Claiming status as cigar bar

Some businesses seeking exemption from smoke ban

Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 3, 2006 at midnight

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Only a handful of businesses can continue to allow people to smoke indoors, despite efforts of some bars and strip clubs to exempt themselves from a statewide smoking ban, a state representative said Wednesday.

Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, said a memorandum issued this week by the Office of Legislative Legal Services spelled out the requirements to qualify as a cigar bar, a status some businesses are claiming in order to allow patrons to continue smoking.

Larson said he requested the legislative research after he heard that two bars in Montrose and one in Durango were still allowing smoking because they claimed cigar-bar status.

To qualify as a cigar bar, a business needs to prove at least 5 percent or $50,000 of its revenue came from the sale of tobacco products during the year ending Dec. 31, 2005, according to the "Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act" passed earlier this year.

The 5 percent or $50,000 had to come strictly from tobacco sales - not including cigarettes from vending machines - "and the rental of on-site humidors," the memo issued on Monday emphasized.

The Legal Services office said the emphasis was added to make clear to businesses that part of their 5 percent or $50,000 also came from humidors, not just tobacco sales. Otherwise, businesses would "create a loophole contrary to the clearly stated purposes of the Act."

The exemption was meant strictly for about a half-dozen cigar bars across the state who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on humidors to keep cigars at high quality, Larson said.

"That's it in a nutshell. (Cigar bars) were genuinely in the business of selling cigar tobacco," he said.

Strip clubs in the metro area that continue to allow smoking probably don't qualify as cigar bars, he said. "I know strip clubs are hot and steamy, but they don't have humidors," he said.

Shotgun Willie's, the Diamond Cabaret, and PT's Show Club at 1601 W. Evans Ave., have humidors, but that doesn't convince Larson that they're cigar bars.

But John Soto, a spokesman for VCG Holdings Corp., which owns the Diamond Cabaret, said the club easily met the financial threshold to be classified as a cigar bar.

"We feel very confident," Soto said. "It's not like we just barely made it; we made it by leaps and bounds."

Larson said the cigar-bar status is a "self-exempting" provision in the law, meaning any business could claim they are a cigar bar "until somebody challenges them."

In Durango's case, the district attorney's office told Orio's Roadhouse to stop smoking, and they have, Larson said. Now, the bar may choose to go to court and ask for a judge's interpretation of the law, he said.

They likely won't be the last to seek a judge's ruling as officials continue to weigh what constitutes a cigar bar.

"It may take a while to sort out," said Gene Hook, a spokesman with the Denver Department of Environmental Health. Hook said his office is still trying to figure out who is in compliance with the cigar-bar exemption and how to monitor and enforce violations.

"It's going to be interesting," he said.

morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2895

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