It turns out that Scott is a frequent traveler and avid CigarPlaces.com user, so it was great to get his take on the website and the new Cigar Places iPhone app.  I had a chance to explain the history of the site and we even brainstormed about some new features for upcoming versions of the iPhone App (if you missed the show, you’ll just have to watch the App Store and see what happens!).

Scott’s interview style keeps the show fast-paced and high energy, and makes it a must-listen for any true cigar lover.  He’s also a guy that understands the important role that a good cigar bar or cigar lounge plays in a cigar smoker’s life, and he makes the point known by asking each guest on his show about their favorite memory when they were smoking a cigar (“don’t tell us about the cigar, tell us where you were and what the occasion was”).

I used the opportunity to talk about a yearly Christmas tradition that I have with my close friends, and also to get in a quick plug for one of my favorite cigar bars, The Godfather Cigar Martini Lounge.

Live on Wednesdays at 10pm ET / 9pm CT

Don’t miss it!  Add SmokeStack Radio as a friend on Facebook, and visit the Internet Radio America website to tune in (just open the page and wait for the live stream to start – couldn’t be easier).

• Find cigar friendly places nearby (using GPS).
• Find cigar friendly places by conducting a search.
• Add a cigar friendly place that isn’t on the map yet.

The Cigar Places iPhone app is now available in the App Store here:   Cigar Places iPhone App

With the help of cigar smokers like you who have added their favorite spots from around the world, CigarPlaces.com has grown to include well over 3,500 cigar bars, shops, and cigar friendly places world-wide.

Today we took it up a notch.

With a couple of touches on your iPhone you can now find a cigar friendly place no matter where you are, using the Cigar Places iPhone App.

Find the app in the App Store here:  Cigar Places iPhone App.

Do they sell cigars there? Is there an outdoor patio to sit at? How about a walk-in humidor? Do they serve food or alcohol?

We’ll now be able to answer these questions with a quick glance!

Adding and Removing Categories is Easy

Like every other aspect of our listing (reviews, photos, etc), we’re relying on you, the local expert to provide the best information.  Adding a category to a listing is really very easy.  On any listing page, you’ll see an “[Edit]” button, or a “[Categorize this Place]” button (if the place doesn’t have any categories yet).

Simply click the button to bring up the “Add or Remove Categories” window.  Click remove next to an existing category if it doesn’t belong, or select a new category from the drop-down and click “Add” to add it to the listing.

Find a place that can’t be categorized?

When going through the design and development exercise, we took a good look at the huge database of cigar friendly places that you’ve added up to this point, and tried to pick out as many categories as we could.

I’m sure we missed some though.  If you can think of any that would be valuable, leave them in the comments section below and we’ll add them in.

Now head over to the map and make your favorite listings better!

The recent article in The Economist entitled, Up in smoke – Why size matters more than ever puts forth the idea that because of economic declines and regulations that dictate where we can smoke, smokers of traditional “large” cigars are turning to miniature, cigarette-like cigars to get their fix.

Although the data that their premise is based on may be factually correct in that traditional cigar sales are on the decline, and miniature cigar sales are increasing, the idea that the same consumers are switching from one to the other is almost certainly not the case.

To understand how these two seemingly related products don’t compete with each other, we utilize a framework called Jobs-To-Be-Done.  The Jobs Innovation Framework is based on the simple concept that consumers “hire” products to help them with “jobs” that they need to get done.

Observing a group of men smoking a cigar in a typical environment (at a cigar lounge, on the patio/porch, on the golf course, fishing, etc) will make some of the jobs that cigars do for us fairly apparent:

• Help me slow things down (give me a reason to slow down).
• Give me a reason to be with my friends, bond, and relax.

Conducting more intensive Jobs research/design work would definitely uncover additional jobs, but these are most likely some of the main jobs that consumers hire cigars for.

The interesting thing about Jobs is that they are technology/product independent.  If suddenly we were to take cigars out of the equation (off the market and out of the consideration set), the Job that the consumer has doesn’t change.  The consumer will simply search for something else to hire (in this case, a bottle of scotch, a hunting trip, a poker game, etc).  This is how we as consumers innovate.

Unfortunately these types of misinformed intra-category competitive assumptions are made all the time.  In the confections industry, marketers and product developers have been perplexed by the ways that the Milky Way bar competes with the Snickers bar.  Upon deeper examination, it’s clear that they never compete with each other.  Consumers reaching for a Snickers bar are typically gearing up for a future event.  It’s food-like, “packed with peanuts,” and can act as a meal replacement.  Take the Snickers bar off the shelf, and those consumers will reach for an apple, a Red Bull (for the energy), a hamburger, etc, but never a Milky Way bar (which is designed with caramel and nuget to deliver pure indulgence).

The Implications

Claims like those made in the Economist article can have dangerous outcomes.  The smart CEOs, marketers, and product developers in the cigar industry can easily fall into a trap that leads them to think, “how can we take some of the attributes of the miniature cigar, and integrate them into our traditional cigars to make our cigars compete better?”

After all, it’s a logical line of thinking if you accept the idea that the miniature cigar is stealing market share from traditional cigars!

Unfortunately there are real forces acting against the consumption of cigars.  These include the regulations that the Economist article references, a greater awareness of the health risks, and the taxes that are layered onto the product and drive up its price.

In order to continue to compete and grow, those of us in the cigar industry need to gain a better understanding of the Jobs that cigars do for consumers, and then innovate around how to do the jobs better while reducing the new barriers that have been put in place.

The Solution

Those of us who enjoy circling up the guys slotting out a period of time to talk and relax will still continue to do so.  The Job won’t change.  But if it becomes too difficult for us to pull a cigar into those moments, the products that we use to enrich that experience just might.

The image below is used to describe the forces come into play during a purchase and consumption moment.

When we think through the decision making process in the context of, “should I try to get the guys together tonight for a cigar,” it’s painfully obvious how regulation, taxation, and health concerns contribute to the bottom half of the diagram (potentially making F3+F4 > F1+F2>.

The good news is that there is so much room to innovate around how cigars are made, distributed, sold, and enjoyed, that the space is full of innovation potential.  Even in the face of nasty regulation and taxation.

Since Michigan passed its smoking ban in May of 2010, eliminating all smoking in public buildings (restaurants, bars, etc), and clamping down on the restrictions on cigar and hookah bars, news articles like this has been few and far between.

It’s great to see a new cigar lounge open in the State of Michigan. Hopefully this not only gives cigar lovers in Grand Rapids a great new place to enjoy a cigar, but also sends a message to other cigar-entrepreneurs that it is still possible to open an establishment like this in Michigan.

For more details, see the Grand River Cigar listing on the Cigar Places Map.

While this reality may still be upon us in the near future, I was happy to find an oasis on a recent trip to Palo Alto in which my colleagues and I could enjoy a good meal and a cigar in a great environment.

Before I get into the details of the cigar lounge, the restaurant portion of La Bodeguita del Medio definitely deserves a mention. The food, mohitos, and service alone would be enough to make me come back to this place, even if I wasn’t planning on taking advantage of the cigar lounge (not sure why that would ever be the case, but you get my point).  They’ve also got an incredibly extensive list of sipping rums.

As good as the food is, for cigar smokers, the cigar lounge is still the main attraction.  While my colleagues and I were at the bar waiting for a table for dinner, my curiosity got the best of me and I took a quick walk to the back of the building to glance into the cigar lounge.  I’ll let the pictures do most of the describing for me, but needless to say, I couldn’t wait for dinner to be over with so I could sit back on a nice leather sofa and kick my feet up.

The indoor portion of the lounge is big enough to hold 20 to 25 people, and there were probably around 15 there when we wrapped up dinner and staked our claim to a corner portion of the room.  The walk-in humidor is small and the selection is fairly limited but many of the more popular brands are represented (My Father, Graycliff, Rocky Patel).

I haven’t visited enough to get a feel for what the typical patron is like at this lounge, but there was a great mix on the night we were there, ranging from a boisterous group of six or seven 20-something professionals (I would have guessed it to be a bachelor party if it hadn’t been a Thursday), a lone cigar-smoker reading a book, and a group of older business men.

The California regulation reared its ugly head in two interesting ways.  One was the unique way that you enter the locked walk-in humidor.  I left the lounge area and walked to the bar to ask a bar tender to let me in.  Upon returning to the back area, she took out her keys to unlock a door on the side of the hallway, she instructed me that by law, as an employee of the bar/restaurant she wasn’t allowed to enter the smoking lounge.  She told me to return to the lounge and that she would unlock the door to the humidor from the inside (she did).

The other interesting impact of the smoking regulation was clearly marked on one of the lounge’s windows:  “This Window is to Remain Open During Business Hours.”  On any given day in the Bay Area, I’m sure this isn’t a problem.  Unfortunately I visited on a week when the evening lows were near 30 degrees.  This prompted everyone who entered the lounge (including us) to immediately walk over to the window and attempt to shut it before realizing it was being held open by a block of wood (which then led them to read the label).

On days when the weather is more California-like, there is a nice-sized outdoor patio that you can access from the back door of the cigar lounge that I’m sure gets a lot of use.

It was nice to get the sad, dark images of California cigar smoking out of my head and realize that lively places like this still exist.  I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to visit the left coast and exploring some more of these diamonds-in-the-rough.

The New Functionality

The new “Remove Location” page will allow you to remove a location from the map if it is a duplicate listing (is listed on the map more than once), is no longer cigar friendly, or is no longer in business.  After submitting the form, our team will perform a quick review of the listing, and will make sure that the map gets updated accordingly.

You can get to this page by clicking “Remove  from Map / Flag as Not Cigar Friendly” on any location page.

Removing Locations Completely

Our policy since the site has launched has been to keep locations on the map that have been flagged as not cigar friendly, and simply indicate to the user that it’s not a cigar friendly place.  The feedback that I’ve received recently is that this is troublesome for users.

Our new process will be to flag the location as not friendly (except for duplicates) so that users are aware of the location while we confirm that the location is unfriendly or out of business (via a phone call or other method).

After the information has been confirmed, the location will be removed from the map altogether.

Login No Longer Required

We’re always looking to ensure that the data is accurate, without opening the door for someone to come in and corrupt things on a whim (we all know that there are passionate anti-smoking individuals out there that aren’t happy about the existence of cigar bars).  The way we handled this previously was to require the creation of an account before a user could flag a location as not cigar friendly.  It wasn’t fool-proof, but it did the job.

With the creation of the new removal process, it is no longer necessary to log in or create an account if you just want to remove a listing from the map.  We’re hoping that this reduces the barriers to the removal process, and encourages more cigar smokers to remove a location if they see that it is invalid.

The Best Kind of Feedback

I receive emails all the time that start with, “We were sitting around having a cigar and CigarPlaces.com came up.  We all thought it would be great if you could …” and end with incredible suggestions about new functionality, changes, etc.  I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has sent an email like that, and let everyone know to keep the emails coming! (send them here)

I submitted the form on November 30th, which emailed Michigan Representative Gary Peters(D), and Senators Carl Levin(D), and Debbie Stabenow(D).

The form will send the following email to your senators and representatives, urging them to oppose the regulation:

As your constituent and a voter, I urge you to co-sponsor House Bill 1639!

H.R. 1639 will protect the small businesses and jobs that make up this fragile, intimate premium cigar industry. If FDA were to exercise regulation over premium cigars, thousands of U.S. jobs would be at stake.

Why is H.R. 1639 so important to me?

Some of the measures FDA could consider, as I believe they are, include:

• Ban on walk-in humidors, self serve cigar displays, and mail-order cigar sales;

• Ban on all flavored cigars, that are enjoyed by legal-age adults;

• Deface ornate, decorative cigar boxes, often considered an art form with grotesque images;

• Ban on cigar events where free cigars (samples) could be available to legal-age adults;

• Limits on cigar marketing and advertising;

• Imposition of new ‘user fees’ [tax] on cigars, to finance regulations;

• Limits on special release and small-batch cigars, due to mandates that cigar blends be submitted to FDA for pre-approval before release;

• Limits on nicotine levels on cigars to near zero, severely impacting the flavor of cigars;

• Ban on marketing cigar merchandise.

Your co-sponsorship of H.R. 1639 will prove instrumental in protecting the premium cigar industry and me as a cigar enthusiast!

Thank you for your support!

Last week I received this email from Senator Levin.

Dear Mr. Spiek:
�
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011 (S.1461).  I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue. �
On August 1, 2011, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced S.1461, which would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to exempt traditional, large and premium cigars from FDA regulation.  Additionally, this legislation would waive user fees the FDA assesses on tobacco products.  S.1461 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for further review.  Similar legislation (H.R.1639) has been introduced in the House of Representatives and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Thank you again for contacting me.  Should this, or similar legislation, come before the full Senate, I will keep your thoughts in mind. �
�
Sincerely,
Carl Levin

It’s good to hear about the amendment that Senator Bill Nelson is presenting, and it’s nice to get a reponse from Senator Levin, but considering his history related to tobacco regulation and what others are saying about him, I’m not holding my breath when it comes to him siding with cigar lovers on this issue.

I think we all know what “I’ll keep your thoughts in mind’” translates into in political language.

Recommending Cigar Bars Is Easy

If you’re looking at a page on CigarPlaces.com, just click the +1 button next to the location’s name at the top of the page.  That’s about all there is to it.

After you’ve made your recommendation, you’ll be able to see it in the Google search results.  More importantly, when other people search Google for cigar friendly places, they’ll see your recommendations next to the search results (like the screenshot of the Google Search Results below).

You’ll find the +1 button on other pages of the site, too.  Think people would find the Chicago Cigar Friendly Places page useful?  Click the +1 button at the top of it to make sure that more people know that you think it’s a good page!  Think that CigarPlaces.com is just a great resource for cigar lovers in general?  Click the +1 button at the top of the homepage!

Rumor has it that Google is starting to rely on social signals (like how many times people click +1 for a certain page) when it comes to ranking pages.  Judging by the many places added, photos uploaded, and detailed reviews left on the map at CigarPlaces.com many of you are interested in helping to promote your favorite cigar friendly place.  Clicking the +1 button at the top of their listing on CigarPlaces.com is another great way to make sure others find it and enjoy it!