy of fellas who have nothing better to do than gather in one place where they can huff . . . and puff . . . and b-l-o-w- oh-oh-oh smoke rings into the smug faces of every politically correct little piggie squealing "You can't do that!" from behind the doors of straw houses.
"I can't do what?!" retorts the big bad cigar smoker. "Come and get me, stoppers!"

It may all sound like pointless civil disobedience, but what these "seegar dinners" are really about is bonding - outlaw bonding.

"Excuse me," I said to a table of cigar smokers sipping single-barrel

Kentucky bourbon on the second-floor banquet room of London Grill in Fairmount last Thursday. "Do you know that today is the Great American Smokeout?"

"Yes, we do," replied Jackie Pestka, one of a dozen female desperadoes in the posse of 50 just-say-yes renegades attending the dinner featuring T-bone

steak or horseradish-crusted salmon. "Do we have any other bans we can

break?"

There are more and more women turning up at fine cigar dinners being hosted by some of the city's most prestigious nightspots such as Chris' Jazz Cafe and Dirty Frank's Bar, as well as less-well-known venues such as the Ritz-Carlton.

Pestka, a Fran Leibowitz-type in a wool sports jacket, is a four-year veteran of the ban-the-smoke wars. "I get a very bad reaction (from people) when I light up a cigar," she said. "I'm a chef and we don't allow smoking in our restaurant, so it's hard for me to smoke in the bar without getting a lot of looks.

"It's sad because, quite frankly, I don't think it's anyone's business what you do, as long as you're kind about it."

There were nothing but approving looks from her table companions and others enjoying the evening's selections from three premier cigar labels: Te Amo, H. Upman, and Las Cabrillas.

"This is my very first cigar," said Beth Russell, sitting next to her brother, Greg, across the table from Pestka. "You know, it's not nearly as bad as I thought. I really came into this with a prejudice against cigars

because I hated cigarettes, but it's not bad."

"I hate cigarettes, I hate the smell of cigarettes," said Pestka, 35, who quit smoking Marlboros and Pall Malls 15 years ago. "People who don't smoke can't understand how someone who would smoke cigars would hate cigarettes. But they're totally different. You don't inhale cigars for one thing, and it's trashy tobacco" in cigarettes.

The smell of cigars "always reminded me of old men," said Russell, 30, a sous chef for a Center City food service. "I remember all my uncles sitting around smoking those Phillies cigars. But my brother smokes cigars, and I've talked to Terry about it, and it can't be all bad if Terry likes it."

Terry is Terry McNally, owner of the London with her husband, Michael. McNally said she started hosting cigar dinners partly as a reaction to the anti-smoking fervor spreading throughout society.

"I don't smoke but I'm really getting sick of people telling me how to run my restaurant. I get it all the time (from anti-smokers). I figure I'll be in court one day when they tell me that nothing should be smoked here, in the bar, the whole bit," she said.

"We kind of had fun with holding this dinner on the night of the Great American Smokeout. We didn't want to say we chose the date because of that, but it seemed like a pretty good day. It's so un-politically correct.

"Each cigar dinner there are more women, more young people. We call them outlaws."

Terry McNally's co-conspirator in planning this cigar night was Louise Hood-Lipoff, owner of Tobacco Village in Northeast Plaza. "I don't know how many husbands would want to go on a honeymoon to a cigar factory," said Louise, whose husband, Irv Lipoff, courted her by buying five boxes of Macanudos each week from her shop for years. When they married, the couple honeymooned in the Dominican Republic, where they visited the Macanudo factory.

"I am the shadow of Louise's smile," said Irv, who was seated at a table nearby with three cigar-smoking doctors - heart specialists, no less - from city hospitals.

Louise, who smokes Schimmelpennincks, a slender Dutch cigar, sat at a table with three other women and held up a T-shirt for them to read:

"A good cigar is the last bastion of pleasure in a free society," it said.

But sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar, as Terry McNally demonstrated when she held up one of the evening's offerings - a dark brown Las Cabrillas Columbus measuring 52-ring wide by eight inches long. (A "ring" is one-64th of an inch wide.)

Sitting at the same table were a couple of outlaw women who were reluctant to lower the bandanna disguises from their last names or occupations. Monica (not her real name - her real name is Monika with a K) said that she had been smoking cigars in the privacy of her own home for some time, but that this was her first time smoking in public. "I feel comfortable tonight," she said.

Monika with a K discovered on a visit to Miami that women could smoke cigars and still retain their femininity. "A friend took me to a Cuban restaurant and I saw a lot of the women smoking cigars," she said. "These were glamourous, beautiful women. And they were smoking big cigars.

"I waited until I got home and got a little nerve before I tried one."

Sitting next to Monika with a K was Anne with an E, who was puffing thoughtfully on an H. Upman Corsarios (4 3/4 inches by 50 ring). Anne started smoking as a child. "My father used to take me fishing and he smoked Swisher Sweets," she said. "After awhile I started smoking them with him."

Unlike her timid tablemates, Allison (with a last name) Blair was willing to go public. "I've been out of the closet for a couple of years," she said of her cigar-smoking preferences. She started smoking cigars eight years ago, usually in the company of other female cigar smokers at a friend's house.

Allison is the day bartender at Striped Bass, a nonsmoking restaurant in Center City, where she allows cigar smoking between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. during her shift. "I can understand (banning smoking) at 6 o'clock during dinner hours," she said. "But earlier, if two handsome men are going to sit at my bar and want to smoke cigars. . . . What am I, nuts?"
photos:
1. A cigar is more than just a smoke to puffers Allison Blair (right) and

Monika (who asked not to be identified further) at London Grill. (The

Philadelphia Inquirer / PAUL HU)

2. I feel comfortable tonight," says Monika (right) at the dinner. She got

the idea to light up after visiting a Cuban restaurant.

3. "I've been out of the closet for a couple of years," says Allison Blair,

the day bartender at Striped Bass, describing her puffing preference. She

says she started smoking cigars eight years ago. (The Philadelphia Inquirer

/ PAUL HU)

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