Would You Like Chemo With That? Chicago Gets Nation’s First Upscale Tobacco Lounge Courtesy of RJ Reynolds
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Welcome to the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge, the first tobacco lounge in the nation, but sure not to be the last. The Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge is where you can have a smoke while enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. It’s designed to appeal to all those disaffected smokers who can no longer … well, have a smoke while enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper, because of anti-smoking laws.
Now they can go to have their coffee and smoke at the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge. But not just any smoke, because you see the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge is an upscale tobacco boutique, where you point to the premium tobacco of your choice, and the tobaccista hand-rolls your cancer delivery system..er..I mean cigarette… for you, while you order from the coffee bar, gnosh on a cheese plate, or drink some wine.
Brian Stebbins, a senior marketing director with RJ Reynolds put it this way: “This is about a select, super premium brand of cigarettes, just like what we’ve seen with the super premium tier of beer, wine, chocolate and pastries. It’s about elegance and having fun.”
Trust the tobacco industry to give us more of what we just don’t need, but they need us to have: another way to make cigarette smoking seem really cool. Another way to convince 20-somethings that it really is ok to smoke, even though we all know that it leads to an early grave for you, and those around you.
Of course, in reality this is just one more thinly-veiled effort by big tobacco to slip under the no-smoking laws and push their cancer products. Most anti-smoking laws contain provisions which require there to be no smoking around food. But, you see, nearly all of those laws have some kind of provision which allows for the two to be combined if the food sales are under a certain percentage of the total sales of the business. This is to protect mom-and-pop corner tobacco stores that also sell things like candy bars. Not big tobacco interests like RJ Reynolds.
But there they are, taking advantage of it with their fancy tobacco lounge, planning to set them up across the nation. Slimy bastards.
One can only hope that the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge is a miserable failure, and dies a miserable death. Too bad it won’t be as painful a death as the ones that RJ Reynolds has helped to cause, and would so cavalierly cause again.
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January 21st, 2006 at 11:25 am
Amen! After growing up in a house of smokers, I was glad to get out. Once, when I was fresh out of high school, my boss accused me of smoking. I swore to him that I didn’t do it, and he finally backed off. Then, he got up and sniffed around the office, zeroing in on my jacket. He held it to his face, coughed, then hung it outside, where the stench would not permeate the office.
Back then, I didn’t know how bad my clothes smelled because I was in smoke all the time. Now, I can sometimes smell cigarette smoke in the car next to me at a stoplight, even when both me and the other driver have our windows up.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:49 am
I don’t get it. What’s the problem? Nobody is blowing smoke in your face or polluting
the air around your meal. Nor are they promoting smoking to children. Your indignation
smacks more of a wish to impose your will upon others than a personal offense. Unless, of
course you plan to hang your coat there during the day while you’re at work.
January 25th, 2006 at 2:31 am
Don’t blame the tobacco companies. Like anyone else in the good
old US of A, they are going to take advantage of what the government
allows them to do.
It’s all about the money!!!! Including what the government can get
out of everyone.
You gotta wonder why a government would say, “Hey it’s okey to grow
tobacco, and if you have problems such as a failed crop, we will
subsidize you and even pay you not to grow in some years because we
want to control the price of tobacco.”, and then on the other hand
tell everyone that it is bad to be a tobacco consumer and then sue
the tobacco companies for producing it.
Doesn’t really make to much sense to me unless your in the middle and
getting money from both ends (taxes on tobacco products, money thru
lawsuits).
You see they gotta have people that smoke in order to supposedly pay
for those people with medical problems. Think about it.
Just like they have to allow Roe versus Wade in order to help control
the world population.
The government is sneaky that way. Think about it.
January 25th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Do you really think that smoking is bad for you , when in reality there is not a single thing around you that is actually healthy for you. Unless ofcourse you live in Siberia or something.
I am a smoker and I will continue to be one untill the day I die. It is a pleasure for me and that is all that matters (even if it kills me). Your opinion means absolutely nothing to me and to people like me. You don’t like smoking , that’s fine, but stop telling me what to do.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:32 am
My Father-in-law passed away from emphasima at the age of 62. He was drafted into WWII right off the family farm. His first ration package contained a pack of cigarettes which was his first experience smoking. He was hooked by the time he was discharged. He died a slow and aonizing death.
My Mother started smoking when she was 15 to fit in with the crowd. She quit about 20 years ago, cold turkey. She hasn’t had a cigarette since. Last summer she was diagnosed with lung cancer. They removed 30% of her right lung followed by six months of radiation and chemo therapy. She was told three weeks ago that the cancer has returned, is untreatable and they have given her six months to live.
But it is still your choice if you want to smoke. I am just glad I don’t have to put up with it in public anymore…
January 25th, 2006 at 5:15 am
I agree with Don Preston — your indignation is overwrought. While I fully agree that non-smokers should not be exposed to smoke in the workplace or in any other enclosed location where their presence is mandatory, smokers today are being treated in ways that would be illegal if they were, say, an identified ethnic minority. Here is a tobacco company advancing its interests, and being relatively up front about it, and giving smokers a place to go and enjoy themselves, and you self-righteously dump all over them. I am an adult, and if I choose to smoke [or choose to accept the addiction], then that’s my choice, and you should not get your knickers in a not about it.
It would be different [and condemnable] if they were appealing to children with this, for example, but clearly they are not. Just to make a point, I think the glorification of cigarettes in movies is reprehensible, and to the extent the industry is responsible for this, the individuals involved should be drawn and quartered.
But what is being done here is a form of interested public service — and if R.J. Reynolds brings something like this to Atlanta, I will surely patronize the establishment. Thanks for bringing this to my attention — I would not have known about it otherwise.
January 25th, 2006 at 10:37 am
If the tobacco was not able to get children to take up it, then they would just die away. If they are not trying to get them, why do we continue to hear about them getting caught? They are the only business were people are dying to get away from them. So with out fools that think smoking is so much a pleasure and not worried about what is going to happening to them and their family, they probably will be around to kill some more. So to the people that say there is nothing wrong with smoking, I’m sorry that you are not smart enough to take care of yourself and do not care how much you will hurt your love ones once you are no longer around and are crying when you suffering just before you die. I saw my father die of lung cancer and it was not a pretty picture.
January 27th, 2006 at 6:38 am
I am sorry for your loss.However,I have no interest in your sob stories.I compare it to someone who
insists on telling a cancer patient what it’s like to have cancer.Advice should only be given when
it’s requested.Yet you feel the need to degrade a whole group of people.Whats up with that ??
January 28th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
John Howard Oxley says (in a very well written post, I might add), “[S]mokers today are being treated in ways that would be illegal if they were, say, and identified ethnic minority.”
I can see your point, John, but I think there’s something wrong with the analogy. Ethnic minorities are not toxic to the people around them (though some people would have you believe that.) Cigarette smoke, however, is toxic to the human body, and as such, should only be allowed in private places that people must *choose* to enter (like the proposed tobacco lounge.)
You and Don are probably right; indignation about this topic may be a little over the top. But that doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to express frustrated opinions about the whole concept of smoking, especially on a website devoted to opinions.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:06 am
I wonder how people can be so caught up in the ‘blame game’? This whole anti-smoking thing seems to be a wonderful little smoke screen…get people fighting this, maybe they’ll ignore the larger issues, things like drugs, alcohol, murder, child abuse, lousy education, rising taxes, lower pays, or no pay, bad government, etc.
As for the whole concept of banning smoking, that in itself just makes it more ‘romantic’ and cool to those same kids you think you’re going to protect.Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it won’t work for tobacco products. So, if smokers want to have places where they can go to indulge their habits without offending those who don’t smoke, I don’t see the problem. I’m sure those places will be more than happy to serve wine and cheeseplates to those who don’t smoke without shoving them in some god-forsaken dark corner.
Or is it just that there might be some social hot-spots out there where you will be in the minority that irritates you?
February 1st, 2006 at 5:31 am
Wonder what will happen in cities where smoking is illegal in all restaurants and publuic places like Boston.
February 18th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Yes, we are all going to die someday.
Stace sorry you came from a house of smokers. You may feel better if you talk to someone who came from a house of alcoholics. Ask them what life was like for them growing up. Sorry that you sometimes smell cigarette smoke in your car. I really feel sorry for you when you have to drive behind a city bus or a car with a smoking tail pipe. Just think of what that does to you.
You may feel better knowing that a few years ago the World Health Organization released a report saying second hand tobacco smoke has no effect on you. You may not have known that because the Cancer Society told them to get rid of that report. I think the Cancer Society wants you to feel better thinking that tobacco smoke will harm you and not all the other chemicals we all breath in every day. Ever get nauseous spraying a household cleaner? I sure have.
Sugar is bad for you. If you do some research you would find it causes many more problems to your body then tobacco smoke. But where is the outrage over the effects of sugar.
The other day I had the smell of someone’s perfume on my jacket. My wife almost had to go home sick from work one day because of someone’s perfume. But where is the outrage over perfume in the work place.
People I could go on and on about things that are bad for you and how there is no outrage over them. I could go on and on about the things people do that irritate me. I would just like to invite everyone to really think about what is being told to you.
I will believe in global warming the same day they can give me an accurate 7 day weather forecast.