Cigar store's 'Sips' promotion: Just blowing smoke

A Center City cigar shop decides that it wants to host happy-hour cocktail events to attract weekday guests.

It reaches out to the Center City District, the agency behind the Wednesday night summertime promotion called Center City District Sips, seeking to participate.

The CCD notes that Cappelli Brothers, at 211 S. 13th St,, does not sell alcohol.

Application denied.

Cappelli then creates its own promotion, featuring cigar specials, free shoe shines and half-price corking fees. (It offers BYOB for those who wish to drink while vaping, puffing a cigar or sucking on a hookah.)

Cappelli calls the promotion Sits, borrowing the CCD's graphics.

The CCD fires off a cease-and-desist letter, and Cappelli Brothers immediately retracts the promotion, yanking posts from Facebook and Instagram, and then hiring a publicist to share its tale of woe.

Paul R. Levy, who heads the Center City District, says the CCD is "sorry" that Cappelli feels excluded from a "promotion that is designed for restaurants and bars."

But really now.

"Center City Sips has some basic, common-sense criteria," Levy said. "Cappelli Brothers sells cigars and does not have a liquor license. When they approached us, we told them that they didn’t qualify, just as we would have turned down a shoe store or a toy store that might have asked to participate. So in response, they created an event called Center City Sits, using without permission all the Center City Sips graphics and the CCD logo, as if we were a sponsor. We asked them to stop using that material in a misleading manner. If Cappelli Brothers Cigar Company wants to undertake with other comparable businesses a new promotion called Center City Smokes, we certainly could include it in our (IN) Center City newsletter.”

Source: http://www.philly.com/