Still Smokin'

The early afternoon sun sends a shaft of light into the smoke-filled room. Heads at the bar swivel, talk stops and cigars pause in mid-air for three or four heartbeats, long enough to take in the curiosity of a woman walking in.

Oddity noted, the regulars get back to their business, discussing politics, arguing over trivia and, most important, reveling in the joys of a good stogie.

At a time when smoke-filled rooms are frowned upon and rare, Edward's Pipe & Tobacco is an anachronism.

In this building, nondescript except for the huge pipe perched over the roof outside, it could be 1960 again, the year the business on Tampa's Henderson Boulevard was founded as a pipe tobacco emporium. Only the preferred smoking method-and the price tags on the cigars-have changed.

At Edward's, fathers still bring in their pubescent sons for a rite of passage-their first cigar.

"We have several generations now," says manager Gary Bahrenfus, who holds a fat log of a cigar between his own fingers.

South Tampa's movers and shakers also still drop by to cement alliances in the pungent fog. "You wouldn't believe the deals that are put together here," Bahrenfus says.

And the "Brain Trust," a group of six to nine regulars, still gathers in the back room, smoking, drinking coffee and bantering for most of the day, breaking only for lunch at a nearby eatery.

Edward's is an egalitarian place.

"We have judges and doctors and lawyers and landscapers and roofers," says Bahrenfus. "There are all walks of life here. You never know who you're going to be sitting next to."

Yet democratic it isn't.

"We find that most cigar smokers are conservative individuals, and those liberals who do come in here have very thick skins," notes Bahrenfus.

And, while a woman who loves a good cigar occasionally drops by, customers are overwhelmingly male.

"There's a lot of testosterone in here," Bahrenfus notes. "We get a lot of Type A's."

As though to prove the point, a man in an impeccably tailored blue cashmere blazer, cigar in one hand, cell phone pressed to his ear, rounds the corner to the register. Rocking from one foot to the other, then pacing a step or two backward and forward, he's in a hurry to pay, buy mints and have his cigar clipped, then lit, with the golden mini blow torch.

More typically, Bahrenfus says, customers come in not just to buy, but to linger over the $7 or $8 Macanudos, Partagas and Cohibas plucked from the giant humidor room.

"Cigar smoking is more enjoyable if you do it with someone," explains Bahrenfus. "You talk and watch the ash of the cigar grow. It's like a mini vacation."