Traverse City’s Tobacco Stalwart
If You Happen To Smoke Cigars, Thank Mike Nolan For Being Able To Do It Inside
Walking into a smoke-filled bar with ash trays on every table feels like stepping back in time, but that’s what you’ll find at Nolan’s Cigar Bar on Front Street in Traverse City.
Owner Mike Nolan wants his bar to be a place where people from all walks of life can relax with a cigar and a drink, feel at home and talk about anything they want, with the exception of "prejudiced and provincial remarks," according to the posted rules.
What you don't see amid the low smoky light, the upscale décor and the rows of top shelf Scotch and Irish whiskeys are the years of sweat and political toil that comprised the fight for the right to smoke a cigar in a place like this.
SMOKING BUSINESS EVOLVES
Business is good at Nolan’s, but it wasn’t always. The first dozen years after Nolan’s Tobacco opened in 1978 were a struggle. At the time, Nolan coached debate at Traverse City High School.
"We were a pipe store that sold a few cigars. Pipe smoking, for a variety of reasons, essentially went away," Nolan said.
Then, around 1990, cigars exploded.
"Nobody in the industry saw it coming," Nolan said. "We had a situation where we started doubling sales every year. We couldn’t get enough product."
For a while, there was a competing cigar store in Traverse City.
"The fact that I was here for a long time really allowed me to stay because I had relationships with the old manufacturers," he said.
"Some of the new stores that came in – we had a new store come in, for example, in town here – he couldn’t get any product and he eventually went out of business."
It turned out that the cigar boom was not just a fad. While cigar sales aren’t growing at the rate they did in the 1990s, they remain strong.
SMOKING PROHIBITION LOOMS
Just as Nolan was feeling secure about his business (he had stopped coaching debate in 1995, in part because he was too busy selling cigars), a cloud drifted over the controversial industry. It slowly became clear that a smoking ban was inevitable.
"You could see it because states started passing smoking bans," Nolan said. "It is something that mushroomed."
He said he supports a limited smoking ban, but he believes the dangers of secondhand smoke are overblown. Nolan sounds like a seasoned debate coach when he discusses secondhand smoke; get him going and he stacks up his arguments. He cites the late bestselling author Michael Crichton who, in addition to being a climate change denier, was also a denier of the dangers of secondhand smoke.
"His argument was if you want to ban smoking because you don’t like the smell of it, go ahead and do it," Nolan said. "But the fact of the matter is there is no scientific evidence, there really isn’t, that indicates that secondhand smoke is detrimental to an individual."
The Center for Disease Control disagrees. According to its website: "Secondhand smoke harms children and adults, and the only way to fully protect nonsmokers is to eliminate smoking in all homes, worksites, and public places." Nolan believes a smoking ban should also allow people the liberty to find indoor places to smoke if they want to, and he is opposed to outdoor prohibition.
"There’s no rational reason for an outdoor smoking ban except to say, "˜We don’t like examples set for kids.’ Well, if that’s true, then maybe you should ban Coca-Cola or Pepsi or McDonald’s," he said. "There are a series of things that set bad examples for people. You shouldn’t allow Kentucky Fried Chicken in the park because it’s not good for you."
NOLAN THE CHANGEMAKER
Nolan doesn’t like Michigan’s smoking ban, which took effect in 2010, but he was instrumental in ensuring a compromise was included that created cigar bars and allowed smoking in cigar stores. The exemptions only exist for tobacco stores that were already open when the law was passed.
There are 43 cigar bar licenses in the state and only 13 have opened, including Nolan’s. There are 110 "specialty tobacco shop" licenses, which allow smoking in stores, but don't allow drinks to be served.
"I think we’ve rested on a fairly difficult smoking ban," Nolan said. "I think people have used it as an attempt to control behavior they don’t particularly agree with."
Those licenses exist today because Nolan and a few others saw the ban coming and established the Michigan Cigar Association, which enabled tobacconists to pool resources to hire a lobbyist.
They knew they faced a formidable opponent, the American Lung Association, which took mounting evidence that showed smoking in bars and restaurants caused illness and death and used that to convince lawmakers to pass an outright ban.
"They refused to have public hearings. They passed the legislation in closed session overnight," Nolan said. "We had a very difficult time to even get our arguments in. We had to go to Lansing at the last minute and get our lobbying firm and talk to legislators on the phone at night before the House and the Senate opened for a vote on the legislation on a Friday morning."
Nolan said he received help from both parties, including Republicans Sen. Jason Allen and Rep. Howard Walker from Traverse City.
"The interesting thing about the smoking ban is the Republican-controlled House and Senate passed it," he said. "And we had support from Democrats and Republicans. I think there are a number of people who believe the legislation needs to be reasonable and thought out and talked about before it’s passed."
THE TAX FIGHT
After winning that concession, Nolan targeted his next cause: the 32-percent state tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes.
That tax killed high-end cigar sales in the state and drove them to the Internet, Nolan said.
"I made it a point to work for one hour a day on the tax cap," he said. "So, for one hour a day, I would either write a letter to someone at the state Senate or the House of Representatives or I’d call them on the phone. I’d do it right here in the store. I started doing it about 2010, right after the smoking ban went into effect."
His work paid off. The legislature passed a tax cap of 50 cents on premium cigars in 2012. Any cigar that costs over $1.55 is taxed flat at 50 cents. That change caused many Michigan cigar smokers to buy the product at stores in state, rather than purchase them online, where cigars are available without tax.
"Our stick sales, the number of cigars we’ve sold, has gone up 40 percent," Nolan said. "The state is, from the premium side of the business, collecting more money with the tax cap than it did prior to the tax cap."
Nolan said the tax cap and smoking exemptions saved cigar stores across the state.
"I’ve gone from two employees to nine as a result of the fact that I could sell more sticks and I’ve been able to have this exemption and open this bar," he said.
The experience left Nolan convinced that anyone can create political change if they work hard enough.
LIQUOR LICENSE STRUGGLE
Nolan said the next move might have been the most frustrating. In order to open a cigar bar, he needed approval from the Traverse City commission.
He learned of a cigar bar license owner downstate who was looking at property around Traverse City and wanted to open a cigar bar. Nolan realized he had to make a move in order to stay in business.
"I ran into a lot of hurdles," he said. "It took me a long time to even get on the city agenda. They wouldn’t even talk to me because there were some city staff people who felt that I shouldn’t be able to do what I was doing, even though it was perfectly legal."
Ultimately, he won approval in a 4–3 city commission vote.
"My attorney wrote them a letter which essentially said, "˜if you deny Nolan a license, you are denying it on the basis of the fact that you don’t like smoking and state law prohibits that, OK? He has a legal state smoking exemption. "¦ and, if you don’t issue him one, we’ll see you in court and I believe Mr. Nolan is going to retire on city money,’" Nolan said. "That’s essentially what he said."
Nolan’s Cigar Bar opened in January 2015. "I did not think I was treated very fairly by some members of the city commission," he said. "In fact, I was very hurt by it. I’ve always been very active in this community in terms of volunteering time; I’m a former Boy Scout leader.
I have raised personally, with the help of some other people, over a million dollars for the Father Fred Foundation through our charity cigar dinner every year. I have gone out of the way."
FATHER FRED’S CIGAR DINNER
The annual Father Fred charity cigar dinner was almost another casualty of the smoking ban.
"We spent a great deal of time talking to the state attorney general," Nolan said. "I was able to use friendships that people in town had with both the governor and the state attorney general "¦ and they talked to them and explained to them a legal path for that exemption to occur," Nolan said.
The event took place in May, but only with some strenuous conditions: It had to take place outdoors; Nolan’s cigar bar license had to be put in escrow on the day of the event; he had to close his store; and he had to pay a $250 license transfer fee to the state.
"The state required that we fill out a ton of paperwork, which proved that the proceeds went to the charity, and we did," he said. "We’re not entirely finished with money coming in from the event, but we’re well over $130,000 raised for this year’s dinner."
The cigar dinner is a significant source of funding for Father Fred, said Deb Haase, the foundation’s executive director.
During the two years the event was not held, the nonprofit that provides food and resources for those in need found other funding, but it was a struggle.
"He is probably one of the most generous people that I have had the pleasure of meeting," Haase said of Nolan. "The amount of work that goes into the event is just mind-blowing."
AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW
Not everyone is happy Nolan won the cigar exemptions and has caused the cigar business to thrive in Michigan.
Lisa Danto, the local representative of the American Lung Association, has sparred with Nolan over smoker’s rights versus public health for years.
"She’ll give you a very different picture," Nolan said. "She doesn’t like me very much."
Danto laughed when she heard Nolan’s position that there is no scientific consensus that secondhand smoke is harmful.
"We haven’t heard that statement said in about 30 years," Danto said. "It’s just so untrue."
Danto said the cigar bar exemption was a necessary compromise to get the smoking ban passed. She said cigar smoking is dangerous and can cause mouth and throat cancer, but the important thing was getting cigarette smoking banned in bars and restaurants for the sake of public health.
She said she supports the Father Fred Foundation, but she hopes they find another fundraiser to bolster their bottom line.
"I’d rather that they find other ways to make money," Danto said. "I would go if there wasn’t cigar smoke."
A PILLAR AMONG TOBACCONISTS
In the tobacco world, Nolan is a rock star. His efforts on behalf of tobacco shops and cigar smokers were significant; if he had not worked so hard, it’s unclear whether anyone else would have filled the void, said Chris Rosenthal, owner of Tobacco Rose Cigars in Ann Arbor.
"I honestly don’t know if we’d be where we are now with the smoking ban and the cigar tax if it wasn’t for him taking charge of a situation that needed to be taken charge of," Rosenthal said.
Tom Lazuka, co-founder of Asylum Cigars who’s known Nolan for a dozen years, said Nolan is an important leader in the state’s tobacco industry.
"Mike’s had a major role in the state legislative process, for sure," Lazuka said. "He’s kind of been the leader to organize the Michigan organization."
The smoking ban exemption and the tax cap for cigars were crucial for the state’s cigar shops.
The smoking ban "just would have destroyed the business for a good part of the year in Michigan" because people don’t want to smoke cigars outside in the winter, Lazuka said. He said the tax cap is "a huge deal for cigar smokers in Michigan because it kept them buying in state, instead of online."
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