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Cutting deals -- both backstage and on the convention floor -- at a NATIONAL cigar convention in New Orleans
Jump to full article: Gambit Weekly, 2009-09-08
Author: KEVIN ALLMAN
Intro: THIS IS A SMOKE-FREE FACILITY" is emblazoned on every door leading into Hall A of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, but step inside and you're transported back to a world where no one blinked at ashtrays on every table and a corona of blue haze in the air. It's the annual convention of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR), and for five days in August the 5,000-strong group transformed the convention center and meeting rooms in the Hilton Riverside into the testosterone-filled world of Mad Men, where no smoking was replaced by no apologies.
And it was all made possible — and legal — by the Louisiana Smoke-Free Air Act of 2007.
The statewide legislation, which banned smoking in most public places except bars and casinos, contains a unique clause — specifically exempting "convention facilities during the time such facilities are being used for professional meetings and trade shows which are not open to the public that are produced or organized by tobacco businesses or convenience store associations." (The law also exempted Mardi Gras krewes.) Despite the convention center's own rules, which state, "Smoking is prohibited at all times in all areas of the MCC," the Smoke-Free Air Act held the loophole that allowed the conventioneers to puff away at will.
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