James DeLisle, downtown Hartford’s tobacco expert, didn’t have to search for a job he loved – he was raised with it.
The Tobacco Shop has been his for the past 30 years, but he’s been working there since he was 16. And it suits him: Among the displays of pipes and rows of cigars, he can mingle with customers and smoke all he wants.
“I liked it from the beginning,” he said, recounting how he’d worked the cash register, dealt with customers, kept the shelves stocked and more when he took up part-time work in his teens. He didn’t find the job by chance; DeLisle’s father had worked there with the original owner. DeLisle’s father eventually bought the shop, then son took over the now-87-year-old institution about 30 years ago.
By then, DeLisle was well versed in all things tobacco. The shop on 55 Asylum sells more smoking accessories than most non-smokers – and likely some smokers – could imagine: pipe racks, pipe tools, pipe reamers, pipe lighters, cigar lighters, cigar ashtrays, and cigar cutters.
Higher Learning
DeLisle absorbed tobacco know-how from the early days, but also made it almost an academic pursuit. He’s read books on the subject, even visited tobacco farms in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. So when non-smokers come in to buy cigar gifts, a few questions from DeLisle are usually enough to figure out what kind of cigar the subject would like best.
DeLisle hasn’t spent his entire working life at the shop, but his other jobs pointed indirectly to where he is now. He spent three and a half years in the Navy working as a supply clerk and his very first job, at age 14, was working in the tobacco fields.
“It was the only job you could get at 14,” DeLisle recalled. “It was dirty, but you didn’t care – at 14, at that time, you were getting a good paycheck.”
DeLisle, an East Hartford native, worked harvesting the broad tobacco leaves with other kids his age in the early 1960s, back when East Hartford, South Windsor and Glastonbury had massive tobacco fields.
But DeLisle now works in cleaner environs, greeting regulars and newcomers.
Interacting with people is the best part of the job, he said. There’s a core contingent of Tobacco Shop regulars that DeLisle knows by name, many of whom come in on their lunch breaks for cigars. But DeLisle said enough new residents and curious shoppers keep fresh faces coming in the door.
“It’s a fun job. It’s been a pleasure,” he said.
