Cohibas and conversation: tobacco merchant loved customers as much as business

(Kitchener Record) Mike Koebel loved the Walper Tobacco Shop so much, he nurtured and pushed the business through fires, recessions, smoking crackdowns and endless downtown renewal projects for more than 40 years.
Over the years as neighbouring businesses came and went, cigar-lovers, pipe-puffers and magazine enthusiasts beat a path to his shop near the corner of King and Queen Streets.
“I can’t think of another retailer down there that’s been around even close to that long,” says local lawyer Brian Wagner, of the store that first began selling tobacco products in 1891. Continued