When Camel cigarettes snuffed its nationwide ad campaign last January, Kansas City bar owners lost millions of dollars in subsidies and bar accoutrements. But for Belle Star, well-known drag queen and owner of a new watering hole called Time Out, the end of the Camel train meant something different: Belle's own collection of Camel paraphernalia became even more valuable. The goods include Camel-embossed playing cards, ball caps, ceramic and glass ashtrays, beer mugs, shot glasses, napkins, a tapestry, a wooden cigarette box, a life-sized sculpture of a hand holding a lighted cigarette, posters, bar banners, paper Shriners' caps, a lighted pen, Camel kiosks, a Jimmy Dean-embossed lighter, a pool-table lamp, a Magic 8 Ball and a pair of Camel tighty whiteys (still in the box). The kicker? "I don't smoke Camels. I smoke Vantage 100s," says Star (otherwise known as Robert Taylor). "I have been smoking since I was eighteen, and I'm too old to switch."
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