Do you consider this technique “BAD”?

Question

Sometimes you need to skip execution of part of a method under certain non-critical error conditions. You can use exceptions for that, but exceptions generally are not

Answer 1

It depends on what the alternatives are. You have to admit that the code you posted is somewhat ugly. I wouldn't say it's clear. It's a kind of a hack. So if using some other coding solution would be worse, then ok. But if you have better alternative, don't let the excuse "it's good enough" comfort you.