THE LAST NIGHT YOU COULD LEGALLY SMOKE IN A BAR
The picture was shot through a haze of cigar smoke that would soon be cleared by impending legislation.
It was taken at Toronto’s Drake Hotel on May 30, 2006 — the last day that Perry Dolente, or anyone else, could legally light up tobacco products in an Ontario bar.
“Oh yeah, I remember that picture well . . . I talk about it all the time,” Dolente says a decade later. “I have it in my office and in my bar (at home). I have them framed and hung.”
Yet each time the Toronto developer sees the photo — taken by the Star’s Rick Eglinton at the Queen St. W. landmark — a little ember of anger sparks up.
“What I don’t understand and will never accept is the hypocrisy of the Ontario government that will sell cigars gladly, collect the huge tax revenues . . . and yet tell people: ‘Don’t you dare smoke them anywhere,’ ” Dolente says.
“If you’re going to be so anal, then ban cigar sales in Ontario.”
Dolente often speaks passionately and derisively about the sweeping 2006 bans. The law, known as the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, outlawed most designated smoking rooms, which had sprung up to get around existing municipal laws. The bans have since been extended to outdoor patios.
He argues, among other things, that the laws prohibit the elegant cigar lounges that grace many cosmopolitan centres — facilities that would help legitimize Toronto’s own “world class” claims.
“You go to London, Rome, and I’ve been . . . New York, I’ve been, Miami, go down the list,” Dolente says.
“All of them have dedicated cigar clubs and cigar lounges. The ones in London will take your breath away. Even Detroit, which is essentially a bankrupt city, has some of the nicest cigar lounges you’ve ever seen. It just peeves me.”
Dolente offers another irritant from this city. “It’s funny, cigar smoking apparently must be very, very bad for you . . . yet medical marijuana dispensaries are reaching the 125 number,” he says.
“We have more dispensaries for marijuana than we do Pizza Pizzas. But cigars are kryptonite.”
But back to the night and the picture. Eglinton shot it with a long lens from across the room and then approached Dolente to get his name.
“He said to me . . .‘I’m just admiring how you’re so enjoying that cigar,’ ” Dolente recalls. “And I was.”
Indeed, Dolente says the atmosphere at the Drake was more celebratory than gloomy. The evening was dubbed the Last Big Smoke party, with stogies supplied free to Drake patrons by five cigar companies.
Much as he still enjoys them — mostly in his backyard — cigars are not a regular habit for Dolente. And he abhors cigarettes and does not advocate smoking of any kind in restaurants or workplaces.
“But you should be able to go out and enjoy a cocktail and a cigar. Now Toronto’s idea of a cigar lounge is five guys huddled on a cold frozen bench.”