A Cigar Bar in Williamsburg Brooklyn NY

Velvet Cigar Lounge is planning to open in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, next to the famed Peter Luger Steak House, on May 21. This establishment in which you can smoke cigars indoors has not only set up shop about a year and a half ago on the Lower East Side of the Big Apple, but it's also expanding to Brooklyn.

Velvet, says founder and owner Jason Alvator, acts like a cigar bar, offering wine and beer (no whiskey yet) for a price, a fireplace, humidors and places to sit and enjoy it all. However, in accordance with smoking ban regulations, the place qualifies as a retail tobacconist, says Alvator, by counting 50 percent of its revenue from the sale of cigars. This is accomplished, in part, through the on- and off-premises sale of an in-house brand of cigars, called Reserva Dominicana, which are rolled in the same room where cigar bar clientele smoke.

"I used to work in the Supreme Court during the summer when I was in college," said Alvator where he spent much of his time reading legal documents. Upon reading the smoking ban legislation, he noticed the loophole. "[Fifty percent of revenue from cigars] is defined as a retail tobacconist. There is nothing [in the regulations] that says you can't serve liqueur and charge for it, too."