Cigar Bar opens at WDW's Pleasure Island

[Tom Morrow]

Cigar Bar opens at WDW's Pleasure Island



What's smoking at Downtown Disney (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_orlando/2007/06/whats-smoking-a.html)
Orlando Sentinel - FL

Stepped into the latest addition at Pleasure Island, Fuego by Sosa Cigars, and took a deep breath. It's not exactly fresh air in a cigar bar, but in this case it's rare air: a place you can smoke and drink "on property." Vices reunited!

Before I could catch that breath, I was greeted by the front man who reeled off their offerings: cigars, cigarettes, liquor, coffee. The place looks slick, especially the bar proper, which resembles a melting-ice slab. It's realistic enough force me want to touch it. (It wasn't cold.) Also eye-catching are the fiery back-lit tobacco leaves up and behind the bar. It seats about 30, but with the high ceilings, it didn't feel claustrophobic.

The bar is located in what I could call the Pleasure Island DJ booth, facing the Mannequins/Ragland Road side.

The Sosa family and Disney go back a while. They have operated the cigar shop over on the West End of Downtown Disney for 10 years.
complete article (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_orlando/2007/06/whats-smoking-a.html)




Sent from Ezra (http://www.visionsfantastic.com/forum/z/Ezra/)

[PeoplemoverMatt]

Another reason for me to stay far far FAR away from that place.

-- PMM :cool:

[ryguy222]

*sigh* another place for dads to sneak away to on family trips...

[CostaFreak]

Wow, I can imagine what can come of this.

Boy: "Daddy, how did you become an alcoholic and cigar addict?"

Dad: "Well you see, I was on my honeymoon with your mother at WDW when I decided to sneak off to a new bar that opened in Downtown Disney."

Boy: "And why do I have a half brother?"

Now there's places in the most "magical place on earth" where stuff like this can happen. *sigh*

[crystaltink]

Cigars I don't mind. I'll have one on occasion, maybe once or twice a year in memory of my brother. But the cigarettes I can't handle. My asthma goes bananas. Shame, another place people have to veer from if their lungs close up. It's not a great feeling.

[ryguy222]

I don't care about Cigars but having them on Disney Property sure is good for kids. I know its on pleasure island but still.

[Executioner]

Cigar bars are not that bad..... They are actually a very pleasant place to go sometimes. Depending on the cigar, the smell is very nice sometimes. I prefer the smell of pipe tobacco over cigar tobacco. And it's not a bar as many people think a bar is. They don't pour pitchers of beer and hand out cigars or mix drinks and dance. It's more of a distinguished place. Calm and full of conversations. They do usually serve brandy's because they go well with a cigar and help compliment the flavor. Here again, it is all preference if you are into smoking or not. And I was under the notion that Pleasure Island was more of an adult place anyway... Am I wrong? If so.... I really don't see the problem.

[debijeanm]

My husband smoked a pipe until his dental hygienist told him the cleaning of his teeth wouldn't hurt so much if he stopped smoking. Then he went to the occasional cigar. Until the kids came along, and then he smoked nothing. Ever again. I have never smoked. We tried our darndest to educate our kids about the dangers of smoking, especially since the ONLY people in my family who have ever died of cancer were the cigarette smokers (and they tended to die young, like my cousin at 37 leaving three children under the age of 10.) So, I am absolutely devastated that both of my sons smoke cigarettes. They didn't get it from home, they got it from being in environments (mostly the music scene) that told them it was cool, hip, definitely OK to smoke. Which is why I think it's very sad that Disney not only promotes smoking in places like this, but in movies as well. It sends a message to kids that it's OK to smoke. Maybe not now, but you can look forward to when you get big and you can come to Pleasure Island and smoke with the big guys.

And you know what happened to Pinocchio on Pleasure Island.

[Executioner]

Yes true but then shouldn't we also then get rid of all alcoholic drinking establishments in all the Disney resorts as well? It's just as bad.

[Sesshomaru-sama]

I wouldn't mind the drinking as long as there is a limit. I mean, who would like to spend time with a drunk?

Smoking, however, I think is extremely disgusting. I hope I would never be tempted to smoke.

Sincerely, a brother of a half-demon,
Sesshomaru-sama

[ryguy222]

Yes true but then shouldn't we also then get rid of all alcoholic drinking establishments in all the Disney resorts as well? It's just as bad.
Yes but alcohol doesn't contain nicotine. Yes people can get drunk, but people can also get addicted to nicotine.

[ttztotdca50]

But people can get addicted to alcohol.

And I'm staying outta this touchy topic!

[Executioner]

I am in no means trying to bash anyone by this but people are addicted to alcohol as well as food, gambling, gum, driving, work... The list goes on. Anyway you slice it, if your addicted to it and it is hurting you, it's bad. Alcohol is by far addictive and thats why AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings are so abundant. As well As NA meetings. People are more upset only because it's a smoking establishment, but a bar or night club is ok. Yet most of the people that go to bars and night clubs also smoke and go outside to the smoking section. So bars also draw smokers to them. Yet a bar is not seen as a bad thing but this seems to be. Yet it only seats 30 people about. Not a big place at all for a crowd. So where do we draw the line at what is good and or bad? So we can take our kids to DL and shower them in candy, giving them a sugar rush of a lifetime or feed them whatever we think is fit or they might want at the time that you normally might not even feed your kids to begin with and not feel dazed by that, yet a Cigar bar being built in an area mainly for adults is seen as a negative thing. I am trying to see what is worse? And last I knew... this was America where the choice of not going somewhere or listening to something or running a business was what we wanted. Land of the Free right? I really don't think this cigar bar will have much impact on people not wanting to visit WDW because of that.

[ryguy222]

You can get addicted to anything, but what im saying is nicotine is meant to get you addicted to something, if you put it in brocoli and give it to a kid who hates it he'll get addicted to it no matter what.

[PeoplemoverMatt]

The biggest beef with this is that Pleasure Island is situated between the West Side and Marketplace areas of Downtown Disney, and there is no advertised route between them except through Pleasure Island. That means EVERYONE walks through PI, kids & adults alike.

The only time age comes into play is that minors can not ENTER any of the clubs, but they are still fully exposed to all the outside hoopla that goes on outside the clubs. Minors are also exposed to the type of people coming in & out of those clubs, which I don't think is healthy either. At best, it puts parents in the awkward position of having to explain everything to the kid. Lots of behavior in PI should not be encouraged to minors to participate in once they're old enough. Drinking, smoking, & going to raunchy dance clubs is not a healthy thing to do at any age & the last thing we should be showing our children as a good, clean, fun thing to do as if it was like going to a baseball game or something.

-- PMM :cool:

[mickey mouse]

Eww! I don't care what they are they shoulden't have anything to do with smoking anywhere at the Disney Resorts.

[Brer Fox]

I don't need nicotine to get addicted to disneyland:P

[disneyfreak59]

^haha true brer fox

but they already HAVE a cigar place! Why do they NEED another...that includes drinking and reg smoking! What parent wants their kid to be exposed to that at such a young age?! ug...