Just before 7pm last night, we received a reader tip from Patricia G. letting us know that Cigarettes and Cigars at 438 Judah St. was unexpectedly closing up shop:
“I just walked by and everything is being dismantled and there is a Rent a Truck packed with their Coke machine, display cases, etc. All that is left is some wood panels and boxes on the ground in the shop. No going out of business sign in the window either. Looks kind of odd.”
We followed up this afternoon and confirmed that the storefront, located on the corner of 10th & Judah, has been stripped bare, leaving behind only some advertising, trash bags, and a bowl containing several sticks of burnt incense.
The phone number for Cigarettes and Cigars hasn’t been disconnected, but repeated calls connected us to what sounded like a fax machine. According to its Yelp page, this “family-owned and run” stop opened in 2013, selling smoke shop standbys like lighters and rolling papers, as well as a large selection of cigars and discounted cigarettes.
Although many stores in the Inner Sunset also sell tobacco products, Cigarettes and Cigars appears to be the only business in the area that sold water pipes and vaporizers, product categories more often associated with the Upper Haight. According to one Yelp review, employees “Bashir and Amir are great,” possibly a reference to Aamir Khan, the owner listed on the store’s business license. We’ve reached out to Khan via email and will update this story if we learn more about the store's closure.
Tobacco use has been on a steady decline in San Francisco in recent years; in a 2012 study conducted by a group at the University of Washington concluded that 14.4 percent of men and 10.4 percent of women in San Francisco smoke, compared to the national average of 22.2 percent and 17.9 percent, respectively.
Last month, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a proposal to ban the use of smokeless tobacco on all athletic fields that would include AT&T Park. If Mayor Ed Lee signs the measure into law, it will go into effect next January, another factor that could impact the financial health of the city's tobacconists.
