This place changed ownership about 6 months Ago and since then is an amazing smoke shop. They have…read moreall of the top brands that one would expect from a top of the line Glass, VAPE and Smoke shop in 2020 including amazing CBD, Glass, E-Liquids, and all VAPE Hadware plus accessories. Before the ownership change the place may as well have been a time machine back to 1979 and literally had dust covering all of the products. Please if you haven't been here recently then stop by and give the shop a second chance as you will not regret it! PS. The Pricing is incredible And I have picked up glass here for $20 which I have seen for $60 in the valley!

I have lived in a few big cities in my life so moving to Oak Park I have tried to embrace the sense…read moreof community here as much as possible. I am very guilty of buying amazon during this pandemic and so when I can buy something in the neighborhood, I do. And when I notice what I'm buying is a little more expensive than a Walmart or some large National chain, I buy it anyway because I appreciate seeing businesses grow in the neighborhood. So at this shop, I know rami well. I don't smoke cigarettes myself anymore but I will vape from time to time and sometimes buy for a friend who prefers good old fashioned combustion. Rami is very jovial, always smiling and as a customer I enjoy that he treats each transaction with much care and attention to detail. Anyway, I figured I'd ask anyway. So he quotes me a price and I don't think of it much because it's higher than where my friend was already getting it. Insists that it's his best price and says the only discount he ever gives anybody is 2 bucks because there is no margin in cigarettes. Makes sense. It's mostly a commoditized market. So a few weeks pass by and my friend runs out of her last batch and asks me to pick some up. I tell her that my place is more expensive but I'd be happy to pick up some for her if she tells me where. Surprise. She wasn't getting her stuff from a national retailer either, but from where? Sams tobacco. So I'm interested in this now so I go back and ask to buy 5 cartons of her brand at the price she normally buys it at and see if I could pick them up for her, but really I'm just interested about the pricing. He does this charade about calling the "manager" and asking for the best price possible and comes back and offers me a price that was 8 bucks per carton higher than where he sells it to her. I'm annoyed at this point, so I tell him the full story of how I come to know that he isn't offering me the best price. Its an awkward moment and I'm pretty sure he is caught in a sheepish position, but at the end of the day I'm trying to do my friend a favor so I ask him if I can get her price. He calls the manager in the back room and comes back and tells me something about how prices are going up because of the pandemic and throws the word shortage around a few times. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna tell him he is done anyway because at the end of the day I don't mind if he makes a few extra bucks off of me and shortage makes sense, so I ask him to total it up. Anyway 5 cartons the total I think came out to 561.29 or something like that. I pulled out 600 bucks and needed 40 in cash to buy lunch at a cash only spot, so I ask him if 560 is ok. He starts talking about how margins are tight and he can't. I'm trying to get out of having to go to the bank again for 1.29 but then I realize that margins are not so tight that he can't spare 25 cents a carton to save me from having to go to the atm again. So I figure I'm gonna have to go to the atm again because even if we can settle up on the dollar and change, I probably need some cash, so I check away at king tobacco. Turns out that rami did not have the lowest price. I have two smokers in my orbit. One that smokes camel lights and one that smokes American spirits. Checked those two levels and the cash price (2 dollars per carton discount is standard to credit the transaction savings), is 7 dollars higher for American spirits and 10 dollars higher for camels. Kevin at kings tobacco is running the store for his uncle these days and is really helpful. Explained all sorts of technical details about the latest vapes. (Novo is up to gen 4 now, but he explained why gen 3 is simpler if you are just looking for something easy). Long story short, the cost savings for 5 cartons amounted to a free vape. Kevin also tossed in some free goodies. I don't really care where people spend money as far as national vs local and all that, but if you are like me and do care about that type of stuff and want to support businesses in the community that provide goods to us, I would just skim sams and go directly to kings tobacco. They do not deal in good faith, at least with me, and at the end of the day have higher prices. This place is not worth the stop.