I thought about this a bit more and came up with a different approach. What if you went uder a 1099 with the business as a "cigar consultant"? The general idea is you would assist them with obtaining a quality display case, cigars, and perhaps marketing. In return, they would pay you an hourly rate, or even better, a % of sales. The % of sales works best as they can easily calculate the required margins and the risk of expanding their business is distributed.

The above would no require you to get any licenses, just pay taxes at the end of the year if the company doesn't take them out.

-Chad