Where Everybody Knows Your Name

In 1997, Jim Pecunes was still working full-time as a Realtor in the Cockeysville area when his son, Ben, a commercial painter, asked him to be the third partner in a new cigar store Ben and a friend from Annapolis were opening up on Padonia Road.

“They just wanted me for my money,” Pecunes jokes.

But after Ben’s wife died of breast cancer at age 30 and his Annapolis partner jumped ship, Pecunes was thrown into running a store, The Humidour, that catered to a clientele and he knew virtually nothing about in an industry he knew virtually nothing about. He enlisted the help of his daughter, Finnie, who took one-year leave from her studies at Villa Julie College.

The plan, Pecunes says, was to run the store for a few more years, enough time to make some of his money back, then sell it.

Finnie had other ideas.

“She said, ‘I’m absolutely loving this. Do we have to [sell the store]?’” says Pecunes.

Since then, the cigar shop has grown into a well-stocked tobacconist with a vibrant community of cigar smokers and frequent visitors who come for the cigars, but stay for the camaraderie. (WBAL Radio’s Ron Smith stops in three or four times a week, Pecunes says.)

Under the stewardship of Finnie, the business has expanded once and opened at its current location on York Road in August 2006, a move that roughly doubled The Humidour's size,  to 2,400 square feet.

Finnie is “running the show,” which is somewhat atypical for a typically male-oriented business, says Pecunes. Since joining her father at the store, Finnie has been active in the cigar world, attending conventions nationwide, meeting with cigar makers and representatives, setting up in-store cigar tastings and events—which The Humidour does twice every month—and organizing the various charity events the shop is involved in each year. She also tracks all the cigars in the store—how long they’ve been in store, and how well they’re selling.

The shop’s name comes from the temperature-controlled room where cigars are kept. A humidor is an airtight container or room that ensures tobacco stays moist. (Dry cigars and tobacco will peel and flake.)

In the center of The Humidour sits one large humidor sectioned off by two swinging, glass-paned doors. To the left of that is the shop’s pipe room, which boasts an impressive selection of pipe tobacco and pipe-smoking accessories.

But the crown jewel is the lounge, which sits off to the side of the humidor in the back of the shop: a few couches, a couple recliners, one big-screen television, and all the accoutrements for making coffee or tea.

On a given afternoon, anywhere between five and 10 cigar enthusiasts can be found socializing, watching golf on the TV or shooting the breeze about work or their families.

“This is the tobacconists’ answer to ‘Cheers,’” says Pecunes, who will turn 70 in July. “Everyone’s become close friends.”

Customers echo the sentiment.

“The friendships that we’ve created have become strong bonds,” says John DiNatale, a local caterer.

Patrick Hart, a Baltimore City firefighter, says the ambience and the friends he has made at the store keep him coming back. “The different events they have are fantastic, too,” he says.

Some of those events include out-of-store and in-store fundraisers for charity. In October, The Humidour runs “Butts for Tatas.” Customers pay to come to the store that day, where they find six or seven cigar vendors selling directly to them. The vendors donate the cigars and allow customers to negotiate their own prices. Proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The Humidour’s biggest annual event, the one Finnie started and has been running for 14 years, is Smoke on the Water. A multitude of cigar vendors descend on the Inner Harbor in May, and each one of them donates 350 cigars. The Humidour sells 350 tickets to the event at $150 a head, distributes coupon books to all attendees, then has event participants go around to all the different vendors to purchase cigars of their choice. 

Since the event’s inception, more than $100,000 has been raised. The money has been donated to charities including Matt Birk’s Hike Foundation, Pathfinders for Autism, Survivor Diver and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The camaraderie and the congenial environment, says Pecunes, remain the big selling point for the store.

Says DiNatale, “[We’re] kind of like a group of guys who have grown up together.”

Tickets to this year’s Smoke on the Water event go on sale April 5 at 10 a.m. The event takes place May 12.