IN the Embajadores room at the Habana Libre hotel the air is thick with the sweet, honeyed smoke of cigars. Outside, Havana’s La Rampa street bustles with the sound of the early-evening crowd. A queue forms around Coppelia’s parlour, a favorite with the locals, reputedly making the best ice cream on the island.

Beyond, a short walk away, lies the Malecón, the weathered promenade that snakes its way around Havana’s northern coastline, busy filling up with Cubans who go there to meet, flirt, smoke and exchange gossip.

Back inside the Habana Libre, once the headquarters of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary armed forces, the Embajadores room is virtually full. Around 500 cigar aficionados, a mix of distributors, importers, specialists and enthusiastic smokers have gathered for the premiere of Trinidad’s Robusto T.

On that evening a year ago, it is the first time the cigar is smoked anywhere in the world. Among the aficionados it is well received. Of the many descriptions heard that night is woody, spicy, full-bodied and creamy. Many people compliment it on having a wonderful draw.

As the cigars are handed out on trays, all eyes turn to a small group of VIPs notable for their late arrival. Among them is David Soul, better known as the actor who played Hutch in the television series Starsky and Hutch. For a moment he’s in danger of upstaging Fidelito, Fidel Castro’s son, a regular at such occasions. Welcome to night three of the Festival del Habano, a week-long celebration of the Cuban tobacco industry. If you thought the world of wine appreciation was niche, try cigars.

One year on, anyone who is anyone in the cigar world will this weekend be flying into Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport for the 12th annual festival. They will get five days of cigar tastings, tobacco-plantation visits, seminars, factory tours and smoking, lots and lots of smoking.

It is, says Simon Chase, a former director of London-based cigar importer Hunters & Frankau and a festival regular, a chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in the Cuban tobacco industry and experience the tradition of Cuba’s cigar lineage first hand.

It was through Mr Chase that I enjoyed my first experience of cigars in 2004. My first lesson was not to inhale – as with wine, cigar appreciation is all about the taste. (Although it is worth pointing out that the US National Cancer Institute warns that there is no safe tobacco, and cigar smoke, like cigarette smoke, contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and nonsmokers.)

“One tastes a cigar and smokes a cigarette,” Mr Chase told me. “In that sense it is an entirely different experience. Like a fine wine, each cigar is a blend of aged tobacco. So one doesn’t inhale, one gently puffs, rather like sipping vintage Bordeaux.”

With this in mind I was invited a few years ago to judge in a contest to ascertain which brand of Cuban cigars matched best with Scotch whisky. After sipping and puffing my way through a number of combinations, I found that the sweeter the beverage the better the match. So port and rum work very well with most cigars. Some whiskies and particularly red wine (although premium aged blends and sweeter single malts tend to be an exception to the rule) do tend to dry the palate, which can leave a nasty, bitter flavor. In the end we chose Macallan, a whisky noted for its mahogany color and distinctive nose of dried fruit, chocolate orange, wood spices and full, rich oak flavor; which we paired with a Partagas Piramides cigar.

It was on that first trip to the Festival del Habano that I was struck by the similarities between wine appreciation and cigar appreciation. Both are agricultural products, have long and distinguished histories, command the same attention to detail in production and packaging, and can age for many years.

Moreover, as a great wine is defined by the terroir of its vineyard, so the character of a fine cigar is intimately connected with the land where the tobacco grows.

A key fixture of the festival is a visit to one of Cuba’s tobacco-growing regions. The early-morning drive from Havana to Vuelta Abajo in the westernmost corner of the Pinar del Rio tobacco-growing province passes through a patchwork of fields filled with lush, green plants.

Visually, I found it reminiscent of Chile’s Maipo valley, although instead of vineyards there are tobacco fields. Around 80,000 acres of tobacco are planted each year in the region. The growing process lasts around 10 months ending with the harvest between January and March.

After the harvest, the leaf is taken to the farmer’s curing barn where it is hung, dried and gathered together before undergoing a natural fermentation. This process sweats out the impurities, reducing acidity, tar and nicotine, and creating a finer, purer flavor. The leaves are then hand-sorted into sizes before being baled up and transferred to the warehouse, where they are left to age for three years.

The next step mirrors the blending art found in the wine and Scotch whisky industry as each tobacco plot produces a variety of flavors, which the master blender, or ligador, selects. The final blend is then rolled in the many factory houses dotted around Havana. In that sense, it is one of the world’s last luxury-goods items to be produced on a mass scale by hand.

As a shorthand guide, those wanting a full-bodied rich cigar should look out for Partagas, Cuaba, Bolivar and Ramon Allones. Perhaps a little lighter, but still heavy are Cohiba, Montecristo, Vegas Robaina and Trinidad. Romeo y Julieta, Quintero, Punch and H. Upmann offer a lighter smoke. The most delicate flavors are achieved by Hoyo de Monterrey, San Cristobal de la Habana and Guantanamera, which creates a nutty, intense and fragrant flavour.

This year, at the 12th festival, there will be a presentation of a new size of Romeo y Julieta cigar created with women smokers in mind. Mr Chase welcomes the development but says, ironically, it is the male interest that has fuelled the recent interest in the product.

“One thing about cigar smoking is that it is predominantly a male preserve,” he says. “Over the years there have been quite a lot of male bastions assailed and taken over by the other gender. Here is one [cigar smoking] which is still a male preserve.”

Ranald Macdonald, managing director of the London-based restaurant group Boisdale, has been taking a group to the festival for the past 10 years. He says that the pace of economic change in Havana has been such that a decade has been comparable to 40 years in Europe. As a result there has been a general improvement in cigar manufacturing, and thus the overall quality of cigars has never been higher.

“Cigars now taste so much better than they did 10 years ago,” Mr Macdonald says. “This is down to a number of improvements but to give one example, from 2002 they have been freezing cigars which has eliminated tobacco-eating pests such as weevil.”

This weekend, Mr Macdonald’s group will be scouring the cigar shops of Havana to stock up on a year’s supply of tobacco.

“Havana is one of the most enigmatic places on earth,” he says. “And everything about it, from where it sprung from in the 17th century to what it went through in the 20th century to where it is now, makes Europe feel rather dull.” I’ll smoke to that.

By Will Lyons, Theaustralian
February 23, 2010

Washington, D.C. – The International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association has come out in support of proposed Washington D. C. Council legislation to reduce under-aged smoking and against the same piece of legislation that would impact smokers’ rights outside businesses.

The proposal would assess new penalties on under-aged youth for purchasing or possessing tobacco products. At the same time, the bill allows shop owners to post no-smoking signs in front of their establishments to include 25 feet of their front door or from the sidewalk.

“As owners of premium cigar stores, we have very few people coming into our stores who are underaged and, if they try to make a purchase, they are carded without exception. So the part of the legislation regarding underaged youth and tobacco is not a problem for us, unlike the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids which, ironically, opposes this aspect of the legislation,” said Chris McCalla, Legislative Director of the IPCPR. “It’s the other part of the legislation that bothers us – no smoking outside of buildings – even though it contains no enforcement provisions.”

McCalla pointed out that the vast majority of premium cigar and pipe smokers are courteous and mindful of people around them when they are smoking. However, he said, legislated smoking bans of any kind are anathema to the group and its individual members.

“Anyone who says there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke, including that which is found outdoors, is totally misinformed. In fact, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set safe standards for secondhand smoke. Those OSHA standards are 25,000 times higher than air quality levels found in restaurants and bars. So, whatever wisps of smoke may occasionally waft into a building cannot possibly be unsafe, according to OSHA,” McCalla said.

Referencing those people who cite the Surgeon General’s report regarding the alleged adverse health effects of secondhand smoke, McCalla said: “There is absolutely no evidence presented in the report that supports this claim. These misinformed people have been brainwashed by neo-prohibitionists and tobaccophobes into believing otherwise,” he said.

“If store owners don’t want smoking in their places of business, they have the right to declare their property smoke-free. And if these property owners don’t want people to smoke outside of their places of business, they have the right to ask people not to smoke there. We support that. But enacting legislation that gives the government authority over these individual property rights we do not support,” he said.

“Not only is it not justified from a medical standpoint, it is not a justified deprivation of our personal rights from a constitutional standpoint. Next thing you know, the government will be running our nation’s auto companies, financial institutions and the entire health industry – or trying to.”

Contact:
Tony Tortorici
678/493-0313
tony(at)tortoricipr(dot)com

COLUMBIA — City Council members are set to consider filing suit against a Columbia tobacco store Wednesday, in what would be the first attempt to enforce the city’s smoking ban in effect since October 2008.

At issue is a dispute between the city and The Tobacco Merchant on Bower Parkway. Columbia’s ban prohibits smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, but it exempts stores that mainly sell tobacco products.

The Tobacco Merchant has been open in Harbison since 1997 selling mainly cigars, pipes and other tobacco items. In early 2009 the store added a bar after the city approved its license request to also sell beer. City officials now say that addition categorizes the store as a bar, and makes smoking illegal, regardless of the fact that the majority of sales are still tobacco related.

The text of Columbia’s smoking ban exempts retail tobacco stores if they don’t sell food, don’t allow customers under age 18, and other products they sell are “merely incidental.” The ordinance does not define what incidental sales mean.

Violations of the smoking ban are not considered criminal, but violators are subject to a $25 civil fine. If councilmembers approve filing suit, that lawsuit would request a judge issue an injunction forcing The Tobacco Merchant to not allow smoking on its premises.

So what do you think about the proposed lawsuit? Vote in today’s WACH FOX News Question of the Day on the main page of our website and let us know whether you think banning smoking in a store that sells tobacco goes too far, or if you think it is necessary for public health.

Also be sure to leave your comments by clicking the “post a comment” button below this story.

By Bryan Cox
January 05, 2010

The air in H Upmann’s cigar factory in Havana’s Vedado district is thick with the sweet pungent smell of tobacco.
It’s hot and humid. There is no air conditioning because that would dry out the precious leaves.

In the long main galley, row upon row of workers sit side by side on long wooden benches – dozens of men and women all rolling cigar after cigar.

Producing Cuba’s famous handmade cigars is a highly skilled but monotonous job which demands concentration.

There’s no time for chatting to workmates – quotas must be met.

At the front of the room there’s a raised platform where a lone figure sits in front of a microphone, reading out loud the official state newspaper Granma.

Instead of canned music, many cigar factories in Cuba still rely on the ancient tradition of employing a reader to help workers pass away the day.

Gricel Valdes-Lombillo, a matronly former school teacher, has been this factory’s official reader for the past 20 years.

In the morning she goes through the state-run newspaper Granma cover to cover.

Later in the day she returns to the platform to read a book.

It’s a job Gricel Valdes-Lombillo claims she has never tired of.

“I feel useful as a person, giving everyone a bit of knowledge and culture.

“The workers here see me as a councillor, a cultural advisor, and someone who knows about law, psychology and love.”

Once the newspaper reading is over workers have a say in what they would like to listen to.

There’s a mix of material ranging from classics to modern novels, like the Da Vinci Code, as well as the occasional self-help books and magazines.

On the day I visited the factory Gricel was reading Alexandre Dumas’ classic, the Count of Monte Cristo, a long-time favourite here.

The book was an old, well-worn, large print edition which looked as if it had been in the collection since long before the revolution.

Having someone read out loud on the shop floor is a tradition which dates back to the 1860s.

Back then the reader would have been one of the cigar rollers, someone who could read and had a good voice.

Diction and drama

According to Zoe Nocedo Primo, director of Havana’s cigar museum, each cigar worker used to give a percentage of his wages to pay the reader.

“In those days they would choose amongst themselves, someone with a good voice and good diction. They looked for rhythm in the voice so he could dramatise the reading.”

They weren’t always popular with factory owners or the authorities.

For years cigar workers had a reputation for being amongst the better educated and politically active groups.

For a while the practice spread to cigar factories in Florida, as well as Mexico and Spain.

Today, though, the tradition only survives in Cuba, with an estimated 250 “lectores” or cigar readers employed at factories across the island.

Rafael Enchemendia is a long-time cigar roller who has risen to become one of the shopfloor foremen.

He says it helps everyone concentrate on what they are doing.

“You can roll a cigar while listening and still meet targets and earn a living.

“It’s very good because you are learning something while working, being educated in some way about what’s happening in the world and in Cuba.”

It has also broadened the horizons of many of the workers.

Novel inspiration

“It’s entertaining and instructive.”

Another cigar roller, Yarima, explained between finishing one cigar and reaching for the tobacco leaves to make the next one.

She added that she had never read a book at home before starting work here.

Tradition has it that some of Cuba’s best known cigar brands were named after the workers’ favourite books.

The H Upmann factory, for example, produces two well known international brands – Montecristos named after Dumas’ book and Romeo y Julieta, after Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

This factory was first opened in the 1840s.

It is now officially called the Jose Marti Cigar factory although the name H Upmann is still on the factory wall above the main gate.

It was nationalised after the revolution and the former owners left the country, setting up a rival H Upmann brand produced for the American market in the Dominican Republic.

The Cuban-made Petit Upmann cigar was reputedly the favourite cigar of US President John F Kennedy.

Legend has it that the night before he signed the trade embargo he sent his press secretary Pierre Salinger out to buy every box he could find in Washington, some 1,200 cigars in total.

Despite the embargo, Cuba remains the world’s top-selling producer of premium hand-rolled cigars.

Some put it down to the quality of the tobacco grown here, others to the skill of the workforce.

Could it be that another secret to success is the soothing and concentrating power of the cigar reader?

DAVID BECKHAM is today exposed as a secret smoker – who sneaks into his garden for a crafty cigar after wife POSH BARRED him from lighting up in their LA mansion.

The ex-SPICE GIRL, 35, was forced to ban him because he has acquired a taste for luxury hand-rolled Cubans while in America.

Last night a family friend said of the England soccer icon, 34: “He loves the taste. I think he likes the image too. Lots of Hollywood stars smoke them.”

The revelation comes barely a week after the superstar – who now plays for US team LA Galaxy – was pictured using an asthma inhaler.

Becks – famed for keeping himself superfit – has told friends it was nothing to do with his smoking. He was said by the pal to mistakenly see cigars as LESS harmful than ciggies.

The chum admitted: “It’s strange to see such an athlete as Becks smoking. But he doesn’t have any other vices.

“Of course, he only smokes the best – they’re usually fifty-dollar-a-pop Cohibas.”

His secret craving echoes the lyrics of the Spice Girls hit Wannabe – in which they sang: “I really really really wanna zig-a-zig-ahh.”

But Victoria – who famously used to smoke cigars HERSELF – does not want him puffing away in front of sons BROOKLYN, ten, ROMEO, seven, and CRUZ, four.

Becks is believed to have begun smoking soon after arriving in LA – where Cuban cigars are seen as a forbidden pleasure at glitzy parties.

They are outlawed under the US trade embargo on the island’s communist regime.

A friend of Becks said: “The smoking is just his way of relaxing as he nears the end of his career. There is no doubt he is very fit for his age and takes exceptional care of himself.”

The star’s spokesman tried to play down his love of cigars, saying it was “not true” to describe him as a smoker.

The aide claimed: “He may have had a puff on a cigar once or twice in the past to make a celebration but that is it.”
Ace’s academy shutting

DAVID Beckham’s flagship football academy is closing in January.

The multi-million pound centre’s five-year lease on its site in Greenwich, South London, is not being renewed.

Owners AEG, who also control Beckham’s US club LA Galaxy, are planning an Olympic training centre there.

Now Beckham, whose academy has taught 100,000 kids, will take the project on tour around Britain. He launched the academy in 2005 with Ј2million of his own money.

The 60 staff have been told it is closing but most have been promised new jobs.

Last night a spokesman for Beckham said: “We always knew the lease was coming to an end. The academy is now moving beyond one site to reach more children.”

There is a feeling of decadence that comes from smoking a good cigar that is unmatched by almost any other leisure activity.

Perhaps it is the unfashionable machismo, or the mischief of enjoying something that is so bad for you. Or perhaps it is simply the perverse satisfaction that comes from burning an expensive object for pleasure. And, at the top end of the vintage cigar market, things can get expensive indeed.

“A box of 50 Chateau d’Yquem can fetch £10,000 or more at auction,” said Mitchell Orchant, managing director of the London cigar merchant C.Gars Ltd. That is nearly $17,000. “The Anniversario, can sell for £400 a cigar and its value just seems to keep on going up.” Both cigars were made by Davidoff, the famous Geneva tobacco house.

As the price tags suggest, these are not just any old stogies. Examples of a prestigious elite of vintage Cuban cigars, they date from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, a golden age when a mixture of local Cuban artisanal skill, tobacco quality and the demands of a handful of European exporters combined to create some of the finest cigars ever made.

The intervening years have only served to improve them further, according to the experts.

“The cigars are like a good Bordeaux,” said Mr. Orchant. “In the right conditions they can keep for almost ever, and year after year, like good wine, they get better.”

Not all cigars age well. There is little point in buying a two-dollar panatela – a long, slender cigar – and sticking it in a cupboard for twenty years. Top vintage cigars tend to be the larger, plumper types, such as coronas or Churchills, always handmade and rolled from the best leaves of the tobacco crop. Cigars made from a full, strong tobacco blend tend to age best.

Stored correctly in a humidor the best cigars, or sticks as experts call them, can mature for about 30 years, during which time they become mellower even as the flavors become more distinct. They can hold on to that quality for a further 30 years or more before the flavor of the tobacco starts to deteriorate.

Within the rarefied world of vintage Cuban cigars, two brands, Dunhill and Davidoff, stand out above the rest. That is in part because of their undoubted quality. It also helps that they were made in large volumes and are consequently still readily available to buy at auction or from specialist merchants.

Vintage examples of other famous Havana brands such as Romeo y Julieta, Cohiba and Montecristo are also much prized. A box of 49 Montecristos, dating from the 1950s, before the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, will go under the hammer in December at a C.Gars Ltd auction in London and is expected to fetch as much as £6,000.

“The price of other Cuban brands is rising as they age but they are less expensive because they were never discontinued like the ultra-collectible Dunhill and Davidoffs,” said Mr. Orchant.

The Dunhill and Davidoff cigars were the offspring of an unlikely marriage between two of Europe’s most exclusive luxury tobacco brands and Cubatabaco, the Cuban state tobacco monopoly.

Cubatabaco made cigars under license for the London-based tobacco company Dunhill from 1984 until 1991. Dunhill-branded Cuban cigars were made prior to the Cuban revolution too, but few have survived.

Of the post-revolution Dunhill Cubans, the ones to look out for, say aficionados, are the mid-1980s Don Cándido and Don Alfredo: the latter, named after the company’s founder Alfred Dunhill, sell for $350 to $500 a cigar.

Davidoff’s Cuban output dates over a slightly longer period, from 1967 to 1991. Perhaps because of that extended run, which means that there are more available, or perhaps because they were distributed more widely across Europe, it is the Davidoffs that have emerged in recent years as the darlings of many vintage-cigar collectors and smokers.

Made under the guidance of Zino Davidoff, the patriarch of the company that bears his name, the cigars were named after some of the finest wines of France: Dom Perignon, for the iconic champagne, seven inches, or 17.8 centimeters long; Château Mouton Rothschild; Château Lafite; Château Latour; Château Margaux and Château d’Yquem.

None of the names were ever officially licensed with the châteaux. Yet the French wine makers mostly tolerated the breach of their trademark, perhaps helped by Mr. Davidoff’s habit of sending them gift boxes of his cigars.

The one exception was Château d’Yquem. The maker of France’s most lauded Sauternes dessert white wine warned Davidoff off using its name in the early 1980s, and the cigars bearing its name were discontinued in 1982. Already considered one of the best of the Château series, the intervention of the vineyard served to make them the rarest and thus the most expensive of the range.

The unlikely coupling of the European luxury brands and Cuba did not last. By the late 1980s Cubatabaco’s efforts to increase the volume of its output led to a decline in quality. Davidoff in particular took the decline in standards badly.

Zino Davidoff went on French television in 1987 to harangue his Cuban business partners and backed up his talk by burning 130,000 cigars, declaring them unsmokable.

The relationship between Cubatabaco and Davidoff and Dunhill ended in 1991 when both the European houses shifted their production to rival tobacco-producing countries.

Some cigar aficionados mourn the end of those relationships as the end of the golden age of cigar making. Others are less nostalgic.

“The Cuban cigars were always a little inconsistent and still are,” said Dorothée Spriet-Weisz, manager of A la Civette, an almost 300-year old Paris cigar shop, on the rue Saint Honoré, that lists Casanova, Voltaire and Winston Churchill as past customers. “I like the Dominican Davidoff cigars, but it is a question of personal taste and it is true that 65 percent of the cigars we sell are Cuban.”

By PAUL WHITFIELD
November 23, 2009 Nytimes

Prime Star Group, Inc. (OTCBB: PSGI) is pleased to announce that Delizia Limited, its wholly owned subsidiary, is launching a line of impeccably constructed premium long filler cigars. Prime Star Group’s Delizia Limited can produce between 250,000 to 400,000 cigars per month.

The company produces multiple sizes of premium cigars and focuses on the following:

– Connecticut Cigar
Size 8 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Torpedo, Petite Corona, Lancero,
Lonsdale
– Corojo Cigar
Size 7 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Lonsdale, Torpedo, Lancero
– Habano 2000
Size 7 – Churchill, Toro, Robusto, Torpedo, Lancero, Lonsdale

Roger Mohlman, President of Prime Star Group, stated, “Our Delizia business unit provides Prime Star Group with tremendous opportunity where the consumer seeks premium quality product at an affordable price point. The company remains focused on providing high end products and services that deliver top line and bottom line profitability.”

About Prime Star Group

Prime Star Group, Inc. is a holding company that focuses on four areas of business: SmartPax™ Packaging, Premium Food & Beverage Products, and Distribution. The company’s operating subsidiaries produce, market, and distribute wines, tea, adult mixed beverages, flavored water, and gourmet seafood products. The company also produces co-brand and co-pack existing high-end beverages and private label liquors for large hospitality and entertainment brands. Prime Star is focused on the food and beverage, entertainment, hospitality, healthcare and disaster relief industries.

Forward Looking Statements – Safe Harbor

This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements appear in a number of places in this release and include all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Prime Star Group, Inc., its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) financing plans; (ii) trends affecting its financial condition or results of operations; (iii) growth strategy and operating strategy. The words “may,” “would,” “will,” “expect,” “estimate,” “can,” “believe,” “potential” and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Prime Star Group, Inc.’s ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. More information about the potential factors that could affect the business and financial results is and will be included in Prime Star Group, Inc.’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

CONTACT:
for Prime Star Group, Inc. Public Relations
Dan Schall
(858) 240-7873
on the web at www.PrimeStarGroup.net

TAMPA – Last spring, the cigar industry fretted that the government might tax so-called “little cigars” into oblivion.

Several months later, though, it appears the makers of cigarette-shaped little cigars have found a way to escape the high taxes. The cigar makers have added more weight to their cigars, reclassified them as large cigars and now are subject to a lower tax rate, said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America.

Last spring, the cigar industry rallied against a higher tax rate implemented to benefit the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. One Tampa cigar factory, Hav-A-Tampa, blamed SCHIP for a steep drop in sales, and it ceased its Tampa operations over the summer. Hav-A-Tampa’s parent, Altadis USA, moved the Tampa plant’s operations to Puerto Rico.

Little cigars may not be as iconic as fat stogies, but hundreds of millions are produced every year. They look like cigarettes and come 20 to a pack. Some popular brands include Cheyenne and Dutch Treats.

Under the new tax rates, little cigars and large cigars are taxed differently, which apparently has given rise to some major changes in cigar production.

For example, little cigars had been taxed at about 4 cents per pack before the new tax rate took effect. That rose to about $1.01 per pack after April 1.

Large cigars previously had been taxed at about 5 cents per cigar. That rose to up to 40 cents per cigar after April, depending on price. These federal tax rates do not include separate state taxes.

In recent months, the cigar industry has seen a curious surge in the production of large cigars. Technically, the government classified large cigars as those that weigh more than 3 pounds per 1,000 cigars. Little cigars weigh less than 3 pounds per 1,000.

For example, factories in the United States and Puerto Rico produced about 743 million large cigars in August, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. That’s up 85 percent from August 2008, when they made 402 million large cigars.

Meanwhile, production of little cigars plummeted. In August, factories in the United States and Puerto Rico produced about 145 million little cigars, down from about 480 million little cigars in August 2008. Cigars made outside of the United States and Puerto Rico saw a similar rise in large cigar production and decline in production of little cigars.

What’s going on?

Sharp, the cigar association president, said it appears cigar makers changed their production techniques to factor in the SCHIP tax. Cigar makers began adding enough extra weight to their little cigars so they exceeded the 3-pounds-per-1,000 threshold. So they could be classified now as large cigars.

Because of the complicated way cigars are taxed, Sharp said he didn’t know how much cigar makers were saving by morphing into large cigars.

“I certainly didn’t anticipate the migration factor,” Sharp said. “What I anticipated was the decimation of the little cigar category.”

By MICHAEL SASSO | The Tampa Tribune
November 3, 2009

In 2008, after 33 years of ownership, Richard and Sue Coakley handed the keys to their long-running Coakley’s Restaurant & Irish Pub to new owners Tim Hogg and Greg Bowers. Without losing sight of favorable existing qualities, the year has brought menu upgrades and staff changes and a new addition, a cigar bar, which is set to open this week.

“I’m a great believer in moving up within,” Hogg says.

In response to the state smoking ban, the area’s oldest Irish pub will have the newest cigar bar, J. Thomas O’Malley Tobacconist. This closed-off addition to the pub and restaurant celebrates cigars and cigarettes along with high-end drinks and spirits. Complying with the smoking ban requirement, no food will be served here. State-of-the-air cleaning units will have the ability to change the air quality in three minutes.

When not pursing lips around streamlined stogies, peruse velvety ports and whiff aged Irish whiskeys and scotches off the long drink menu. Sit in armchairs or stand around the long strip of bar and when you’re hungry, step in to Coakley’s for a bite.

I call Coakley’s a hodgepodge of mini dining and drinking areas. Hogg says it is one restaurant with eight atmospheres.

Hearty pub appetizers (the pub has its own menu) have been favorites for a long time. These include the cheesy crab pretzel ($11.75) and meaty, jumbo wings ($7.75 for 12).

Coakley’s Nibbler ($11.95) was a disappointing deep-fried assortment of tasteless mozzarella sticks, mealy potato skins, overly deep-fried chicken fingers and delicious beer batter onion rings.

Happy hour is from 5 to 7 p.m. daily and features specials on drinks and drafts. Wings are discounted and at least one sandwich is showcased at this time.

We walked through the restaurant entrance and found a row of booths tucked along one side of a tight but cozy hallway. We started with the potato soup ($3.25). It didn’t quite taste like the spud soup and was gloppy. Occasional chunks were woven through the murky base.

Shepherd’s pie ($9.99) was a tasty relief from the potage. Seasoned ground beef, mixed vegetables and gravy sat under a browned red-skinned mashed potato lid. This dish was nothing fancy, but wholesome and homey.

Cajun french fries were way too salty and demanded to be washed down with a draft from one of more than a dozen on tap.

Coakley’s mixed grill ($14.99) was an unusual conglomeration of grilled chicken strips, banger sausage (which looked and tasted like a fat hot dog), succulent mussels, tender and mouthwatering clams and well-seasoned and cooked shrimp. This assortment of ingredients rested high atop a bed of sumptuous garlic mashed potatoes. The seafood was superb, but I could have done without the meats.

You need to know what to order here. Some dishes are clearly better than others.

Hoggs said his favorite dish off the pub specialties was the Salmon Boxty ($15.99), which I will definitely have to try next time. It is grilled salmon on potato cakes with a Jameson cream sauce.

Our waitress recommended the steak or prime-rib selections, so we tried the Open Face Delmonico Steak Sandwich ($10.25). I’ll recommend it, too. The delmonico was grill-marked to medium-rare perfection and set over Texas toast. Homemade and peppery potato chips were a lip-smacking accompaniment to the steak sandwich. The sandwich needed the swipe of horseradish, but not the watery “au jus.”

Reubens ($8.99) were another delicious sandwich choice. Ribbons of corned beef, thousand island dressing, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut were piled on marbled rye bread slices.

For a sweet ending, I tried the Chocolate Lava Cake ($8.99), which was warm and tasted good and chocolaty but the chocolate did not meltingly flow out from the center. Rather, it was firm throughout.

After dessert, head to J. Thomas O’Malley Tobacconist for an after-meal drink. You will have the option of smoking, too, a rarity in this town now.

October 15, 2009

OTTAWA — A ban on flavoured tobacco products will come into effect as early as July.
The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, which received royal assent Thursday, will mean an immediate ban on advertising flavoured tobacco products in newspapers and magazines.

Flavoured cigars, known as cigarillos, blunt wraps and flavoured flavored cigarscigarettes, will come off store shelves as of July 5, 2010, and a ban at the manufacturer and importer level will come into effect April 6, 2010.

The cigarillos, which come in a variety of candy flavours including chocolate, grape and tropical punch, were criticized as being marketed to children and youth.

The bill passed the House of Commons unanimously in June with the backing of all three opposition parties.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating whether two tobacco companies are trying to skirt a federal ban on flavored cigarettes by offering their products as cigars instead, according to letters sent to the companies by the committee’s chairman.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent letters to California-based Kretek International and North Carolina-based Cheyenne International targeting their products on Friday.

Both companies had previously sold flavored cigarettes, which were banned last month. They have recently released flavored cigars that are close to the size of a cigarette but are wrapped in tobacco leaves rather than paper and contain cigar tobacco.

Waxman is asking both companies to defend the products, provide sales figures and all communications about the decision to market the flavored cigars.

Kretek International, the largest distributor of clove-flavored tobacco products in the U.S., filed suit last month asking a federal court to decide whether its new Djarum-brand filtered cigars fall under the ban. A Kretek spokesman did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment.

A spokesperson for Cheyenne International did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

TALLAHASSEE — This just in from the pipe-dream department: Claiming it could be a vehicle to fight drug abuse, St. Petersburg Democratic Rep. Darryl Rouson has filed a bill to raise the tax on “smoking devices” sold in gas stations and tobacco shops.

“We all know the head shops, gas stations, and novelty stores in Florida are selling drug paraphernalia under the charade of being “tobacco pipes,’” Rouson said in a press release for HB 187. “If these items are to be available to the citizens of Florida, then we should charge a surtax on these consumers who are obviously using the pipes to do drugs.”

Normally, the chance of passing a bill raising taxes — much less allowing a Democrat in the minority party in Tallahassee pass a bill raising taxes — would seem pretty far-flung in the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature. But since these same GOP lawmakers just passed $2 billion in higher taxes and fees — and are staring at another $1.5 billion deficit next spring — who knows these days?

Rouson’s bill isn’t intended to be a revenue-raiser, of course. but last spring’s $1 billion tobacco tax “surcharge” was also pitched to cash-starved legislative budget-writers as a way to reduce smoking. So, why shouldn’t Democrats try the same tactic?

According to press release:

This bill will introduce a 25% sales tax on smoking devices.

This bill will reduce the amount of drug paraphernalia used in Florida by making smoking devices more expensive to the consumer.

The revenue from the surtax will be used for treatment programs, which will also help reduce substance abuse.

With less paraphernalia and more treatment programs we can expect less drug offenses in the court system and less inmates in the Department of Corrections. This tax will reduce the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating drug offenders to save Florida taxpayers money.