You know? There are two categories of people around. Those who have an experience and understanding and those who have none of it!
Those of the first category mostly are weighting up weather it is worse to express their opinion or not due the unwritten rules of good manners or simply because it doesn't make a sense - nothing wouldn't change anyway!
Those of the second category unwillingly fall in hypocrisy due of the lack of experience or the lack of understanding how things have to be done!
I belong to the first one category.
When some 6 years ago I arrived to Dublin from Eastern Europe I was already a pipe smoker for about 10 years. I was accustomed with nice small tobacco shops where I could come not just for quick buy,but I had a chance to feed up my eyes with different brands of pipes,accessories as well as to try out (!) any brand of tobacco I was interested in for free plus - to have some cup of nice coffee accompanied with friendly talks with shop owner and in most cases even to have a chance to educate myself a little bit. Yeah! Any of these tobacco shops had (have) at least 50 brands on shelves! It made the visit itself as well as that day very special!....
If I found myself at the different area of the city there were no problems to get my tin of tobacco at the another tobacconist shop or - simply at the shopping mall!
...For now I am already accustomed by situation in Dublin where are just 4 places at the very city center to get a tobacco... It took some 3 years wile my shock was gone - now I found different ways how and where to get what I want! But there still remain the questions I can't get an answers to.
First of all I can't get where does this kind of dictatorship or monopoly comes from? Just 2 brands of tobacco one can get in Peterson's shop - Dunhill (which is plain Latakia and I hate it!) and Peterson (which is very acceptable!)! Is it simply greed driven by government or - the local way of understanding how does privet business could be run?
Peterson's competitors next door (Fox) are more flexible somewhat as they have their own mixtures and own brands as well.
Summary I can say that it is a shame what does pipe smokers meet in Ireland! Even in such countries like Latvia,Lithuania and Estonia pipe smokers meet almost unlimited possibilities and any kind of service they desire in this area! Needless to mention such counties rich by pipe smoking traditions like Denmark,Switzerland,Germany... whole Europe!
Well,it probably wasn't necessary to open my mouth here and to say what I says... I simply wander and in times am even shocked of how does offsprings love to lay on the merits of their ancestors who had been working hard for getting a good and strong reputation of the company! Today it is not necessary neither to work hard nor to care of customers! It is enough to push a tin of tobacco into customer's hands,to collect a money and - Ciao,bello! See you next time!
Are you sure you'll see me one more time in your shop?