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FIGHTING OVER AN OLD CIGAR FACTORY

Plus: Chinese guards enforce smoking ban with clubs!

Los Angeles, June 18 – It has been many years since the Ybor City district of Tampa, Florida was the center of the cigar trade in America. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of interest in the buildings that once housed a thriving cigar scene there.

The St. Petersburg Times reported that the last wood-framed cigar manufacturing building – the Oliva Cigar Factory at Palm and 18th Street (pictured above) – is now being fought over by three different entities, all trying to take over the 30,000 square-foot space.

The Ybor City Museum has been trying to buy it in order to turn it into a new home for its museum dedicated to the history of the area. While they were creating plans and raising money to buy the building, local artists moved in and made a rental agreement with the Olivas and are trying to take it over for use as a playhouse. But they do not have the estimated $1.3 million needed to buy the place.

Most recently, in May, an unnamed out-of-town developer purchased a six-month option from the Oliva Family and is trying to create a boutique hotel on the site. The building is a national landmark, so it won’t be torn down, but trying to incorporate enough parking to make a hotel work is a problem.

One thing it will not be used for is making cigars; initially opened as the Marcelino Perez Cigar Factory around 1918. At its peak, there were about 100 rollers making cigars there.

The Times asked 90-year-old Marcelino Perez III – who first visited the factory at age five in 1921 and later worked there – if he had a preference among the three suitors for the space. No, he told reporter Alexandra Zayas. “I’m just glad to see somebody wants it.”

King David returns:
This really would be a story if the ancient king of Israel had shown up in Jerusalem! Instead, it’s the King David cigar brand, imported by Mike’s Cigars of Bay Harbor, Florida.

The brand was originally made in the Dominican Republic as a bundled cigar introduced in 2001. In 2002, a boxed version from Nicaragua debuted, but both went out of circulation in 2006.

The new edition is made for Mike’s at the Flor de Gonzalez factory in Esteli, Nicaragua, using all Nicaraguan-grown, Piloto Cubano tobacco from a designated patch of the San Sebastian Valley. The result is a mild-to-medium-bodied cigar with a taste of coffee and spice.

It’s offered in four sizes: Presidente (7 1/2 inches by 54 ring), Pyramide (6 1/2 x 54), Robusto (5 1/2 x 52) and Toro (6 1/2 x 54). Packed in wooden flip-top boxes of 25, they retail for $39.95 to $49.95 the box.

Ugly anti-tobacco scene in China:
Local media reports out of China indicate that a crackdown on smokers led to a May 1 incident in which “dozens of security guards beat up workers taking a cigarette break during construction work on the National Stadium, centerpiece of next year’s Olympic Games.” The International Olympic Committee requires that Olympic venues be smoke-free and the Chinese government is trying to ensure this with measures that include, according to an Agence France Presse report, “guards wielding metal pipes.”

Tobacco is an enormous industry in China and according to the AFP report, nets $31 billion (U.S.) in annual taxes for the government and has total revenues of $160 billion. The taxes alone would be enough to pay for not only the cost of organizing the Olympic Games – 15 times over! – but almost enough to pay for all of the infrastructure associated with the Games, estimated to total about $40 billion. There are reportedly 400 million smokers in China or about 31% of the entire population and experts say that trying to reduce tobacco consumption will be extremely difficult there.

From the Cubador:
Far from the Pinar del Rio region at the eastern side of the island, the Las Tunas region will produce about 1,150 metric tons of tobacco this year, equal to 2006 but with farming on 1,161 less acres.

Higher yields per acre are credited for making up the difference. The Cuban tobacco industry, trying to meet worldwide demand, has expanded its growing areas significantly since 2000 and now produces cigars in Las Tunas for export, as well as leaf.

Not giving up:
Although England will impose a smoking ban beginning July 1, Hunters & Frankau, the importers of Havana cigars to Great Britain, aren’t throwing in the towel. Instead, they’re throwing a party.

In a marvelous display of bravado, Hunters is sponsoring “A Summer Cigar Party” in London at the Carlton House Terrace Gardens on July 5, at which the British debut of the much-anticipated Cohiba Maduro 5 line will be made.

Attendees will be able to sample all three sizes in the line: Secretos (4 3/8 inches by 40), Magicos (4 1/2 x 52) and Genios (5 1/2 x 52). Thinking of heading to London on vacation? Tickets are required for the event and cost £60 (about $119 U.S.) and seating, of course, is limited. Good show, Hunters!

A new cigar market:
Reports from India show a growing market as the economy expands. The “Indian economy is growing and hence the demand for finer products would always be there,” noted Eric Piras of Altadis, which has begun marketing cigars in India.

Compared with the U.S., which is the world’s largest cigar market by far, sales are small so far in India, about three million a year. But it’s growing. “People have just started trying cigars,” said Aron Joshi, head of the cigar division for Godrey Phillips, the country’s second-largest tobacco concern. “It is still not a substitute for cigarettes and they prefer to smoke cigars during weekends.”

One sign of increased interest in the Indian market: Godfrey Phillips recently completed an agreement with Davidoff of Geneva to bring its brands – Davidoff, Avo, The Griffin’s, Zino and Private Stock – into India. Machine-made brands, including flavored cigars, are also making inroads. Said Reuben Chacko, an engineering student: “Smoking cigars is an expensive affair but then one cannot resist it also once you try it. Cigarettes were something that left a bad taste in the mouth after the smoke and not to forget the mints that one has to eat to avoid smelling bad. With my plum cigar, it’s different.” Plum cigars?
~ Rich Perelman

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