International Worker's Day

Rolling out the Red Carpet Smoke Shop story

This is a profile of a local shopkeep that I wrote for my journalism class in the fall. It's a little cheezy but it gets better towards the end. You can check out the store online at http://www.redcarpetsmokeshop.com


“That’ll be one-thousand, three-hundred-and-fifty-two cents with the tariff, please,” says a practiced yet keen voice from behind a glass counter-case. “May I provide for you a brown paper bag and matches?”

And so the 56 year legacy of the Red Carpet Smoke Shop is kept aflame. Packed into its small sub-street-level nook at 108 ½ Waterman St., it has provided smokers with tradition and tobacco at that location since 1960. According to the voice behind the counter, it is the oldest retailer in the Thayer Street community.

That voice is owner and “60-hours-a-week” employee Eric Chaika. He finds it “hard to say” when he inherited the store from his grandfather Harry Ostrach, who founded it in North Kingston in 1948. The store later moved to Lippitt Hill before settling at its present location.

Mr. Chaika is a short, middle-aged man with receding grey-brown hair, a robust face, and thickly framed glasses. Years of smoking have not done to Mr. Chaika’s voice what one might assume they should have. It has become warm, careful, and mellowed like one of his blends, and seems to have gained a distinction with the aging process that is so important to the quality of a cigar. Mr. Chaika, however, refuses to give his exact age. He admits that he attended college without graduating, although he declines to say where. His reticence about his own history is calm and professionally polite.

Yet, as any customer of Mr. Chaika may notice, there is one topic that gets him talking ardently – and that is, of course, tobacco. He speaks of it with an overwhelming extent and precision that reflects his expertise.

For instance, here is what goes into the quality and cost of a cigar, according to Mr. Chaika: “It is the intrinsic quality of the tobacco – that is to say, how well that tobacco has been grown, which is an intensive, hand-laborious operation. Secondly, how well and for how long has that tobacco been cured. Curing is a hands-on process in tobacco, involving not only simple aging, but fermentation as well – primary fermentations, secondary fermentations – and further aging, which is also a process of chemical change, but not in as dramatic or violent a way as fermentation is. The more time you are taking and the more hands you have touching the leaf, the higher your cost basis for that leaf is, and therefore the more you have to get out of it. In addition, the degree of workmanship involved – if the cigar is made entirely by hand – rolled in a method called entubular – it takes a longer period of time to roll and therefore will command a higher price due to the fact that your cost basis is again higher. If you’re taking leaves, booking them, and folding them, you might be able to roll 350, 375 cigars a day. If you’re rolling a fancy shape entubular, you might only be able to roll as few as 75. So these are the factors that go into a price of a cigar – or that should go into the price of a cigar… There is such a thing as good value and there is such a thing as bad value – in other words, a cigar that is selling the glitz rather than the substance.”

Sometimes it is a little much to take it in all at once - a trip to his shop may sometimes turn into a tutoring session – Mr. Chaika prides himself on his ability to educate. He quite literally lives and breathes tobacco, and it has been that way all of his life. He says that he started working with his grandfather when he “was a little boy.” He speaks of his grandfather fondly, and to him he attributes the foundation of his knowledge and wisdom.

“Experience is always the best teacher,” he notes sagely.
A relic of Mr. Ostrach sits on a shelf in a case near the register. It is a white meerschaum pipe about 20 inches long, carved with two beautiful rearing horses on either side of a giant decorated bowl.

“Meerschaum is a mineral thought to be of organic origin – thought to be a tiny prehistoric creature somewhat like our present-day coral – which substance was compressed with the buckling of the earth’s crust with the sea-beds, subjected to pressure to form meerschaum, then reemerged closer to the surface of the earth, with the subsequent buckling of the earth’s crust,” Mr. Chaika lectures. “Today it’s mined in the Anatolian plateau of Asia Minor. Depths of about, oh, five-hundred feet or so. Found in veins of clay. Very unusual to find a block of large enough size to carve a pipe like that. It’s a true rarity. He loved that pipe… That one’s not for smoking.”

From working closely with his grandfather, Mr. Chaika also learned the value of establishing a reputation based on careful service and substance of product.
“I can bring to the table a bit more knowledgeability, a bit more ability to serve and to suit to taste than is commonly available… The way you stay around is by providing at least 16 ounces to the pound. We haven’t changed a whole hell of a lot in 40-some-odd years,” he says.

That is not to say that all of Mr. Chaika’s experience in the tobacco industry has always been on the retail end of things.

“At one time, I also worked for Alfred Dunhill of London, in their luxury tobaccos and pipes and other products. At one time I was the youngest white-collar employee [there]... I’ve also attended Cigar University in the Dominican Republic. I’ve also been at the fields – the fields, the factories, the curing rooms. I’ve taken flavor courses. But my single best teacher was my grandfather.”

This is evident as one ventures down the stairs and through the doors of the shop. One is not only surrounded by wispy, aromatic white fumes but also by a solid sense of tradition that, more often than not, is forgotten in our modern, novelty-hungry world. Over time, Mr. Chaika has strived to stay true to a traditional atmosphere and an old-fashioned, sociable way of doing business.

Nonetheless, smoking has changed since the years Mr. Ostrach first started selling tobacco, when pipes were a familiar sight in public, and smoking advertisements interrupted radio and television programs – that is, if one was lucky enough to have a television.

Currently the only tobacco-related advertisements on television are produced by anti-smoking campaigns. Across the nation, smoking is becoming prohibited in public places such as restaurants, bars, banks, malls, and museums. Moreover, this is generally indicative of a greater cultural shift in which smoking is becoming increasingly taboo.
With these changes, the tobacco industry, from the growers to the wholesalers to the retailers, “has experienced a great deal of consolidation. It has experienced a great deal more government regulation – a great deal more taxation,” Mr. Chaika says. “You have to adapt. You have to realize a whole lot more of your time is going to be spent in terms of bookkeeping and record-keeping. You have to deal with all kinds of really – really, really silly stuff.”

Yet despite the increased pressure, Mr. Chaika is not very worried about his own business.

“Does taxation affect things? It certainly does. Does increased regulation and limited venues to smoke in? Of course it does,” he says. “But there are still those who enjoy high-quality tobacco products. And there is still sufficient demand from those who enjoy high-quality tobacco products to enable a specialist like me to exist… That makes us something of a destination.”

That is not to say, however, that Mr. Chaika has not been affected by the changes.

“Does that mean we have to draw in a large market? It certainly does. That’s why each and every one is valuable,” he says slowly. “I don’t care whether you’re – as long as you’re of legal age – I don’t care whether you’re a lawyer, a plumber, a ditch digger, a laborer – whatever you are – I mean you have to be treated with a great deal of individual attention, and a great deal of willingness to suit what your particular tastes may be.”
It is this individual attention that keeps Mr. Chaika’s customers coming back again and again.

“Ninety percent of our business is regular customers – maybe more than ninety percent,” he says.

Just now, one of them steps into his shop.

“Sir – filters?” Mr. Chaika asks him.
“Yes – couple of packs. You got them?”
“Two?”
“Yes. You know, I didn’t know that mind reading was one of your many talents,” the customer quips.
“I’m telling you – if you’re a married man, you’ve got to learn… Four dollars, seven cent – you know what they say: ‘Easy come, easy go.’ I disagree with half of that statement.”
Any time one enters his shop, one may find Mr. Chaika conversing with a customer or two, all of them puffing away. The one seat in the shop is not hidden behind the counter, but rather proffered in front of it on the soft carpet – red, of course – so that anyone may come inside and enjoy a little respite from the rat-race, and a little safe haven from clean-air militants.

And what does Mr. Chaika enjoy about smoking?

There is a long, meditative pause.

“I find that tobacco can provide a great deal of flavor, a great deal of relaxation.”

The phone rings, but is ignored, as Mr. Chaika thinks silently, his eyes closed.

“I find it can be a… slower paced… and calming… sort of ritual.”

He speeds up: “I mean, what do I like? I plain like the taste of good tobacco. I mean that’s a big thing, but in addition, if you’re filling your pipe, you’re packing your pipe, you’re lighting it, you’re smoking it slowly – it lends itself to being more contemplative – it lends itself to slowing down – it lends itself to thinking.

“Likewise, with a cigar, I mean you can really unwind with a cigar. You’re enjoying, you know, the rather visceral pleasures of the flavors, but there’s also that aspect where it’s… it’s… I don’t know how to phrase it… There’s a certain magic…

“You slow down, you’re not so hyper. We’re living in a very, very hyper world. Which isn’t human, by the way. We’re not really designed for it.”

1st post

howdy doody
if you're reading this, you are too close
so back off
picture this, cross your eyes, take off your contacts, take out your glasses
lets the blurs word together and forget what you heard before you hear it
that is the only way to take this junk seriously