Cigar store: a smokin’ good idea
Josh DeSiena first stepped onto a green at age 14 when he caddied at Sleepy Hollow Country Club.
By the age of 21, he played professionally.
A Professional Golfers Association (PGA) member since 2001, the Mohegan Lake resident now runs Doc James Cigars & Golf on East Boston Post Road in Mamaroneck. It opened in 2007.
His brother, Adam DeSiena, runs its Shrub Oak predecessor.
“When Adam bought it in 1993, cigars were just starting to come out and be a big thing and by the mid to late 90s, Adam”™s tobacco shop went from 90 percent pipe tobacco to probably 80 percent cigars,” Josh DeSiena said. “It was a total flip flop.”
Before Doc James Cigars & Golf was born, a premium cigar and accessory retail operation known as Doc James Tobacco Shop was run by Harold James, a Northern Westchester pharmacist.
It traces its roots to 1938.
“We grew up in Shrub Oak and my father was an avid pipe smoker and that”™s what Doc James was, a traditional tobacconist,” Josh DeSiena said.
At the original store, his brother Adam “worked it every day so the owner was always present, and six years ago, he moved to a bigger location because he needed to expand his product line, but he also needed a place for guys to hang out.”
He relocated once more to East Main Street in Shrub Oak to a storefront encompassing some 1,500 square feet.
“He (Adam) became an avid golfer and his wife is in the golf business as a buyer for golf shops and they had to fill up space, so they introduced golf,” DeSiena said. “As most of us know, cigar smokers are golfers. They go hand in hand. Anytime you can spend a lengthy time outside, it”™s a good time to have a cigar.”
When the Mamaroneck store opened, previous talk of developing a private label product became that much more feasible.
“We were in Italy in 2004 on a family trip and Adam had always talked about having a private label,” DeSiena said. “He had created a great relationship with the Rocky Patel Cigar Co. ”¦ we had a bunch of different taste tests on what we liked and what we wanted and we had full control and designed the label of the cigar, which has our family name, DeSiena, and the shield and crest of Siena, Italy. In the back, you see the rolling hills of Siena. It was a very cool process.”
In addition to cigars, golf paraphernalia decorates store walls.
There is a bookable cigar lounge complete with WiFi and a high-definition TV.
A humidor room crafted entirely of Spanish cedar keeps the temperature and quality just right.
Lining the humidor are cigars bearing names like Davidoff, a rarity in the county, he said.
But, despite attracting cigar and golf enthusiasts, challenges continue to surface from a legislative standpoint.
In an effort to close a $620 million budget shortfall, Gov. David A. Paterson has proposed a tobacco products tax increase from 46 percent of wholesale price to 90 percent of the wholesale.
“We”™re keeping our fingers crossed,” Adam DeSiena said. “What we”™ve been working on for years is to have a cap. Premium cigars would be capped at $.50 a stick. Other states have adopted that proposal and over time, it adds revenue.”
Chris McCalla, legislative director of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association said the proposed tax hike could “actually cost the state revenues because people find other, nontaxable ways to get their tobacco.”
The result, he said, “would be a decline in tax receipts for the state.”