Sunday, April 16 2006
The expansion of the cigar lifestyle into mainstream facilities, despite the advance of smoking bans across the nation, continued with the noteworthy opening of the Montecristo Club at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Officially opened last week for the Pirates' home opener with the Los Angeles Dodgers (an 8-3 loss), the club includes a full bar, a high-end buffet and has storage lockers for regular customers. You can smoke inside, but if you want to see the game live, you have to walk outside (without your cigar) to an open deck area.
It also isn't cheap. Admission for season-ticket holders is separate from the game, even on the PBC level, where tickets average $50 per contest. A full-season pass will cost you $4,500 or you can buy passes for 10, 20 or 40 games. A single-game pass, which does include a ticket, is $70.
The Pirates, who ranked last in attendance in the National League in 2005 (1.794 million), came up with the idea for the venue after having six successful cigar-friendly nights last season, drawing as many as 200 people. Working with Altadis U.S.A., owner of the Montecristo mark in the U.S. and Southern Wine & Spirits, the club can hold up to 200 people at a time. All of Altadis's top U.S.-marketed brands will be sold.
The first 100 full-season pass holders were rewarded with a personal locker for storing their cigars and the first 50 also received a box of Montecristos!
The Montecristo Club is the third such facility at major-league parks; cigar bars are also offered at Tropicana Field in Tampa (the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar) and at Detroit's Comerica Park, where it is part of the Tiger Club.
General Cigar was reaching out to younger smokers in another lifestyle promotion as part of the Maxim 100 celebration in honor of the magazine's 100th issue last week. Held at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, General sampled commemorative "Maxim 100" cigars at a Friday evening poker party and then during a wild bash at Tryst, the hotel's ultra-chic nightclub.
It's another example of a growing trend by manufacturers to reach out to smokers not only in smokeshops, but at lifestyle events of all kinds in any place that upscale consumers can be found. During the NCAA's "Final Four" men's basketball championship weekend, Altadis U.S.A. sponsored the cigars at the prime social event for coaches, held at a cigar bar just outside Indianapolis, Indiana, where the games were being held.
Short fillers: Grand Havana Enterprises, owner and operator of the Grand Havana Rooms in New York and Beverly Hills, reported good first-quarter earnings (October-December 2005) with revenues of $2.44 million and net profits of $374,031. Most of the action came from the New York club, which posted nearly three-quarters of the revenue for the company. . .Ready for high-stakes dominoes? The Professional Domino Association has begun its second year with a tour stop in Houston, where more than 40 players vied for $30,000 in prize money. The 10-event schedule culminates with the national championship in Las Vegas (of course) on August 19.
- Rich Perelman in Los Angeles
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Heard in the Humidor is a publication of Perelman, Pioneer & Company.
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