[cmitch]

Originally Posted by Brian D.

This a funny topic for me to stumble across today. This morning I was at the B&M in downtown Cincinnati. (As you may know, tobacconist shops in Ohio are about the only legal places to smoke indoors nowadays. Anyhow, this sometimes leads to..uh, an interesting mix of non-customers coming in merely to be out of the cold.)

A scruffy guy of the above type comes in and sits down for a few minutes. He was not in anybody's way but the employees were keeping an eye on him, so was I for that matter. He said nothing until he saw that my mostly-smoked cigar was perched in the ashtray. His question was "Are you gonna finish that?". I replied that I indeed would be finishing it. That's when the employees told him that it was time to go.

Several minutes later, after said stogie was done and at the bottom of the ashtray, covered with ashes and no longer lit, same gent popped in long enough to swipe it.

Thankfully this is not a frequent occurence there. This thread does make it seem like some of you might have been much more kindly than I was, maybe you could have given him one of your best ISOM sticks.

Oh, so you've met that kind, too.