Why the Smoke Doesn’t Get in Their Eyes

Taking a drag on an electronic cigar while making the real thing.

THE men sat hunched along counters at La Casa Grande Tobacco Company in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market in the Belmont section of the Bronx, working furiously. Deftly rolling, pressing and slicing tobacco leaves with a slab of sharp metal known as a chaveta, they sculptured perfectly cylindrical cigars — an art that requires years to master.

In a glass case next to their workstation, another cigar curiosity beckoned customers: the battery-operated version.

“Electric cigars!” a customer exclaimed the other day, a real cigar stub still smoldering in his hand. He burst out laughing and walked away, shaking his head.

But e-cigars — along with e-cigarettes — are no joke.

Paul DiSilvio, the 34-year-old founder of La Casa Grande Tobacco Company, began stocking them in December after stumbling across a description on the Internet. He was intrigued by the pitch: odorless, tobaccoless products that companies claimed offered the experience of smoking — without all the hazards.

He let himself imagine the possibilities: No spouses irritated by the smell, no children pestering parents about health concerns, no restaurant managers insisting that smokers step outside in the dead of winter. And with ever steeper cigarette taxes, a rechargeable battery could even be cost-effective.

Mr. DiSilvio hadn’t sold cigarettes in years. Not only did he consider their ingredients more harmful than cigars’, but “cigarettes you can buy anywhere, any counter bodega,” he said. “There’s nothing innovative about it.”

Electronic cigarettes were something else entirely. He thought they might even help smokers quit.

Mr. DiSilvio ordered his first shipment, and they sold out.

“We’re the ones who brought them to the forefront, baby,” Mr. DiSilvio said with a grin. With starter kits that sell from $99 to $149, he added: “We can’t keep them on the shelves. It’s the next big thing.”

With most models, a stainless-steel case is designed to resemble a cigarette or cigar. Inside are cartridges filled with water and varying levels of nicotine — a highly addictive substance that can affect heart rate and blood pressure. A rechargeable battery powers puffs of water vapor out one end, which glows red with each drag. Refills cost $19 for five cartridges, about the equivalent of 200 cigarettes.

Recent customers include Rosa Martino, a 50-year-old secretary from Morris Park in the Bronx who said she smoked her first cigarette 35 years ago.

“Everybody was smoking, so we all started,” said Ms. Martino, who estimated she had been smoking as much as a pack and a half a day. “My kids are always bugging me, and cigarettes have gotten expensive. I’m hoping this will help me stop.”

So far, she said, the experience has been promising. “They taste like a cigarette,” she said. “The only thing was, it’s hard to find the filters.”

Yevgen Fromer, an e-cigarette wholesaler, hopes that such problems are short-lived. He supplies more than a dozen stores in New York through Safety Shield, a company he founded in 2006. The company offers nine models of electronic cigars and cigarettes imported from China and Turkey.

“It’s an amazing item,” said Mr. Fromer, who estimates that he has sold 20,000 kits since introducing the item last year. He has smoked them in restaurants and bars, he said. “Everybody asked me: ‘Where did you buy it? Where did you get it?’ And I give them my business card. It’s a pretty good advertisement.”

A spokeswoman for the city’s health department said that if the product had no tobacco, it could be used anywhere. But she added that there was not enough information to support its use as an aid to quit smoking.

Electronic cigars and cigarettes are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. An agency spokeswoman said that similar devices have been classified as unapproved new drugs, which makes them illegal.

In September, the World Health Organization said in a statement that there was too little evidence to endorse any safety claims or the product’s effectiveness in weaning smokers off tobacco.

But Mr. DiSilvio has no doubts.

“I think, honestly, it could change the world,” he said. “A tobacco-free world could be a better world.”

He paused.

“Maybe not a cigar-free world,” he said. “A cigarette-free world.”