'. . . but a good cigar is a smoke'
10:47 PM 8/18/03
Doug Erickson Wisconsin State Journal

It's noon at Capital Cigars in Downtown Madison and there's not a whiff of fresh air to be found.

Four men are smoking inside the store - two of them under 30, including clerk Dave Karrow, an apple-cheeked college student barely out of short pants.

Between puffs, he twirls his La Gloria Cubana stogie approvingly in his left hand. "They're works of art, really," he says.

Karrow, 21, has been smoking cigars for years, part of what has been described as a boomlet in young cigar aficionados.

According to industry magazine Smokeshop's most recent survey, 23 percent of cigar customers are 22 to 34 years old, marking an upturn after two years of decline among that age group. The youngsters outpuff 50- to 64-year-olds by a couple of percentage points.

Cigar sales, in general, continue to rise. In 1993, about 2.1 billion large cigars were consumed, according to federal figures cited by the Cigar Association of America. Nearly a decade later, consumption had doubled, to 4.2 billion large cigars in 2002.

At Knuckleheads, a Madison tobacco and gift store at 550 State St., clerk Dave Ritter, 24, estimates that 20 percent or more of the shop's cigar sales are to customers under age 35. Ritter smokes cigars, too, usually when he's with friends at a bar. "You just kind of get the urge for oral fixation. The cigar is the way to go because you don't have the inhaling thing."

Juliana Hertel, 20, a junior at UW-Madison, said she and her three female roommates began smoking an occasional cigar last fall on their apartment balcony as a fun distraction.

"They're a little more unique than cigarettes, which are everywhere on campus, and there's definitely a more classy image that goes with it," she said.

Women make up 22 percent of cigar smokers, a number that's been dropping the last two years, according to Smokeshop. Hertel said she smokes once a month at the most and doesn't want it to become a habit.

Karrow said he thinks flavor drives the cigar trend. "Cigarette smokers smoke because they need nicotine. Cigar smokers smoke because they like the taste."

Yet anti-tobacco advocates warn that cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes. "The sad reality is that even tobacco delivered in occasional doses has been associated with health risks," said Dr. Michael Fiore of the UW Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Cigar smokers are particularly susceptible to cancer of the mouth, jaw and tongue, he said.

Joel Schuster, 28, an accountant, considers the four to 10 stogies he smokes weekly a moderate quantity. He jokes that his cigar smoking is the least of his bad habits. He gathers every Monday evening with a handful of friends at Maduro, a Madison cigar bar at 117 E. Main St.

"When it's hot outside and it's a beautiful night and you're with friends, it just seems like a cigar fits," he said. "There's a little bit of that mid-1950s Havana sort of feel."

Lini S. Kadaba, a reporter with Knight Ridder Newspapers, contributed to this report.