Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 245 Raffle Win the Grand Prize

Episode Summary

Episode 245 opens with the Mikes celebrating a Podbean award for 100,000 downloads across the Hustler Universe Podcast Network, smoking Illusione Rothschildes, and swapping stories about an anniversary dinner at Ruth's Chris, a stop at Cigars on the Ave with Don Patel, a guardian dog named Bubbles, and a trip to Universal's Halloween Horror Nights.

The heart of the show is a rebuttal interview. After David Garofalo's Cigar Authority "after show" criticized Sons Cigar & Lounge for its planned Golden Bull raffle — calling it gambling and possibly illegal — the hosts play six clips and let Matul of Sons Cigar & Lounge and his partner Danny Dickowitz of Tobacco Plaza (and La Serena Cigars) respond point by point. They explain why they jointly bid roughly $40,000–$81,000 on one of the seven La Flor Dominicana NFTs tied to the Andalusian Bull "Golden One," why Matul values it as customer-acquisition marketing for his new Pennsylvania store, and why Danny — a 50-year cigar veteran — valued the cigar itself. They argue the actual cigar cost is about $15–$50 per stick, not the $1,777 figure derived by dividing the NFT price by the cigars, that they applied for a proper Pennsylvania gaming license, and that $20 raffle tickets give ordinary smokers a shot at a cigar that will retail near $200. Both stress they'd rather retailers pick up the phone than criticize on air, and praise Tony Gomez and the La Flor Dominicana family for the idea. They preview an October 7 live raffle drawing and LFD event with Tony Gomez, plus Tobacco Plaza's own releases — the TP-50Q, the TP-DD, and a TP-LFD 50 made by La Flor Dominicana.

The back half is the Cigar Hustler news report: Forged Cigar Company's new flavored line "FLVR" (Space Ranger, Fist Bump, Ski Chalet, Yacht Rock, Unicorn Tears) at $4.49 a stick, the Yaya release hitting stores, and the Mi Querida Sakakán. The show closes with Florida-man news about toxic puss caterpillars and an LA Fitness barbell assault, plus Shop of the Week (Tobacco Plaza) and Listener of the Week (Robbie Doyle).

In This Episode

1. 01
   100,000 Downloads and Housekeeping
   The hosts unbox a Podbean award marking 100,000 downloads for the Hustler Universe network and light up Illusione Rothschildes.
2. 02
   Anniversary, Halloween Horror Nights and Bubbles
   Ruth's Chris dinner, a stop at Cigars on the Ave with Don Patel, and reviews of the Halloween and pirate haunted houses at Universal.
3. 03
   The Cigar Authority Critique
   Background on David Garofalo's after-show segment questioning the legality and value math behind the Sons Cigar Golden Bull raffle.
4. 04
   Matul and Danny Dickowitz Respond
   Sons Cigar & Lounge and Tobacco Plaza explain why they partnered to buy one of the seven La Flor Dominicana NFTs and how they plan to recoup the investment.
5. 05
   Is the Raffle Legal? Perceived vs. Actual Value
   The partners detail their Pennsylvania gaming license application and argue the cigars' real cost is $15–$50 a stick, not $1,777.
6. 06
   NFTs, Davidoff Oro Blanco and Scarcity Economics
   Matul compares the exclusivity of the Golden One to Oro Blanco allocations and says he'll bid on the Tatuaje NFT next.
7. 07
   October 7 LFD Event and Tobacco Plaza Releases
   A live Facebook raffle drawing with Tony Gomez, plus the TP-50Q, TP-DD and TP-LFD 50 house blends.
8. 08
   Industry News and Florida Man
   Forged Cigar Company's FLVR flavored line, Yaya, Mi Querida Sakakán, toxic puss caterpillars and an LA Fitness barbell attack.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 245, Cigar Hustler Podcast. com For pricing and more information And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe On whichever of our providers you use And Michael Hit the bell Hit the bell Hit the bell Oh, atabele. Hi. Hi.

How are you? How are you? I'm fine. We have a little housekeeping to do.

Uh-oh. Do you want to do that first? Housekeeping. Or do you want to talk about what you did?

You want me to fluff your pillow? Oh, do you want to say we're smoking on the... We're going to do the Ellusion Rothschilds. Very exciting.

Ellusion Rothschilds. Yeah. I've heard good things. Oh.

Just finished the La Grande. It's really good. Wasn't it La Great? It was Le Great.

Le Great, Le Grand? Le Grand, Le Great. Ah. This is so weird to me, because it took forever for us to finally get these.

Right. I think I ordered them like a year ago. Oh, this isn't something you picked up at the show? No, I said to Alfredo.

There's something where Fred said, just wait, you can get them later, or something. They're changing packaging or something. No, I said to Alfredo, what the fuck? And he's like, oh, they're in now.

But these are... And the cellophane's yellow. Yeah, but I say, these are a little old. It was like, fuck that, I'm not going to send them this.

And then someone just said, okay. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Hold it till the package you made Fred. Maybe my friend Fred. What, you have an open order for Hustler? Send it out immediately.

What are you doing? No, I don't think so. I don't think Fred cares. He just got a new grill or his kitchen.

He was cleaning his Traeger. Right. All right. You can open this.

Oh, God. And I'll read the email because they sent us an email, not a letter. Oh, this is a thing. This is our award.

Are those upside down pineapples? I have no idea. It's scary. Hi there, on behalf of the entire Podbean team, we want to congratulate you on reaching 100,000 downloads of your podcast, Hustler Universe.

We encourage you to share your accomplishments on social networks, websites, and blogs. Click here to get the badge. We hope that this badge reflects your dedication to the podcast and will continue to inspire even more growth. Once again, congratulations.

Here's to the continued success of your podcast. Look at that. Is there a stand? Oh.

This is lovely. Oh, lovely. So we got a better award, but no personal letter this time, we got an email. Hey, you know, sometimes you just, you know, you just need the award.

Well, I'll tell you this, this will be available on eBay later. No, it goes out there on the shelf. It'll just go to the best bid, the highest bid, uh, we're not selling that. Yeah, you know, no reserve, we're not selling, free shipping, we're not selling the awards, these awards, you know, they look good out there when people come in.

Okay. All right. If they make you happy, Michael, I just want you to be happy. I would have been happier if they sent us a letter this time.

I got this email with a bunch of ads on it. Email with a bunch of ads? Yes. Is that the housecleaning that you were referencing?

Yeah, that was the thing we had to do. Well, here it is. I'm gonna put it right in the middle for you. Put it right in the middle till we move it out there to the shelf.

Immediately. Effective. Immediately after the show. So, hey.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support. We couldn't do it without you. Aw, look at you, you're so nice.

It's very true. I didn't, uh... We have, uh, Wobby Doyle in the house. Yes, we have a live audience today.

Yeah, yeah, we brought him downstairs, because, you know, he's, he's alive, and he's still a hot fucking mess, so we figured we'd entertain him for not much, you know, or he just sits out front by himself, and I didn't, I wasn't okay with that, so... So, hi, Wobby. Yeah, he says hi. He says hi, he waved.

Hi, yeah. So, uh, you had an anniversary this past weekend. I did have an anniversary. You wanna cover, you wanna go there first?

Yeah, let's cover all that, and then we'll do the, uh, the, the other part, the last half of the show. Okay, and the Halloween Horror Nights, too? Yeah, but let's start with the anniversary. Oh, that's right, you did that, too.

Yeah, yeah. No, we already talked about that. No, we didn't. We briefly dabbled in it with Patreon, but we didn't really.

Oh, because we did Patreon later, that's right. Uh, your wife today said she did not enjoy the Halloween Horror Nights. She never does. Yeah, that's what she said.

She never does. She goes, I don't like it, and I go every year. Yeah. Right.

Oh, so we're going to, you want to go to Halloween Horror? We were printing something? I'm printing all the notes that I forgot to print for the show. Oh, okay.

All right. It wasn't in the pile. This is a fucking fine-tuned machine is what we got here. You can't, if you just ignore it, nobody will know.

You don't reach a hundred thousand downloads without being a fine-tuned machine like we are here. I'm doing the best I can, Michael. Yes. And you know what?

A lot going on. And I appreciate you, Michael. Right. I appreciate you.

So, we did the anniversary thing. Yes. We went, we had a gift card to Ruth's Chris. Right.

That we've had for a year. Right. So we decided to use it. Oh, you had it for a year?

Yeah. Did you get it for a present last year? I got it for like Christmas or something. Oh.

So. Good job, Phil. From our dear friend, Jessica. Oh, from her?

Yeah. Ah. Yeah. So.

We're like, hey, well, we better fucking use this. Yeah, before it goes bad. It's hard to go, it's hard to get out. It's so hard to get out.

Wow, you have quite the goings on there at your house. We have found a reliable babysitter, though, who we really like. Apparently I hit. I hit two-sided.

You're doing a great job, man. I hit two-sided printing, apparently. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.

It's gonna be a lot of this going on, flipping on the page. Hey, it's fine. It's fine. Well, it's really funny, because as they print, they are shot out of the printer.

Into the floor. And then under the cabinet that's holding the printer, which I love. Oh, it did go under the cabinet. Yeah.

And to make it even more awkward, it's not like we could put Wabi on it to get the fucking papers. Right, right. Well, in a minute, we'll switch to your camera, and I'll just get up and get it. Okay.

That's cool. Sounds like a plan. Right. So, we did the Ruth's Chris.

It was very nice. Oh, that's it. I'm going to keep staring this way. Yeah.

And then we went to Cigars on the Ave afterwards. We hung out with Don Patel for a little bit. He was in town. He was at his shop.

And I'm just talking to a blank chair, but I'm doing a great job. And, you know, we had a good time. I will tell you what Bubbles did. Movie magic, Michael.

If you don't mention it, nobody knows. What Bubbles did. Bubbles, for your anniversary? Bubbles destroyed his cage.

He was, he was in, he was not happy. So we have the space, so we had a great time. I mean, the dinner was great. We got to hang out afterwards, kind of shoot the shit, which is nice to not have, it's one thing when you shoot the shit on the patio and just kind of relax.

Right. But the kids still come out. Right. You know what I mean?

It's not, it's not complete relaxation. Yeah, there's still high levels of fuckery. Right. You know, and it's, it's never just the one.

There's always different intervals of shit. Oh, I'm sure, right. You know, like Teddy wants a new movie or she needs water. She just wants to communicate with you and how are things, you know, to go to bed.

So, what are you doing? Yeah. No, she, you know, she does her best to lie about something. Right.

You know, I have to go potty and I put her on the toilet. I'm like, you didn't go potty. I'm all done. You didn't fucking go.

You fucking lie. No, I did. I went. Or, you know, somebody's scared or something, you know.

Of the potty? No, Justice is usually the guy who's terrified. He's at that age. Probably of his sister.

Rightfully so. Yes, obviously. She controls the bubbles. Yeah, she does control the weapon.

Yes. The bubbles. That's probably why he tore up his grape. He was mad.

So we had to get the babysitter acclimated with the dog. Like, hey, listen, that's probably just best that, you know, you're gonna, we got you scheduled for, you know, we got a bunch of shit going on. Kevin Hart coming up, you know, got two birthdays, it's kind of a big deal. Right, a lot going on.

You know, so, hey, it's probably best that you just meet Bubbles, and Bubbles gets acclimated to you. So, dog comes right out, loves the babysitter. Hey, what's up? Like, weird.

Right. I mean, you guys have been to my house. Yes. Bubbles is definitely...

You always lock it up, I don't know. Every time you've been there, the dog's been locked up? Yeah, he usually goes in when I show up. And I show up.

Phil, every time you're there, but you've had interactions with Bubbles. Yeah, no, Bubbles has been out with me. Yeah. He's been, I mean, he's, he's, he's okay after a little bit, but you know, he's still a little on the edge.

Yeah, but at first he's like, no, don't move too fast. You know, and he's barking at you and he's like, Jesus. I mean, even when Tia walked in, he was in the cage, she fucking jumped. Oh.

Oh, shit. What the fuck was that? Oh. So, it's good to get Bubbles kind of acclimated.

Right, right, right. Yeah, with Peoples. Well. The Frequents.

Yeah, just the regulars. Right. Yeah, no, not all the people. Yeah, at the end of the day, you know, he's doing what I ask him to do.

Right. It's a guardian dog. So, anniversary went well, and we decided to do Halloween Horror Nights. We had to get it out of the way.

Because as September kind of goes, and October kind of goes, you're never gonna fucking have the time to go. Right, yeah. So on a whim, I put it together. We invited Boots and Tia and you and Adrian, and you obviously couldn't make it, but Boots or Phil, Phil is terrified of these things, but he went.

Did you go? No, we ended up going to a late lunch with one of her teachers from her school and her husband, which is actually the Davises, he hangs out here, Craig Davis and his wife. Oh, I know Craig. Yeah, that's why I went, okay, I know Craig, I'll go.

I'll go. I'll go. So, it was really good. I'm going this coming Sunday, supposedly.

You got to get the Express Pass. Don't fuck around. With Chet and Becky and... Oh, they got the RIP tour.

And the kids. No, they didn't do it this year. Oh, they backed out of that? Yeah.

Too much money. Too much money. Too expensive. So, the Express is good, though.

Right. Yeah, that's what I understand. I'll tell you. I think that the Weeknd's Haunted House is really good.

There's a Pirate one. Yeah. Which is actually surprisingly really good. And there was one other one that was fuckin' awesome.

I hear something about bugs is a good one. The bugs are terrible. Oh, terrible. Terrible.

That one was shit, right? Oh. There was another one that I was like, okay, this one's really good. Oh, Halloween.

The Halloween one was really good. Oh, from the movie Halloween. Yeah. Gotcha.

Very good. Let me see, Matul's losing his mind. Don't just stand ready. Yeah.

Just a fuckin' chill. Be on call. Just chill, bro. You're gonna listen to this anyways.

So I'm gonna tell you right now, just fuckin' calm down. So yeah, that went really well, my voice starting to get a little scratchy, I got a little something, something going on here. Uh-oh. You do football practice and eight of the fucking 30 kids are all coughing.

No, I'm not yelling, they're all going, I'm like, oh boy. Like, it's just, it's inevitable now. Right, it just mattered time. And then Teddy had a runny nose, I'm like, I guess it's making its way.

So, it's probably COVID. Probably. I'm in Florida, we don't, we don't test in Florida. No, no, we don't.

, for the most part, is no longer testing either. No, I think everybody's done with it. We've moved on. I mean, Jay comes in now with no safety equipment on at all.

Well, no one's dying. It's over. No one's dying. That was always the waiting on the sign.

Yeah. Right. To see Jay's face again. When Jay appears, you know that it's an all clear.

COVID is gone. It's an all clear. Right. Yeah.

The siren sounds like in the movies and then we're all good. Makes total sense. Yes. My son was very upset this weekend.

Because COVID's gone? No. Oh, sorry. You didn't transition.

I thought we were still talking about COVID. He wanted to do his podcast. Oh! Yeah.

Yeah. You sort of let that slide, I guess. Well, I said, did you reach out to Mike Palmer? Oh, you got to schedule me.

I'm very busy. Yeah. So we got to, well, he's doing like this whole, so we never baptize our kids. Right.

So we're going to do like a bulk baptism thing. Okay. So he's got to do the confirmation, so he's got to do these classes Sunday morning. Okay.

So it kind of makes things a little more complicated. Gotcha. So I got to figure out what the right time is to bring him over because Thursday's football, Friday's football, you know. Right.

So I'll figure it out. I'll think about it today and tomorrow and try and pencil it in for you to come out if you're available. All right. Just give me some notice.

Yeah. I'll try and set a regular time. I've got podcast people calling me all the time now, all hours of the day. You're kind of a big deal.

You are the grand poobah of Mike and Mike Productions. Yeah, the grand poobah. Well, I'll let you be the medium poobah. No, no, I ain't.

No. Nope. Silent partner. Silent partner.

I'm not even the investor. I'm not even the silent investor. I'm just the silent partner. How's the website coming, by the way?

Hey, I looked at it. I sent you that link. There's still a lot of it not done. Okay.

For him to say he's finished, is he just tired of working with us? No, what happens is, you know, he'll send me an email. Right. And I'll address things.

Right. " Oh, okay. I started working on the page where all our pictures go. Okay.

I did yours and half of mine so far. Oh. Do I look slovenly? I got a feeling you put like this slovenly.

No, no, no. I used the pictures that Steve made. What? Oh, okay.

Oh, that's a good picture. Right. It looks a little long, though. Well, our pictures and the thing they use is not the same, and I can't make it fit the way I'm having to do it.

I can mod it. Oh, yours looks perfect. Mine fits. Yeah, yours looks perfect.

So weird. Mine looks perfect. So strange that yours is 100% perfect. Yours doesn't.

Mine's a complete fucking mess. Yeah. And we just got the photos today from Steve Furrier he did on the other show. Oh, very nice.

So we still have Phil's show he has to do. Excellent. Moving right along here. Yes, yes.

Okay, well, do you have anything else to add? We can get right into the... Uh, no. angry, Matul, debauchery.

Oh, no. Do you want to play any of them beforehand? Or just play them and let him address them one at a time? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, the first couple, yeah, yeah. I think that's... So, okay, so here's what's going on. Oh, yeah, I guess we should tell people what's going on.

What's the guy's name? David? David Garofalo. David Garofalo's...

Cigar Authority. Cigar Authority. The guy who always tells us that we're number one. So, who's number one?

Who's number one? Cigar Hustlers podcast. Oh, you want to hear that real quick? Yeah, go ahead, tell them.

Let them know, let them know. I just switched to the other screen. Who's number one? Okay.

Who's number one? Cigar Hustler, the podcast. Yeah, so that guy. All right.

So, last week, he did one of his after the show, he calls it. Yes. It's 27 minutes, but the 30-minute show where they talk about just one topic, apparently. Mm-hmm.

So, they did a show on the NFTs. Yeah. The LFD, NFTs. Yeah.

So, now, take it away, Michael. And, thanks. Well, Matul reached out to you. Yeah, so, and, you know, they made some statements about gambling, about illegal, about...

Right, how he's handling his NFT, his plan. And, apparently, Matul's triggered. Apparently, yes. So, you know, he wanted to say his piece, he's a friend of mine, so it's like, Matul owns...

Mattool wants to have his five minutes to retort. Mattool owns son cigars, he owns mom cigars, he owns dad cigars, kind of makes sense to son cigars. Mom, dad, and son? Is he doing a daughter's cigars eventually?

Maybe. Maybe. Fourth location? I think he has four locations already.

I mean, he's a big fucking retailer in New York. He really is. And he actually partnered up with Danny of, what's it called, Tobacco Land? I don't want to fuck this up.

Voyage? Oh, no, no, no, no. Not that Danny, not that Danny. He didn't partner with Vince, he hired Vince?

Vince runs the Suns. I type in tobacco on my phone, it doesn't matter, there's 75,000 people. Yes, everybody's got tobacco. Tobacco Plaza.

Danny Dickowitz. Witch. Dickowitz. Dickowitz.

Good guy. He does La Serena cigars. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay. So he partnered with him, and they bought this NFT. Apparently, Cigars on the Ave bought the last one. Oh, did he?

Yeah. Oh. Oh. Wow.

Well, apparently, Suns is the only one that's doing something with it at the moment, though. Well, you got to figure. I mean, look. Here's the thing with something like this.

You got to figure out how you're going to get your money back, right? So some people believe that just by purchasing the cigars, they can sell the cigars for X and that'll work, and that probably will work. You won't get all your money back. I think that you will over time.

Oh, well, maybe eventually, yes. So, Matul has come up with this concept of, hey, we're going to do this raffle. Right. And I don't think it sounds like a bad idea.

It sounds like, hey, look, you know, you got to take your shot. But anyways, he's enraged, triggered, so let's give him a little platform here. You need a Bluetooth with a cord first. Yeah, I'm connecting.

Oh. I am connected. Oh, okay. All right, let's call Angry Matul.

Angry Matul. Yo. Hey, wow, one ring. Wow, one ring, he's ready.

He's sitting there waiting. He's been sitting there pacing this whole time. I was like, I'm gonna do it. What's up, guys?

What's up, buddy? So we just kind of downloaded everybody and, you know, gave a quick little rundown as to what's kind of going on. Now, we have some clips of the show, of the cigar. We're gonna, we'll play them really briefly, and then you can kind of say what you want to say.

Does that sound like a plan? We haven't had a conversation about this, obviously. So, no. Does that sound good?

Is everybody alive after that noise? Did David Garofalo just shoot him? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes.

Oh, there you are. Did you hear what I said? Okay. Sorry, guys.

Do you guys mind if I add Danny into the conversation? Sure. My partner in the MMP? Sure.

Sure. Hey, let's get everybody. What are you going to do? Tobacco Plaza.

We have David Garofalo on hold here, too. Yeah. It's going to be great. He can just keep saying the podcast.

He's number one. Although we're going to do that. This is great. Nothing like some dead air.

Right. We're just on hold now. All right. We're here.

Danny. Yeah. How you doing, sir? I'm good.

Yourself? Good, man. So right now you're on the podcast. Just so you know, I don't know, Matul told you that.

We're doing a recording and we'll release it tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Yeah. And what we're going to, we'll do is we'll play a few clips for you guys.

And then as long as you don't talk over each other, we won't have to hang up on you. And you guys can explain each other's point of views and how you guys feel about it. Because you feel like it was unfair for them to kind of make those statements. And you didn't really get to explain yourself or defend yourself in any way, correct?

Correct. All right, cool. So let's get this going. We did them in order as they were speaking for that five or ten minutes.

All right, here's the first one. Just yesterday I think it became clear what one retailer intends to do, or at least try, and this is Sons Cigar & Lounge, and you probably know who they are, right? I don't think so. No.

Okay, so Danny, you didn't get fucking mentioned, first of all, you know, and second of all, I don't understand how somebody that's in wholesale doesn't know either, I mean, for one, either one of you, I mean, you guys are kind of a big deal in New York, you know, Matul's got four locations and then, you know, you're also in wholesale, Danny, you handle the La Serena brand, right? So go ahead, go ahead. Take, take, take it away. Either one, whatever you got to say about that.

All right, I'll start. I mean, you know, listen, at the end of the day, what I don't like in this industry and time and time again is somebody, you know, not being happy with someone else's decisions. Like, the reason that me and Danny got together and we bid on this NFT was for multiple reasons. For Danny, it's monetary.

For me, it's marketing. You know, I have a brand-new store in Pennsylvania, Sun Cigar & Lounge, and I calculated what the, you know, the cost of getting a customer on my website with the marketing aspect of it. The customer acquisition costs are expensive, you know, like to do an ad and to do an ad on Half Wheel or Cigar Aficionado. So, whereas I looked at this as an opportunity, if I'm going to spend about $40,000 on something alongside with Danny, I'm going to make my money back.

Whether it takes me six months or a year or six years, it doesn't matter because for me it's free and the amount of people that are going to drive to the website to buy this product, That's what I care about, because even if they even if they don't want to buy it and they just take a look at it, you know, how many people are going to go to see that I carry it and then maybe buy something else, right? That's really the reason, right? And Danny, you can jump in and say whatever you got there, brother. Well, me, I mean, I've worked with La Flor and other brands through La Serena and through Tobacco Plaza, and I go down to the Dominican Republic once a month, except for the summer, and that's a cigar I smoke every time I see Tony, so I love the cigar, and to me, it was a no-brainer to get the cigar.

Now, Thule was a perfect partner for me, because he's younger and understands the NFT world, where I understand the cigar world. I mean, Tobacco Plaza has been in business 50 years, and I know cigars, and I manufacture cigars, I sell cigars, and the Thule knows NFT and, you know, whatever the young generation knows. So, it was a great partnership. I work together with a lot of cigar stores.

I don't believe in competition. I believe we all work together. It's one industry, and let's help everybody out, and let's help the people get what they want. So to me, it's about the cigar, and the tool is about branding and NFT.

So it's a partnership. And so I'm just going to add to that and say that's the reason we did the raffle, because we knew how much the cigars are going to sell for. They're going to sell for about $200 a stick. And how many people can afford that?

Now, there is a market for that, but there's also the regular person that can't afford something like that, that wants to buy a $20 stick. We've got more clips. We have six clips here. Put some ice in that direction.

All right, calm down. Here's the next one, hold on. What they've decided to do is something called the Golden Bull Raffle. Okay.

Okay. All right. There's your raffle. We heard that you're doing a raffle.

Yeah. Again, so obviously the whole reason for the raffle is so that someone who can afford a cigar that's going to be 200 at some point can afford to potentially win one. And this is our way of saying, hey, you know, we're going to sell this cigar 100% for $200. And we think that they're going to be very, they're going to, they're going to be, they're going to sell out in my opinion.

And I think Danny has the same opinion. So why not give everybody a chance to like, and when this NFT was going on, I've been on the discord channel. I've been very active. I'm one of the first two aficionados on the discord channel, which means I'm constantly active and talking on the discord channel.

So, you know, out of like, what, two to three hundred people that are on there, I'm one of the most, like, one of the second most active person on there and first being Tony Zobac. So, you know, I'm, you know, telling everybody, like, I want people to, you know, all the people that are in there that can't afford a $50 cigar to get a chance to bring the cigar. Okay. That's the whole reason for the raffle.

Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Danny. I look at it as, you know, to me, I'm a, the glasses half full type of person, you know, they're saying it's $800 a cigar.

I'm saying, no, it's $4 a cigar. If you win, you have five cigars and $4 a piece for $20. Right. I mean, Matul was trying to do everyone a favor.

We could have not done this raffle. Right. And sold it for $200 a day, a stick all day long. Right.

And Matul said, no, Danny, let's try to, you know, get, you know, get, you know, get a Everybody involved, where they can get a chance to get what they want, and I agree with him because, you know, I'm old school, and McCool knows the younger generation, so that's what we went with. Yeah, plus it's additional exposure. It's additional, you know, additional marketing, and plus it's a great way to kind of recoup funds as far as your investment. I mean, it makes sense to me.

Exactly. Okay. All right. Next clip, Michael.

This is illegal, right? You cannot have 5,000 tickets for a legal app. All right. There you go.

So this is, is this illegal? I don't know. You tell me. Okay.

First of all, Matul has looked into every aspect of the gaming in Pennsylvania or Philadelphia, and we went to apply for the license, and we did everything that we were supposed to do in accordance to the rules. Now, here's the thing. There's perceived value and actual value. So the actual value is $15 a cigar.

So when someone else says the actual value is $1,777 a cigar, they're way off base. Because they don't realize what the value to the NFT is. We know what we're buying the stock for. That's what they don't understand, right?

Is that the NFT that I bought, that we bought together, me and Danny, is worth $81,000. Right. Tomorrow, when you go to sell that NFT and you put it in a marketplace, it's going to be worth around $81,000 or $85,000, whatever the case may be. That's how much we're going to sell that same raffle for.

I'm sorry, sell that same NFT for. So the cigars, the value of the cigars is just what we buy them for. We're going to buy them from LFD at $50. It's $50.

And that's the value of the cigar. So them saying it's worth $17, $18,000, $80,000 a stick. No, it's not, you know, them saying LFD sold, you know, 70 people, uh, a box of 50 cigars in it for $80,000, $88,000 average is wrong because no, they didn't just buy a box of cigars. They bought the NFT.

Right. Which is a piece of art, which is like buying a painting, you know? Yeah. That's a permanent imprint, digital imprint.

The first photo on a blockchain. Okay. Well, I think you kind of answer the next one, but we'll hit it anyways. Go ahead.

So the prizes they award depend on the number of tickets sold. Okay. You want to hit the next one too? Sure.

Yeah, I'm going to hit that one. Go ahead. Go ahead, Danny. Okay.

So I told Matul, I don't want to beat people up. If we only sell, by the way, what's the first value? And I told Matuls, if we sell 10 tickets, we're giving the first prize away anyway, and it's better for those people. If we sell more, then there's more cigar tiers available.

So we could be the losers on this because we're still going to give the cigars away to the raffle winners based on the tier. They still win. So I'm willing to take a loss to make people feel comfortable. If we sell all the raffle tickets, God bless us and them.

And we know we're not selling them all, but if we do, then great. But we want everyone to have a chance to win a cigar or more at $20 each. I think that's fair. What do you think, Mike?

You think that's fair? I mean, like I said, it breaks down to about four bucks a cigar, you want a five pack. Right. Yeah, so.

Right. Well, so the other thing that, you know, I'll ask you this is that we're going to, on October 7th, when we're going to pull the raffles, it's going to be live on Facebook, and we're going to have Tony Gomez in my store, MPA, and we're going to do a big, a lefty event with, you know, possibly John Carney there, who, you know, the national, the main president. Wait, wait, a tool? Yeah.

John Connick can't make the event, he's out of town. Oh, sorry. No John Connick, no John Connick. He's super busy.

He's cooking all the time. I mean, he lives right up the street from me and never see the fucking guy. So we are going to have Tony Gomez there. We're going to do a great event.

We're going to have food and drinks. Twister? Will there be Twister? And then we're going to have, you know, this awesome novel.

So that's, that's the whole, that's the whole idea. Will there be a hoverboard competition? If you say so, if you send us the hoverboards, we will do it. They already have them.

They already have them. He travels with them. I tell you, he prefers transportation. Yeah, of course.

100%. All right, here comes the next one, guys. A quick perusal, an online raffle is illegal in 18 states. And in the state of Pennsylvania, where Sons is located, you need a special permit, and the prize can't be worth more than $2,000.

So now a five pack of cigars that cost you $1,000 is technically a $5,000 price. So I'm not a lawyer, but they could be skirting the law. Yeah, I mean, it's illegal, but good luck to them on whatever they can do. Okay, so, you know...

Go ahead. Again, the cigars are $15 each. It's actual value. You can't say it's $1,700 each and not value the NFC and the humidor.

They're just trying to make radio sensation by pulling numbers out of the air. Yes, if you divide $88,000 by $50,000, it's $1,777,000, I'll agree, but how could you not say there's value in the NFT when they themselves sold a picture with nothing else for $2,000? I think they are just jealous that Tony Gomez came up with an idea, which is being copied immediately because it's such a great idea. So kudos to Tony Gomez and the La Flor and Leo family for doing what they did.

Let's give credit where credit is due. Sure. Exactly. I agree.

Well, so not only that, but like they contradict themselves, right? So first they say the cigars are worth $17 million. Then they say, "Well, the cigar shouldn't be worth more than $30. They should be buying them at $15".

And then a five-pack, all of a sudden, it is worth $1,000. So what is it? Is it a $30 cigar? Is it a $200 cigar?

Is it a $700 cigar? They themselves contradict themselves, right? So why, again, it comes back to why not pick up the phone, call the phone you're going to talk about, and say, "Hey, what's your plan? Why are you doing this?

What's the reason? Why are you going to talk about this? " You want to sell for $200? Or are you going to sell for $200?

Sure. Or just say, hey, you want to come on the show and we can talk about this? Yeah, exactly, man. I would have been happy to explain.

And so I'll tell you why I feel that if that conversation would have happened, they would have understood the reason that me and Danny bought this R&D. And the main reason is I have done the math. And let's just say Davidoff. And you're pretty good at math.

Right? Right. So Davidoff, the company, has about 220 Davidoff White Label accounts in the United States, of which only about less than 40 of them are Davidoff Oro Blanco accounts. Okay.

So only 40 shops in the United States can get the Davidoff Oro Blanco cigar, which is around $500 or six. Okay. Worldwide, they have another maybe 30, 40 accounts, right? So in total, they have no more than 60 to 80 accounts that can sell the Davidoff Oro Blanco, and every single place that gets the Davidoff Oro Blanco for $500 a stick sells out.

Right. I got it. It makes sense. Me and Danny are one of five to have this specific cigar.

I get it. Since Andalusian Bull has been the number one cigar of the year in 2016, every box or single cigar that I've gotten, I sold out no matter what. And thank you so much for sending me some when they come in. I really appreciate you saying that to me, Matul.

Danny, that's what he said, I swear to God. Okay, well, I just have two quick questions for you guys. Okay. Number one, number one, do either one of you carry United Cigars?

Yes, I do. Okay, so you're a customer. We have some United Cigars in Sons. Okay, so both of you guys have, so I mean, he should know who Sons Cigars is, right?

David Garofalo didn't really tee off on you. " I don't know who the other guy was. Yeah, that's the last clip. Listen, the whole thing is going to be fascinating to watch.

Seven retailers who actually have $100,000 a piece to gamble. It's a gamble. Yeah, you got to... By the way, I want to just say, if I had David Garofalo's money, I'd throw away mine.

That's true. That's a fair statement. Okay, so the fact is, you know, listen, there are a lot. Okay, we all respect David, the cigars.

He's a friend. We work together. We all respect Abe. He's a friend.

We work together. I believe in the cigar community as one. So I never knock anybody else. The fact that those two chose not to invest in this cigar, that's their prerogative, but the fact is, right after Abe did not invest in the NFT bull market, or whatever it's called, and then he comes out with his own cigar NFT, and by the way, he's selling, I mean, and again, Matul, help me out, it's seven NFTs, whatever.

So is that what everybody does? Or is that just... No, that's entirely up to the NFTs. That's the blueprint.

Okay, so the fact that Tony Gomez, La Flor Dominicana came out with seven NFTs, God bless, and then all of a sudden the next NFTs is seven. Coincidence? I don't know. Wait, the next thing is every cigar at LeFour, we're buying for $15.

And then all of a sudden, the next NFT is $14. I don't know. Then we're buying 70 cigars a month, but they're buying 280 cigars a quarter. I don't know.

I mean, tell me, is my math wrong? It's very similar. That's all it is, listen, coincidence or not, but it's very similar to the other people. Okay, wait, go ahead.

Sorry, go ahead, go ahead. Well, my second question was going to be, did you guys, are you avid listeners of Cigar Authority in the after show, or did somebody say it to you and bring it to your attention? No, it was brought to our attention. Well, I mean, I listen to certain podcasts, but I don't have enough time.

But, so, Cigar Hustlers is a podcast that I always listen to. That's right, because we're number one, we're number one. Right, David says we are. David will tell you, right?

Cigar Hustler, the podcast. Yes, David says we're number one every week. And, so, um, I forgot my train of thought. That's okay.

You got excited when David was a... That's okay. While you're thinking, Matul, I have no life, I'm over 60, I live vicariously through Matul and the young generation. I listen to Cigar Ash every Saturday, I listen to Cigar Hustler, I listen to David's show.

I mean, I'm a cigar geek. There you go. That's the reason I bought the NFP with Matul. I'm a geek.

Right. And by the way, Matul and I were smoking the - what are they calling this? The Golden Bull. Golden Bull.

It's the Andalusian. Well, no, it's not called the Golden Bull anymore. It's called The Andalusian-Golden 1. Okay, so Matula and I got together after we won it, and we smoked a cigar.

I'm a geek! Hey, Matula, when you get yours, I want you to put triangles on yours, okay? You really piss everybody off. But yeah, so the reason that I knew about the podcast was because on Discord, everybody started posting it and saying a lot of, you know, not the right things.

And I was just like, listen, I don't like the fact that people, you know, knock the other person, I always try to work alongside other retailers, I work with you guys at Cigar Hustler, I work with Danny at Tobacco Plaza, there's so many retailers that come to me day in and day out, and they ask me for their help, and I gladly help, I'm not trying to knock the other person out, right, I'm trying to help the other person, because if they grow, then we grow together, right. And so, that was the train of thought that I had forgotten, that it was sold to us on the Discord, and a lot of people talked a lot of shit, and I just wanted to kind of come on this and just say, "Hey, listen, there's a reason we did what we did. " And I'll tell you this right now, when Tatuaye comes out with their NFT, I'm more than likely gonna be bidding alongside Danny. Again, because we see the value of the cigar industry, we see the value of it, we see the value of what this NFT is, and listen, okay, if tomorrow, Mike, or Mike, if I was to tell you that you could go out there and buy a business for 50k, 80k, whatever, and make your money back in six months to a year, ROI within a year, wouldn't you take that leap?

Yeah, what I would do is I'd borrow the $60 from you, and then bring Danny as an investor, because he just got money to throw at some. There's not many fucking businesses in the world that you can go out and buy, and with six months to here, you can make your money back. I agree, not cigars, it's like that. And you get free marketing out of it, on top of that.

No, you're right, it makes sense. And listen, the one thing that I loved that they said at the end was, "Oh, I don't know what's going to happen with all this stuff, But I like what, you know, Sun Cigars are doing. That was the only positive thing. And I was happy that they acknowledged that the raffle is one thing that they liked.

Okay. Well, if you want to pick up United Cigars, you can go to Tobacco Plaza or Sun Cigars. Or Danny, they didn't mention Tobacco Plaza at all. Yeah, I mean, he totally got it, you know?

Well, yeah. By the way, I mean, and that is only because Matul is the NFT guy. And that's where the money is really, in the NFT. I think it's because Matul is the fucking whipping post of the goddamn cigar industry, if you personally ask me.

Nobody likes him, apparently. It's like every few years. I haven't done shit to people. All the old-timers don't like him except Danny.

I don't know, man. I guess... Everybody knows that Tobacco Plaza has been in business 50 years, and we're coming out with a double D again, and we're coming out with... We came out with the cigar from Kasada, the TP-40Q, and Tony is making us the TP-50, LFD, I mean, so, when it comes to cigars, you can't knock what we're doing.

" If you get Danny D on the phone, I'll say, "I couldn't do this without Matul, because I don't understand the NFT. " You can say it for him, it's fine. Yeah, you can swear, it's okay. Okay, alright, so wait, we'll wrap it up real quick with a couple of plugs.

So the other cigars that you sell, do you have a website to get them, Danny? Actually, Matul is helping me with another retailer, Vijay, who has a place in Connecticut. We are starting a website called Tobacco Plaza. What's the internet?

No, I said you've heard of the internet now. That's good. Yeah, Danny's heard of the internet. Well, yeah.

Matul told him about the internet, too. This is the thing. Okay. Two things.

I'm on the phone. Matul's on the computer. And when we had to fill out all the forms, I said, thank God I didn't buy the NFC without Matul, because it even took him 20 minutes to figure out what was going on on a computer. But Tobacco Plaza is getting a website, and it's Tobacco Plaza NY, I think, I don't know, something like that.

Just Google, just Google Tobacco Plaza. Danny, Danny, Danny, you have to know your website's name right, come on. You gotta have that dialed in. They kind of need that information.

That's your opportunity. By the way, call my cell, or call my store, and we can sell you cigars. That's all right, don't give out your cell number. That's it, that's it.

By the way, my cell number is as public as my store number, I don't care. I don't know about, I don't know what my website is, but we are, we do have the TP50Q, on September 21st, we're launching the TPDD, And in November, we're launching the TP-LFD 50. There you go. I love working with these cigar brands and making cigars, and that's where I'm from.

And Matul, thank God, and my partner in the NFC, knows the NFT world. And listen, I've been working with Matul and other cigar stores for years, because everybody has a niche. And I get cigars that some people can't get, and Matul gets cigars that I can't get, and we work together, and that's the beauty about the cigar world. Listen, my daughter is the president and owner of La Serena.

I'm the CFO, financial. Matul is the NFC guy. I'm the financial. Yep.

Listen, everyone has their strengths. Yep. And I partner with people that know more than me, which makes me a smart person. Yeah, absolutely.

And, Matul, so how do we plug, what's your website called? com. Okay. And they can get on the raffle there?

And they can get on the raffle there, and then after we have the big party with Tony Gomez on October 7th, then we have this awesome LFE event with everyone to come to with the hoverboard. Uh, I would love to invite everyone to come to and have a great time on, you know, food, drinks, cigars, straffles, all kinds of stuff, and then, uh, after that, after that day, as soon as the event is done, we're going to start pre-sailing the, um, Andalusian, the golden one. It's not, okay, perfect. Golden one, yeah.

All right. Well, there you go. All right. Well, thank you very much, guys.

I appreciate you coming on and, uh, I'm glad that you got to defend yourselves and you can, guys can come on anytime and defend yourselves. We have no problem with that. We always welcome you guys. Well, I thank you for inviting us, but I don't feel we defended ourselves.

I just think they were, they didn't have all the information they needed before they went on the radio. Right. And not for me or Matuls. I think they should have had Tony or Lito or Carney on so they could understand it.

Right. I think the problem is they don't understand what's going on. Just like myself. And that's fine.

Dave is probably my age. And we're in a different generation. Right. And that's the issue, I think.

I don't think Dave did anything wrong. Right. I just think they didn't understand what's going on. There you go.

Yeah. All right, perfect, guys. Well, thanks again for coming on. Thank you, guys.

And we'll be in touch soon. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time.

All right, guys. Bye, bye. Take care, bye. So, that went, I didn't feel good about that.

What do you think? It went well, but I mean, it wasn't as big a deal as we originally thought it was going to be. Yeah. I love Danny.

We can have Danny on every week if you want. Danny's amazing. We could do a whole segment with just Danny. Oh yeah, just Danny talking.

We could make it like a Peter Griffin, like, you know, grinds my gears thing or something. We could explain technical things to him each week. Yeah. So this is, Al Gore created this thing called the internet.

Right. You're right, start from the very beginning. Yeah, let's start. Do you have email, Danny?

Let's work out your email. I'll tell you right now, Danny is a great retailer. Danny is one of the only retailers that I can call at any given fucking time. Yeah.

And he answers. Oh, I mean, he's about to give out his cell phone number on the air. And, you know, hey, what's going on? How are things?

Whether he's buying or not. Right. You know, I got to give him credit for that. Matul, not so much.

I don't even call Matul. I call Sanju. Sanju's the guy. Oh, Sanju.

Yeah, Sanju's. He runs a place. He's number one. Oh, I got you.

Right. To a point where Matul gets upset. I'm like, I'll just call Sanju. Fuck off.

" He's at the other location. He's usually at Dad's. " "Phil has something to say. " It's 47.

All right, so we'll crack out some news. Yeah, I kept a light news, a couple Florida stories. A little double page action. All right, I got to turn the pages over all the time.

And you grabbed my cigar, now what am I smoking for the Patreon? We're not going to do the Patreon right now, we'll have to do it later, because mine was plugged. So I couldn't give it a fair shake. Just take mine then.

Yeah, what the fuck? You couldn't just cut the end off or something? Michael, if I have three, and you have one, we both have two. Yeah, but now we had two, I had one, you had one, now I have none.

Yeah, yeah, but I'll give you another one. You've had two. I'll get another one. I don't think it will.

Listen, I need to smoke a cigar, and it makes me feel happy. From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report, with Mike Toon. Ford Cigar Company is releasing Flavor in October, FLVR.

A new line of flavored cigars from STG's Ford Cigar Company is scheduled to arrive on store shelves in early October, released under the name FLVR Flavor. 25 per box of 25. The blends of the cigars are not being disclosed, though the company said they use premium tobaccos and are hand-rolled. Here are the names of the cigars.

The Space Ranger, combination of chocolate and mint. And laser beams. With a hint of cherry. And rocket fuel.

Yes. The Fist Bump, a profile reminiscent of Frosted Birthday Cake. Birthday cake. Oh, you know what, because when I hear fist bump, I'm like, let me guess birthday cake.

I think Howie Mandel and I think germaphobe as well. Oh, okay. So what it should taste like is hand sanitizer. Oh.

Flavor profile Purell. I think I should have called you. Yeah, I could have figured this out. Okay, the ski chalet.

Ski chalet. What do you think that one should taste like, Mike? The ski chalet? Yes.

It should be minty. Sweaty feet and fur? What's ski? I think skiing.

Skiing, yeah. And the chalet is where you stay when you ski. Is it? The little cottage.

Okay. The, um, let's see, you know, like, I think refreshing, kind of, like piney, plus a little bit of, um, fireside burning type, maybe marshmallows? Close. A caramel flavor bomb with hints of cinnamon spice to give you a nod to fall.

I don't think that that's even remotely close. Yeah, no, why are you falling? You want winter. No, I want, I want piney.

You want winter when you're skiing. Yeah, I want Christmas. You can't ski in the fall. Yeah, I want a taste of Christmas, I call it Christmas treat, and make it piney.

Make it piney? Yeah, yeah. All right, the Yacht Rock? The Yacht Rock.

Yacht Rock. Maybe the picture that you made me take down off to Facebook. Yeah, the one that was a no-no. Yeah.

That was funny. The Yacht Rock. So it's a boat with some type of stone on it? Booze-inspired smoke with notes of rum, simple sugar, and cola.

Because I believe you'll buy booze with it. Right. I just want to get from the car. Unicorn tears.

What? I'm sorry, I was just moving on. I just want to get the car to the office without being confronted for the modern decay of Western society? You never heard that?

No. Plus I'm cheap. Okay, good, good, good. Unicorn Tears.

For the amount of movies that you watch, you really kind of hurt. I've watched good movies. Oh, I still haven't watched... Liar Liar.

I still haven't watched... I still haven't watched Elvish. I've watched Liar Liar. I've watched Liar Liar.

It was a long time ago. By far one of the best movies of all time. Thank you, Phil. You're both from the same generation.

I don't know what the fuck that means. I have not watched Elvish yet. Oh, so... You have not watched Elvish yet?

No, I still have not watched Elvish yet. Game of Thrones is good, though. I enjoyed the new House of Targaryen. All out of time.

Wow. Can I just say one thing? What? Michael Parsons was talking shit, and he's like, I'm gonna take Tom Brady out.

Michael Parsons. You don't have to take Tom Brady out, his wife is already making him leave. So he went to fucking hit, he hit him a couple times at the beginning. Yeah, right.

And then Leonard Fournette fucking cleaned his clock, just took him right in the air, it was amazing. Oh yeah, Leonard Fournette. And then all of a sudden he was no longer getting to him, it was pretty cool. Oh, nice.

But go ahead, anyways. What's that, Unicorn Tears? The last one is Unicorn Tears. Unicorn Tears.

Cookie dough and brown sugar. No, no, it should have been like Skittles or some shit, you know? Oh, well, they should have checked with you. Yeah.

Yaya begins arriving in stores. We didn't buy those at the show, but that was something I wanted to buy. I didn't even know they were there. Yeah, Yaya.

The Mikarita Sakakon arrives at stores. Sakakon, Sakakon. We have that one. We reviewed that on our Patreon.

And someone else reviewed it, too. Did they? Yes. Who?

I can't remember who it was. Okay, what did they say? They gave them a 93. Oh, interesting.

Right. You should go to our Patreon. All right, there is an extremely toxic caterpillar lurking in Florida, Michael. Son of a bitch.

It's pictures right here. That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like right here. Right there.

Right there. Oh, I gotta turn this over. Florida residents are warning others about hairy and dangerous caterpillars lurking in the state, according to WESH TV. Puss caterpillars, puss caterpillars, sorry, puss.

It's orange, you can tell by the photo here, it's orange and extremely hairy looking. Oh, does it taste like... Well, no, no, you don't. You don't want to taste it?

No, no, you don't. No, you don't touch it. Puss Caterpillar is a return to Sunshine State, usually popping up during the fall and spring. If I fried it up, what would it taste like?

You don't eat it. While these furry orange creatures seem harmless, experts say you shouldn't touch them. The hair-like bristles are actually extremely toxic spines that stick to your skin. Ah.

There are little hollow hairs and fluffy hairy material. A diagnostician at the Insect Notification Lab in Virginia Tech told CigarHard. What's it called? What's the name of the caterpillar?

Puss. Puss Caterpillar. This totally should have been a ya-ya flavor. It looks like an orange cat.

This is the post-caterpillar. What's it taste like? It tastes like fucking death. Nobody eats these things, Michael!

That's what it tastes like. If someone brushes up against the hair and releases toxins that prick a human... I feel like we've talked about this before. leave a painful rash and it...

No, it was a different caterpillar. Oh, so they're just taking over. This is a new one. It's a caterpillar catastrophe.

Yes, caterpillar catastrophe. Don't come here, it's dangerous. It's dangerous. Yeah.

People can suffer swollen glands, fever, vomiting from the sting, as well as... Sometimes the pain can be severe enough to send people to emergency rope. Wow. That's terrible.

Oh, they also will be found in Texas. Don't go to Texas. You know, it's funny. It's funny that you say that because when we went to Austin, Texas.

Yes. You got stung by a candle? No, no. Phil was with us.

And what Phil likes to do when he drives. He sits in the passenger seat. Right. Depending upon if he's hungry or not.

If he's hungry, he will tell you every single restaurant that we pass. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. It's like, ooh, Jack in the Box.

Ooh. Right. And if he's not hungry, he'll just announce things. Right.

So he announced this pest control company. Oh. And they had a gigantic scorpion on it. " Right.

Right, Phil? Correct. Phil's just barely holding on today. Yes, he was sleeping during the interview.

I saw you sleeping. No, I wasn't. We saw you sleeping. We saw you sleeping.

You'll look on the cameras when I tried to take a picture and then he woke up and saw me. No, no, I was very interested. Florida man arrested for attacking a gym member with a barbell. Where have you been, Mike?

Oh. Ooh. Would I use a barbell to attack somebody in the gym? Yes.

Yes. I don't think I would use a barbell. Yes. Me and Phil say yes.

A barbell... Robbie, yes, right? Robbie? Yes.

Robbie says yes, so everybody says yes. I would probably... No, I'm telling you, it doesn't seem like the most efficient... The only thing that saved you is that it was at LA Fitness and you would not walk into an office.

They're now called a Sporta, just for the record. Police have arrested a former LA Fitness employee... Oh, an employee. accused of assaulting a gym member with a barbell at South Florida Gym.

Christian Alfonso Rollins was arrested in Orlando on August 31st in Miami-Dade County Warrant two months after he was accused of assaulting a gym member during an attack at an LA Fitness. What'd the guy do? According to police, in June 28th, a verbal altercation started between Rollins and a man who was working out the LA Fitness in Northwest 123rd Street in Miami. Okay.

The altercation turned physical and Rollins used a metal bar to smash the victim's head. Did the guy not put his weights back or something? Probably didn't stack them. Didn't wipe the sweat off the pad or something.

Major Kessler Brooks, a spokesman for the North Miami Police Department, said witnesses who saw the incident rushed to the victim's aid. Brooks said some gym members used towels to cover the victim's skull while fire rescue personnel arrived. Rollins fled the scene following the assault. Following the arrest, the Orange County Sheriff's Office held Rollins without bond for his extradition.

He is facing charges of second-degree murder, so no, Phil, he did not survive with a deadly weapon. He died. Yeah, an aggravated battery in Miami-Dade County. Wow.

Hey, man, put your fucking weights back, bro. That's intense. Yeah. Don't piss the guys off at LA Fitness.

Yeah, when he's on parole, I'm gonna see if I can get him an RDB. Oh, to work there, he can get a job there. We can call him Dom. Call him Dom.

Put him in charge of the bike. The assault bike? The assault bike. Got on it today, baby.

Yeah, you're still assault biking, are you? I like the assault bike. What is your weapon of choice, by the way, at the gym? Thank you very much, Phil, for asking.

Because I would just use the regular standard kind of weight. Just the plate? Yeah, you can grab like a 35 or a 25 and just kind of wield it. Right.

Yeah, if you really wanted to go deep, and like the person was laying there, you could crush him with a 45 or something. Straight murder. Yeah, I mean... This sounds like he hit the guy in the head when the guy was standing.

Yeah, I don't know how he pulled that off. Yeah. It's pretty impressive. The guy's got to probably be on some train or something.

Maybe it's a dumbbell bar. He's got to be roided out. Not a big, giant, six-foot bar. Yeah, but like it...

I mean, what was the weight? I mean, you know... Well, it was probably in an empty bar, I would imagine. A dumbbell bar?

No, a dumb... A little short bar? Yeah, but they don't come with... Oh, they're not adjustable.

Oh, that's right, they have the weight dirty on them. Yeah, they're set with the weight, yeah. I mean, even a 10-pounder would. Could be deadly.

Oh, yeah, right. Well, maybe it was a six-foot. I mean, I'm going to tell you, one of the scariest things that I've ever been involved in my life was we were at, we were, Brittany and I were both bartending, and it was, I think it was like a Sunday night, it was like Memorial Day weekend or some shit. And this fight fucking broke out.

And there are fucking beer bottles flying and shit, and like, things are bad. And one of the, and like the pool tables that are on like a tile, so because it's wet and people are slamming and beating the shit out of each other, the pool tables are moving, right? Some dude fucking picks up the pool balls and starts heaving them. Fucking, I mean, and this guy...

Into the crowd. Yeah, this guy's, he looks like a fucking MLB professional pitcher. These things are just flying. I mean, one...

That would hurt. Dude, one hit the table and like the tables had like these little things on top of them, kind of like a divider. right it fucking left the dent and it was solid wood oh wow into this fuck i mean like i'm looking at britain like we're gonna get the fuck out of here like i'm not i'm not breaking this one up though we're gonna wait till they tire out or something right you know i think that i are out i think that the security guard there who was damon at the time he started fucking spraying people with pepper spray i mean shit was going nuts it was out of control but greg greg was not there he doesn't worry he didn't work sundays oh but i'm gonna tell you that shit was scary and And those things aren't nearly as heavy as a dumbbell. No, no, but that would hurt them.

Yeah, if you heat, I mean, you could probably kill somebody with a fucking cue ball or a pool ball. This guy died that he hit it. Just because he was trying to be fit. Right.

Put your weight back. Wipe the pad off when you do it. Do the right thing. Wipe off your sweat.

Mr. Alonzo could come around and fucking... He could come around and bash you in the head. Yeah.

You got a Shop of the Week or Listener of the Week? A Shop of the Week? I have two. You have to pick one.

I have two. No, but you're only allowed one. Well, I'm going to pick the one that I like better. Okay, good.

Tobacco Plaza. What are you pointing to that for? Tobacco Plaza. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Because he didn't get mentioned before. Yeah, he didn't get the attention that he deserves. So, Danny. Oh, hello.

Camera's back over here now. Listener of the week? Danny D. No, let's make it Robbie Doyle.

Let's make it Robbie Doyle. Robbie Doyle. Listener of the week. Robbie Doyle, official listener of the week.

Official listener of the week. Look at him smile. This is taking it all in. I'm all excited.

All right, anything else? I can't wait until Dad listens to this one. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Not his dad. Dad. Dad. Yeah.

All right, that's it then. This has been episode 245 of the Cigar Hustler Podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.

100,000 of you. Downloads. It's crazy. Well, because we have...

Real quick, real quick. Just remind them real quick. We'll be up $10,000. We'll be up $10,000.

$10,000. $10,000. Oh, who's number one? Cigar Hustler?

The podcast will be up $10,000. That's seasoned assist on this shit, huh? All right. A Cigar Hustler's podcast, its owners, and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guest.

Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike & Mike Productions or the podcast providers, and opinions between talk show hosts may differ. And they may differ. It is not our intention to libel, incite, or hurt anyone's feelings. We invite you to write the show's host, Mike Szczefankewicz, with any feedback or suggestions that you have for their shows.

These broadcasts are presented and made public as entertainment in the hope that they will be entertaining to the audience. This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a Mike & Mike production. m. for all new episodes.

Hi, I'm doing... I'm Husto-E-Raw. Yeah, we just don't have to do a single, uh, single podcast ever again. Perfect.

I'm good, Mike and Mike. How are you guys doing? The Hojo, the... Hojo!

It's the Hojo! He didn't even let him fuck it up all the way. I gotta get past Hojo! I don't even have to try it.

He's not even gonna try it. We're gonna cover a lot of ground here, Mike. All right. Try to keep up.

That's a sign of a good podcast. It'd be like four cigars when I walked in a door. All right, end this.

Show Notes

This week we give Mitul Shaw and Danny Ditkowich a chance to rebut the comments made on The Cigar Authority about their NFT purchase from LFD