Cigar sign to take back seat
Tourists occasionally wander in and ask to buy a stogie
Michele Young / Kamloops Daily News April 19, 2013
During the summer, the occasional confused tourist walks into the Venture Kamloops building at First Avenue and Seymour Street, looking to buy cigars.
Since Venture Kamloops's job is to attract and retain business, there are no stogies to be found.
The confusion comes from the biggest sign on the building, which reads "Kamloops Inland Cigar Factory." When the heritage building was constructed in 1895, that's what it was.
But that's not what it is now.
"It's a 100-some year-old building but we're doing business in the present day," said Venture Kamloops executive director Jim Anderson.
"Nobody really knows where we are. They know where this building is."
And so his agency made a request to the City's heritage commission to replace the main sign on the building with the Venture Kamloops insignia.
A commemorative crest will remind the public that the building was originally the Inland Cigar Factory. It will go in the window-sized niche on the front of the second floor.
Andrew Yarmie with the heritage commission said the sign change was discussed by the group and approved.
"We thought that was an acceptable change," he said Friday.
"Apparently people come in and ask for cigars.
"We accepted that the change take place as long as there are no structural changes to the building."
The main sign was about due for a change, anyway, as the paint has started cracking.
Anderson said cigar seekers aren't that frequent, and the sign change is mostly about visibility for Venture Kamloops.
"The cigar requests aren't a key thing."
In its early days, the factory handled Cuban tobacco, which was blended with locally grown leaves. At its peak, 25 employees produced up to 4,000 cigars a day.
The factory moved in 1913 and the building became a bakery.
From the Kamloops Daily News