I don't like the subject of this post but there's no denying the facts.
In Tuesday's edition of the Daily News, I read this article that is part of a special supplement focusing on businesses north of Boston.
Newburyport staff reporter Stephen Tait profiled Maytag Appliance in Salisbury, for instance, whereas Charles Frost profiled Two Guys Smoke Shop, a New Hampshire chain with locations in Seabrook and Salem. (I recognize Frost is not based in Newburyport but he's part of the corporate reporting staff out of Andover or Haverhill or such.)
Two Guys Smoke Shop offers strictly cigars, specifically premium, hand-rolled cigars, said [owner Roy] Kirby, who adamantly said that he does not sell cigarettes.
This is my first beef. Why does Kirby insist he doesn't sell cigarettes, and why is that an issue to Frost to keep in the article?
Aren't both men aware of the cigar smoking facts distributed by the National Cancer Institute? It doesn't matter whether one is smoking a cigar or a cigarette; inhalation may be less with a cigar but tobacco and nicotine levels are higher than in a cigarette.
Kirby said a lot of his business comes from word of mouth as well as television and newspaper advertising. He noted that a large contingent of his customers come from Massachusetts where residents realize that they can go to New Hampshire and avoid paying tax.
I'm all for the press to publicize businesses, but aren't we going too far to advocate cigar smoking residents of Newburyport need to cross state lines to avoid paying taxes?
"I have a lot of regular customers that come in on a regular basis who hang around in the store and smoke cigars," Kirby said. "I've seen a lot of newer customers. With warmer weather, there is a whole new emergence of people."
Great, now younger wannabe smokers will want to experience the so-called pleasures of cigar smoking. What kind of role model is the Daily News setting for Newburyport youth, whom the BEACON Coalition is trying to ween off smoking?
Not seen online, but in the print version, there is a quarter-page advertisement by the smoke shop that appears several pages before Frost's story. So, not only is the paper promoting (underage) smoking but it's accepting ad revenue too.
6 comments:
Just few points about your post First of all smoking is legal and dangerous. If anyone choses to smoke dispite the constant barage of info tellng us just how dangerous it is, well they're just stupid.
They have ever right to be that stupid.
I very much doubt if any youth is choosing to take up cigars because of a buisness profile in the daily news.
Also Charles Frost works out of the Daily News, and as far as corperate reporters out of Andover or Haverhill, you are simply misinformed.
I'm a nonsmoker.
Thanks, I stand corrected regarding Mr. Frost.
Well thank you, anonymous, for granting me the right to be stupid, but I beg to differ with your main point. Anything that in any way "glamorizes" smoking is going to lure a young, impressionable person in.
The Daily News has every right to do a story on anything it chooses - but in this environment it has become less than prudent to publicize nicotine-related endeavors.
And this "advertorial" swing in the media (exchanging a story for an ad) is disturbing to me.
Ari, this is America, not Cambridge.
I'm willing to wager a day's blog wages that very few impressionable youngsters read the Daily News' North of Boston Business supplement.
Just a hunch.
That said, it's a legal business. Leave the role model selection to the parents. Otherwise you could find reasons not to write about most businesses: bakeries-obesity, car dealers-global warming, wine shops/restaurants-alcholism, convenience stores-gambling, etc., etc.
Anonymous,
Whoa! - wait - you don't think a large concentration of highly educated but sometimes wacky people is American?
Last time I looked, though, the hotbed of un-Americanism that you probably meant to cite is Brookline, which was the first to ban smoking anywhere outside a private home, even on the street. That was in the 1980s and people were still puffing away to their hearts' content in Cambridge for a number of years afterwards.
There is a reason why you don't see ads for tobacco products anymore, you know. Maybe you are all too young to remember when they were all over the place, or when they were outlawed IN ALL OF AMERICA.
THAT being said (I did not read the piece, by the way), I could not find one article on line about cigar bars that had a "Hey, isn't this great?" angle, even when it was in a business section.
Not saying it's right - just saying it is what it is.
Smoking=very, very bad; overeating=still fairly good, for now; alcohol=hey, prohibition was repealed! etc.
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