We place chairs and welcome people to enjoy their cigars with us and although it's still a comfortable experience, it's quite different than being in a separate lounge. "Madison Avenue is built a bit in this style. "Stores that have existed for a long time before smoking bans never really dedicated a lot of space to a lounge, since there were often many more attractive options for places to enjoy a cigar rather than sitting in a store," says Michael Herklots, manager of both Davidoff shops. Both have lounges, and like most cigar-smoking establishments, they attract people from every walk of life, from contractor to media mogul. Swiss company Davidoff of Geneva has two world-class branded shops in Midtown, one on Madison Avenue, the other on Manhattan's West Side, situated in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. But let us not forget that it is the cigar shop that enables this kind of lounge to exist in the first place-New York City law prohibits opening a new cigar bar, or expanding an existing one-and it is the route many shops have taken to accommodate their clients. Consider the elegance of the herringbone-patterned masonry in the humidor, for example, or the long Persian runner that leads you away from Second Avenue, past the accessories, past the barber's chairs and into an ambience that makes you forget you're in a cigar shop. These furnishings are a true homage to the historically clubby spaces and private libraries of Manhattan where cigar smoking was once prevalent. By night, the lights cast subtle beams and the gas fireplace ignites, lending a warm atmosphere. Washington heights the last bastion manhattan windows#During the day, solarium-style windows offer a tranquil view of courtyard gardens while bringing lots of natural light to the wood and leather surfaces throughout the space. Now that all the permissions have been granted, the Fakihs are delighted with the results and how all the design elements came together. Washington heights the last bastion manhattan license#"It used to be very easy, taking only a few weeks, but now there is actually an investigation by the FBI, and it takes months and months before you can get your building permits, tobacco license and distribution license. "The city is very uptight about issuing permits," says Gus Fakih. The Cigar Inn's major distinction is that it houses the first-ever Cigar Aficionado-branded lounge.Ĭreating the smoking lounge wasn't easy. But only a few months ago, when financial houses began falling like the Roman Empire, the Fakihs (joined by their brother, Bass) opened a stately second venue in Midtown, styled quite ambitiously from the ground up to be the type of room you'd expect to find cloistered in the distant wing of some Vanderbilt mansion. Their first location has been a mainstay in the city's tony Upper East Side neighborhood for 15 years, providing an extensive inventory of cigarsĪnd a comfortable place to smoke them. One such story is that of Billy and Gus Fakih, proprietors of the Cigar Inn. Even in the current economic downturn, new cigar lounges have opened within the last few months, providing smoking asylums for the city's cigar enthusiasts. True, New York's cigar smokers were driven out into the streets quite ignominiously, but their counterrevolution did not come in the form of a violent mob, it came in the form of an industrious and driven entrepreneurship. The answer: more than 20 great cigar sanctuaries situated all over Manhattan Island. Now, six years later, after tobacco exemptions have been denied, and Manhattan's steak houses and social clubs have been forced to turn their humidors into linen storage, what is left? New York fell without much of a fight-no shows of civil disobedience, no smoking rallies, no cigar riots in the street. The laws were a victory for the endless number of coalitions looking to extinguish the cigars, and the wills, of the city's smokers. The city ban went into effect in March of 2003, followed that July by a state smoking ban that took away even more places to smoke. It has been more than six years since a smoking ban descended upon New York City, though for aficionados it seems an eternity ago.
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