When the site launched a few years ago, the first wave of cigar friendly places that people added were mostly in the United States. In the months that followed we quickly began to see international locations hit the site as well. The smoking bans that we’re facing obviously aren’t a problem that’s unique to the United States.
This week I formalized a few features that make CigarPlaces.com officially international.
Since the site launched, we’ve had a World View option that allowed you to see the entire world map and search for cigar-friendly places around the globe.
Visitors have also had the ability to add international cigar friendly bars and restaurants (and many international locations have been added), but without a way to officially enter the location’s country, it wasn’t a terribly graceful process.
This week, CigarPlaces.com is becoming officially international. Type your favorite international city into the search box (we still believe that search is the easiest way to find a cigar-friendly spot), and the site will display cigar bars and restaurants in the city.
The Add Location page has also been overhauled to include a Country dropdown, and the State dropdown is no longer required. This should make it easier for international aficionados to add their favorite places.
I need your help testing out the new functionality. If you know of good cigar friendly places outside of the United States, add them to the map!
A search for Munich or London currently displays a number of places from our friends on the other side of the pond, so we’re off to a great start. If you discover that your country isn’t listed in the dropdown (it should be all-inclusive), try adding the spot without it, and drop us a comment to let us know; we’ll add it.
Thanks again to everyone for your support and for adding your favorite locations for everyone to find and enjoy!
As if we need another reason to love Florida. Palm trees, warm sunny weather, beautiful beaches, and a place where cigar friendly places are opening instead of closing. With all of the cigar bars around the country fighting to stay open, we’re happy to hear about a new one springing up.
Earlier this week the South Florida Food and Wine blog reported that the Smoke Inn VI Cigar & Wine Bar will be opening its doors on April 1st, 2010.
A detailed description of the venue from the South Florida Food and Wine Blog:
Smoke Inn VI is a 3,500 square foot luxurious one of a kind Cigar and Wine Bar featuring an impressive 100% cedar walk-in humidor with 48 cigar lockers. Smoke Inn VI also houses a private Corporate Lounge for social functions and business meetings that is fully equipped with complimentary Wi-Fi and a fax/copy/scan center for any business service needs and the Corporate Lounge also houses 36 personal lockers for members. The retail area within Smoke Inn VI allows guests to purchase cigars either by the box or individually as well as bottles of wines from the ever impressive Transatlantic wine portfolio will open its doors on Thursday, April 1, 2010, and is sure to attract those seeking high quality cigars and wine in a casual, comfortable and inviting environment.
Any news about a new cigar bar opening is big news!
We’re eager to see pictures from inside the new venue, so if you have some, post them to the CigarPlaces.com page!
Whether we’re traveling, or just in our own town looking for a new place, CigarPlaces.com is the first cigar website that cigar smokers visit when we’re looking for a cigar bar, cigar friendly restaurant, or cigar shop.
As we go into our third year and continue to add more cigar friendly locations to the map, and new features (such as our city-specific pages), we’re getting more and more requests from advertisers.
This month we decided to roll out some new advertising options to help increase relevancy for our advertisers.
- Run-Of-Site Advertising (your banner on almost 1,000 pages): $150/month
- City-Specific Advertising: $100/month
See my recent post on our statistics to see what kind of exposure these ads can give your brand.
Run-Of-Site Banner Advertising
For online cigar retailers, cigar manufacturers, online humidor retailers, and other national cigar companies, run-of-site advertising is ideal. This option rotates your advertisement on nearly 1,000 pages on CigarPlaces.com, with a prominent position in the side-bar of the page. We think there’s no better time to advertise a cigar brand to someone than right before they head out the door to go enjoy a stogie, so this is a great option.
Run-Of-Site Advertising banner advertising costs $150/month. See the example to the right and click for a larger image.
City-Specific Banner Advertising
For cigar bars, cigar friendly restaurants and cigar shops, city-specific advertising positions your ad in front of users that are looking for a cigar or a place to smoke in your city. 
We have pre-built packages for advertisers in most major metro areas (listed below). Custom packages can also be developed for smaller cities.
City-Specific packages cost $100/month (multiple-city discounts are available). See the example to the right and click for a larger image.
City-Specific Packages are currently available for these cities (ask about custom packages if your city isn’t listed):
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To see more details or setup an advertising package visit the cigar advertising page on CigarPlaces.com. All advertising packages are month-to-month (no ongoing contract or commitment is required).
Over the past two years we’ve all done a great job of filling the map on CigarPlaces.com with cigar friendly bars and restaurants. With all of the legislation being passed around the country to ban smoking, many of these places have lost their cigar friendly status since they were added to the map.
Flagging a Cigar Unfriendly Place
If you know of a place on the map that isn’t cigar friendly anymore, you can now easily flag it as unfriendly. From the page that displays the details of the location, click the Flag as Not Cigar Friendly link.
On the next page, leave any details that you have about why the location isn’t cigar friendly anymore. The details will be added to the comments section of the location’s page.
What Happens to Flagged Locations
Locations that you flag as unfriendly will be marked with a red pin on the map when people conduct a search. The locations will be kept on the map to avoid having someone search for a location and then wonder, “maybe the place I’m looking for is cigar friendly, but CigarPlaces.com just doesn’t know about it.”
Thanks to everyone for continuing to make CigarPlaces.com the best resource on the web for finding cigar friendly places!
March of this year marks the two year anniversary of the launch of CigarPlaces.com. I thought it would be fun to poke through the web stats to take a look at where we’ve been.
Some Cool Quick Stats:
- We’ve had over 25,700 visits.
- Visits from Google have come from 10,317 different keywords
- We now contain data on over 800 locations around the world.
The 10 Most Popular Cigar-Friendly Places Were (in order by page views):
- Maker’s Cigar & Piano Lounge (Oklahoma City, OK)
- Texas Avenue Cigars (College Station, TX)
- Havana House Cigar Bar (Northborough, MA)
- Lord Byron’s Cigar Bar (Katy, TX)
- Stag Tobacconist (Colorado Springs, CO)
- Ignite Nightclub at MGM Grand Casino (Detroit, MI)
- Broadway Cigar Company (Portland, OR)
- The Cigar Factory (Troy, MI)
- On The Rox (Houston, TX)
- Boulevard Steakhouse Martini Lounge (Edmond, OK)
The top 10 (non-search-engine) Referral Websites Were:
- ClubStogie.com
- CigarAficionado.com (forums)
- StogieReview.com
- CigarAsylum.com
- CigarJack.net
- CigarMonkey.com
- CigarCommand.com
- CigarAdvisor
- Brian Hewitt
- Puff.com
The Top 5 City Pages Were:
Congrats to the locations that made the top 10 list, and thanks to all of the bloggers and cigar websites that have helped make the last two years great!
If you have first-hand knowledge of how this law is affecting a cigar-friendly location in Michigan, please comment and tell us what you know!
A long-standing fear of mine is going to come true on May 1st, 2010 in Michigan. The smoking ban that was signed into law in December of last year will have a drastic impact on the cigar-friendly bars and restaurants in Michigan that are listed on CigarPlaces.com.
For many establishments that people frequent, I suspect the line is somewhat gray with regards to what constitutes a cigar bar that would be exempt from the smoking ban.
Cigar Bar Exceptions
Are there any places that are not required to comply with the smoke free law?
Yes. Cigar bars, tobacco specialty retail stores, and the gaming floors of casinos may be granted exemptions from the smoke free law.
How can my bar become a cigar bar?Cigar bars must file an affidavit for an exemption with the Michigan Department of Community Health on or before June 1, 2010 and must renew that exemption by January 31 of each subsequent year. The cigar bar must also meet the following requirements:
- Gross Revenue: The cigar bar must demonstrate that it generated 10% or more of its total gross annual income from the on-site sale of cigars and the rental of on-site humidors.
- Physically Separated: The cigar bar must be located on premises that are physically separated from any areas of the same or adjacent establishment in which smoking is prohibited. Physically separated means an area that is enclosed on all sides by any combination of solid walls, windows, or doors that extend from floor to ceiling. Smoke may not infiltrate into those nonsmoking areas.
- Humidor: The cigar bar must have an installed, on-site humidor. A humidor means an enclosure or fixture that is stationary and used for the humidification of cigars that is on the premises of the establishment.
- No Minors: The establishment must not allow individuals under the age of eighteen to enter during the time the cigar bar is open for business.
- Retail: The cigar bar must allow only the smoking of cigars on the premises that retail for over $1.00 per cigar.
- Cigars Only: The cigar bar must prohibit the smoking of all other tobacco products.
(The excerpt above is from the Michigan Smoke Free Law – Frequently Asked Questions document on the Michigan.gov website)
Exempt Bars & Restaurants that will Stay Cigar Friendly
I just started my guerrilla research (asking bar and restaurant owners how the smoking ban will affect them) last week. All of the infromation gathered here will be used to update the map on CigarPlaces.com so we can be certain that we have a good resource for finding cigar-friendly locations after May 1st, 2010.
- Fuse Lounge (Rochester, MI)
- Robusto’s Martini Lounge (Grosse Pointe Woods, MI)
- La Casa De La Habana (Detroit, MI)
- La Casa De La Habana (Plymouth, MI)
- La Casa De La Habana (Ann Arbor, MI)
- Churchills (West Bloomfield, MI)
- 1701 Executive Cigar Bar (Detroit, MI)
- Smokes On Burdick (Kalamazoo, MI)
- Sequoia Cigar Room at Redwood Lodge (Flint, MI)
- La Dolce Vita (Ann Arbor, MI)
- Belicoso Cafe (Wyandotte, MI)
- Stix Cigar & Martini Bar (Southgate, MI)
- Downtown Main Martini Bar (Brighton, MI)
- The Stables Martini & Cigar Bar (Bay City, MI)
- Got Rocks (at Big Rock Chophouse – Birmingham, MI)
- Camancho (at Comerica Park – Detroit, MI)
- Sue’s Coffee House (St. Claire, MI)
- Leaf, Barley & Vine (Brighton, MI)
- Corner Cigar Bar (West Bloomfield, MI)
Places That Could Stay Cigar Friendly
These need to be verified. If you have first-hand knowledge, please let us know!
- Got Rocks (at Big Rock Chophouse – Birmingham, MI) – CONFIRMED
- Ignite at MGM Casino (Detroit, MI)
- Rochester Chop House (Rochester, MI – Upstairs Cigar Bar)
If you know of a location that will still be cigar-friendly, please leave a comment and let me know; I’ll add it to the list. I’m hoping this post will help soften the blow that all of us cigar smokers will experience on May 1st.
EDITED: On April 6th to add the location’s from Mike’s comment.
EDITED: Visited Big Rock Chophouse on 4/9/2010 and confirmed that Got Rocks (the upstairs cigar/martini lounge) will be exempt and cigar-friendly. You can also now rent humidor space. Added Camancho at Comerica Park per Mike’s comment.
EDITED: Added Sue’s Coffee House in St. Claire Michigan and Leaf, Barley & Vine in Brighton Michigan to the list as confirmed cigar bars per Mike’s comments.
EDITED: Added Corner Cigar Bar in West Bloomfield on 5/13/10 per Mike’s recommendation.
