BANGOR (AP) – Customers of Spanky’s Pizza say a new and unwelcome odor – cigar smoke – is mixing in with the familiar smell of pepperoni, cheese and garlic, and the owner fears it could drive him out of business.
Philip Nadeau said last month’s opening of a smokers’ lounge at the Cigar & Smoke Shoppe next door coincided with the arrival of the new scent. A thin wall separates the two businesses, and he thinks the cigar smoke is filtering in through openings in the ceiling and basement, and through outlets.
“The smell is atrocious,” Nadeau said. “It’s more than atrocious, it’s horrible.”
Frank Coglitore, the cigar shop owner, has two air purifiers attached to ceiling fans and an exhaust fan that totally circulates the air every two minutes. The exhaust fan, he said, is located at the far side of the building, away from the pizza shop.
Coglitore believes the pizza shop’s exhaust fan directly above the oven is causing the problem. The two businessmen say they’re working on a solution.
“I’m not trying to point blame, I’m trying to fix the problem,” said Nadeau, who has 16 employees at the Main Street store.
Coglitore agrees. “We want nothing but peace and harmony. We’re doing everything on my end to pull that all together,” he said.
The Cigar & Smoke Shoppe’s smoking lounge, where customers can relax and watch TV with a cigar in hand, has been granted one of 14 exceptions to a 2004 state law that prohibits smoking in enclosed areas of public places.
The exceptions require that indoor smoking areas have an exhaust mechanism that directs discharge to the outdoors “in such a manner as not to create objectionable odors or a nuisance on the adjacent premises.”
Bangor’s code enforcement office has looked into the situation and terms it “a landlord-tenant issue.”
“These are two, perhaps, not compatible uses” for the shared building, said Dan Wellington, code enforcement officer. “You can smell it both ways. They’re getting the smell of the pizza in the smoke shop.”
The city has tried to contact the building landlords, who live in Massachusetts. “At this point, we still haven’t figured out what can be done,” Wellington said.
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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com
AP-ES-11-27-07 1313EST
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