Tobacco Lounge Opens in Chicago

In the midst of a new smoking ban, R.J. Reynolds has opened a tobacco lounge in Chicago.

Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans, 1553 N. Milwaukee Ave., is the company's first venture linking cigarettes with connoisseurship usually associated with fine wines, cigars and whiskey.

Age-restricted to 21 or over, the lounge has a coffee shop atmosphere, with WIFI, board games, club chairs, sofas and a 44-foot bar. A staff of tobacconists run a hand-operated machine that rolls fresh filtered cigarettes at $8 a pack from nine "superpremium" blends under the Marshall McGearty name, featuring tobaccos from Zimbabwe, Brazil, the Mediterranean region and North Carolina. The brands have names like "The Virginian," "Muse" and "Oriental Rose." They come in artful boxes with a European flair.

A "state-of-the-art ventilation system exchanges the air every six minutes" at Marshall McGearty, according to the owners. Not that it matters.

"We are not under the clean-air ordinance," Stebbins said. "We are a tobacco retailer. Those provisions do not apply to us."

Sounds intriguing. I shall have to make a stop next time I'm down there.