Manitoba Club throws up smokescreen over cigar room

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2017 (3025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are smoke signals coming from the Manitoba Club.

Smoking signals, actually.

No, not cannabis.

Cigars.

Last Saturday night, before members gathered at the annual president’s gala, I caught the pungent scent of cigars in the future of the historic private club.

Word is the pricey private clubhouse is planning to build a cigar room on the top floor that’s used for storage.

If there’s another such private club smoking place in Canada, a search of some of the country’s similar posh places didn’t turn up even one.

As most Winnipeggers of certain age know, not so many years ago — before societal pressures and smoking laws dictated a change — the Manitoba Club was a men’s-only place where cigar-smoking was a signature element of the city’s original private man cave.

Women are welcome now — and a woman presides as club president this year — but one can imagine a private club cigar room as a place where gentlemen could go back to being among gentlemen; if not exclusively, at least the majority of the time.

But how in this world of legislated smoke-free indoor environments — where provincial law allows few specific exceptions — could even the likes of our establishment’s most established private place find a loophole for lighting up a hand-rolled Havana?

That was one of my questions.

So on Tuesday morning, after calling Manitoba Club general manager Graham Davis and not receiving a response, I dropped by to see if I could find him at the club.

He was there, but instead of inviting me into his office, he decided we should stand in the lobby.

Obviously this was going to be a short chat, so I got right to it. So what’s this about a cigar room being planned for the third floor?

Davis said he didn’t think it was at a stage where it was ready to be talked about.

No?

Before dropping by, I had done an online search of “Manitoba Club cigar” that turned up a page from the club’s website devoted in much detail to the subject Davis didn’t think it was time to talk about.

The website page opens, well, quite openly.

“The Manitoba Club is in the final stages of introducing a new and exciting benefit to membership in the club — Manitoba Club | Cigar. Manitoba Club | Cigar will be a brand-new space within the club dedicated to offering the finest quality cigar and cigar related products to Manitoba Club members. In addition to retail cigar sales and private humidor rentals, Manitoba Club | Cigar will include a 1,000-square-foot cigar-testing and sampling lounge.”

Of course, there will be a lounge. What would a good cigar be without a single malt to swirl and sip?

There would be an additional monthly cost of being a member of what amounts to a cigar club within the club.

But, for any non-member cigar aficionado who is feeling left out, there is comforting news.

As much as half of the seating will be available to club guests for private group use. At least that’s part of the plan. So is this:

“The new enterprise is expected to be ready for enjoyment in late 2018.” the website states about the topic that’s not ready to be talked about. The cigar room would, the website says, “be constructed with world-class air exchange technology.”

That top-floor world-class air exchange — I mused to myself — should put the construction cost through the roof.

Anyway, Davis acknowledged all of that publicly available private club news he said wasn’t ready to be talked about, but then put it another way; the club wasn’t at the point where a capital project was going to happen.

Davis wasn’t sure the plan “has legs,” as he put it.

No? Well, perhaps the reluctance to initiate a capital campaign — where presumably all members could be called upon to contribute — is because, as I was suggesting, cigar-smoking isn’t for everyone, so not everyone would be willing to make a contribution. Davis declined to comment on that possibility.

Whatever the case, the cigar crowd at the Manitoba Club is going about finding construction contributions in its own way.

“There are 20 opportunities for lead donors that make capital contributions of $10,000 to the construction of this unique new offering,” the website says.

“Donors will be recognized on a plaque that will be installed within the room. Donor plaques can be engraved with personal and/or corporate name(s). All donors that contribute at the $10,000 (or greater) level will receive a private humidor with no additional capital charge.”

Oh, as for how the Manitoba Club could legally build an indoor smoking place when Manitoba law generally forbids it, the hint is in something else stated on the club website: “Note that as per the Non-Smokers Health Protection Act and the conditions of the Tobacco Retail Sales Act, only cigar products sold by the Manitoba Club | Cigar space will be permitted to be tested and sampled within the space.”

In other words, organizers have located an exemption by creating it as a tobacconist store, wherein the law permits on-premises sampling of the cigars it sells.

How clever.

As a one-cigar-a-year smoker who enjoys the company of guys as much as the next guy, I wish the guys at the Manitoba Club well in their pursuit of creating a new private man cave within what was once the city’s most exclusive men-only cave.

Just one more thing.

You’ll find Davis’s name and contact information at the bottom of the cigar room website page where he is supposed to be taking “comments or questions.”

Maybe now he’ll be ready and open to talk, if you call.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca