the cancer shop down the street from my house

I noticed a new store opened near my house, but hadn't gone in to check it out. In my neighborhood, there is constant movement of retail shops so a new establishment is nothing exciting. Also, it appeared to be some sort of tobacco store so my interest level was piqued even less.

Turns out this establishment (called Marshall McGearty), is indeed a tobacco shop. No, pardon me, it's a tobacco lounge. A tobacco lounge owned by none other than our friends at R.J. Reynolds. Hooray! Big business tobacco company is now my neighbor!

But what about the newly imposed smoking ban in Chicago? Well, at least 65 percent of this establishment's sales of are tobacco or tobacco accessories, making it exempt from the ban. Someone was paying attention to potential loopholes....

It's touted as an upscale, one of a kind, "experiential marketing" retail store where customers can smoke fancy cigarettes and drink coffee. As much as I absolutely hate R.J. Reynolds and everything they stand for (really, who can like a company that markets to children and contributes to 438000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone?), I'm impressed with this endeavor from a marketing perspective. A manufacturer extending itself into a retail environment...not just a place where people walk in, make a transaction and walk out, but instead actually interact, connect, and invite the product into their lives....genius.

And terribly frightening.