CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING - It seems hard to believe that thenationwide enthusiasm for cigar smoking has finally taken off inSan Francisco - the anti-smoking capital of the America, indeed ofthe world. In a successful effort to get around draconian citylaws, clubs and bars are opening up cigar rooms where patrons canswill a brandy and enjoy a smoke. Restaurants in particular havebeen quick to offer their customers an alterative place to have abetween course cigarette instead of directing them out onto thepavement.
But there's no smoke without ire in San Francisco. The citycouncil has gone apoplectic over the new passion - the same cityadministration, please note, that turns a blind eye to the dailydistribution of 'medical' marijuana at the Cannabis Club downtown -and has marshalled all its resources to 'combat the slick marketingcampaign' being operated by the industry and the new clubs, saidAlyonick Hrushow for the council. But their efforts results leftlocals wondering throughout January. Signs appeared around the citydeclaring, 'cigars - they look like what they smell like, don't putthem in your mouth'. What exactly do cigars look like? Dog shitapparently. A cable ad in which a dog sniffs languorously at adiscarded butt before disdaining it provided the punchline.
Hrushow makes the naffness of the ads seem deliberate bydeclaring that it is essential to rob cigars of their chic imagebecause the campaigns are deliberately 'targeting young women', anaccusation always guaranteed to get a reaction. She cites aninstance of a club which gives away free cigars to women on certainnights and points to ads featuring women smoking.JT's Bistro is located halfway between clubland on VanNess andtheatreland on Geary. I'm ushered upstairs to the cigar room by ablack-clad hostess who, after only the briefest hesitation, assuresme that plenty of women smoke cigars. The room upstairs iscertainly cosy and the decoration is definitely male-centered inthat it looks like a cross between a gentleman's club and abordello: red leather sofas, and mock-croc wall covering, chineselamps and tiger skin floor covering. George Hamilton once gave aparty here. Are you getting the drift? The magazines are GQ, SportsCar and Robbs Report. There are a couple of lawyers and an expro-footballer talking and smoking. When the waitress comes overthey make suggestive jokes, then they ask me my name and thefootballer says I remind him of someone he knows. There is only oneother woman in the room and she is very young, very pretty and veryquiet. She is not smoking a cigarDare I say it but according to the evidence of my eyes, nomilestone of liberation or devilish new form of exploitation istaking place in the cigar rooms. Yes, women are encouraged to gothere. But the answer to what lies behind the clubs' marketingstrategy is a great deal simpler. Think Flake ad. A picture of asexy young woman with a big, fat cigar in her mouth. How could wehave missed it?
