Sol Levy was a tobacco store in Sydney and though most people working in there seemed cocky, cranky and grouchy it was about the only place worth visiting if you are into pipes, pipe tobacco and cigars.
Those days, signs like this were all over the store:
As a tobacconist, we carry a range of legal-to-sell products for the tobacco user.
And, by the way, collect and pay heaps to the government.
Please ask our sales staff. It is our pleasure to serve you.
or
Can’t see what you are looking for in this old established tobacconist.
Please ask our sales staff. It is our pleasure to serve you.
or
In accordance with the NSW Government Public Health (Tobacco) Act 2008 we are prohibited from displaying smoking products.
We operate a legal business & will serve any person over the age of 18.
Australia’s draconian anti-tobacco laws have resulted in the most horrific, hideous, macabre, shocking and puke-inducing anti-smoking ads in the world. As required by law, tobacco products are packaged plainly with those revolting pictures plastered on 85% of each package. Taxes imposed are also very high. Yet, despite those grotesque images, no tobacco products, including pipes, can be displayed. Customers must ask for them – treasures revealed on request, so to speak. (Ironic that the Australian prime minister was pleading for the lives of two of his countrymen sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking – so drugs are ok?)
When I landed in Sydney last Saturday, I was saddened to discover that Sol Levy has closed in early November last year. Tough Aussie anti-smoking measures have sounded the death knell for Sol Levy. For a business established in 1890 and trading for over a hundred years, that’s a very sad end.
Even if those who manned it were cocky, cranky and grouchy most of the time.
NOTE: The picture below is an old one; today, tins of tobacco are stripped off all packaging, due to tough anti-tobacco laws in Australia.
The price tag will make you go blind – yes, that was how much Aussies paid for a tin of tobacco back in 2013. (Photo was taken in 2013.)