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THE RETURN OF A CONNOISSEUR’S FAVORITE

Plus: Confusion in Houston over cigar bars!

Los Angeles, July 16 – Just about every Cuban brand in production in Havana today also has a counterpart on the U.S. market, made in the Dominican Republic, Honduras or Nicaragua.

Now there’s one more: La Flor de Cano.

Known to Cuban connoisseurs as a, limited-production, well-made handmade brand using short filler tobacco as well as a machine-made cigar, the brand has had little presence in the U.S., but has now been revived fo Keith Meier’s Cigars International.

General Cigar owns the brand trademark in the U.S. since 1999 and has created a new version of La Flor de Cano for Meier to sell at retail and also to other retailers through his Meier & Dutch wholesale arm.

This edition is made in Danli, Honduras with an Ecuadorian-grown, Sumatra-seed wrapper with interior leaves from Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua. It’s medium in body and offered in six shapes:

• 1884: 7 inches by 48 ring;

• Belicoso: 6 1/8 inches by 52;

• Diademas: 7 1/4 inches by 54;

• Predilectos: 5 5/8 inches by 45;

• Selectos: 5 inches by 54 and

• Short Churchill: 6 inches by 50.

All sizes are boxed in 25s and priced from $74.95 to $99.95 the box at Cigars International.

Houston is smoking?
As the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America convention and trade show closes in on Houston for early August, that Texas city is still trying to figure out exactly how it’s going to operate its new smoking ban, set to take effect on September 1 (well after the show).

There’s an exemption in the ordinance for cigar bars, but no way to apply!

In an interview with KTRK Television in Houston, Mike Shapiro – whose bar has a large cigar-smoking clientele – told a reporter, “I tried going down there to find what I can apply and all I get is a run-around. They’re not ready.”

The city’s Health Department told the station that it was working on a preliminary list of cigar bar locations based on an Internet posting. Can’t they just announce that establishments interested in applying the exemption have a specific time period to apply and circulate a form with the required information?

C.A.O. planning to party Texas-size in Houston:
C.A.O.’s annual party for the trade at the RTDA show included limited entry for 500 members of the public who had quite a good time at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

No one knows where the C.A.O. party is going to be this time – yet – but another 500 C.A.O. fans who are not members of the trade will get their ear drums pounded at this year’s “Escape with C.A.O.” in Houston on August 6.

The “undisclosed private venue” has not yet been made public (no word on whether U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will be present . . .), but will feature Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Playmate Colleen Shannon, also billed as the “World’s Sexiest D.J.,” an open bar, casino gaming, the C.A.O. Flavourettes and other attractions in addition to a wide supply of C.A.O. cigars. The casino part will be really interesting since casino-style gaming is illegal in Texas.

C.A.O. distributed the 500 spots it allotted for the public in about three days last year. It only took five hours this time, greased by an e-mail invitation to apply. Said C.A.O. President Tim Ozgener, “This is our way of showing our appreciation to our C.A.O. faithful.”

Fracas over condemnation of Gran Havana in San Diego ends:
The long-running dispute over the condemnation – via eminent domain – of the Gran Havana Cigar & Coffee Lounge in San Diego’s hip Gaslamp District is apparently at an end.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Gran Havana owner Ahmed Mesdaq agreed to sell his property to the developer trying – so far, unsuccessfully – to put up a 334-room Marriott Renaissance hotel. Mesdaq won an award of $7.8 million plus $1.2 million in legal fees from a jury, but the case has been dragging through the appeals process. He refused the city’s offer of $3 million and sued after losing the property to eminent domain in 2004.

Instead, GRH L.L.C. agreed to pay Mesdaq $7.8 million for his rights to the property, perhaps more than it would have paid after the appeal. However, its opportunity to develop the property may be closing quickly since it requires additional permission from the area redevelopment agency to continue as it has not met any of its development deadlines for the property thus far.

Mesdaq’s attorney, Vince Bartolotta told the Union-Tribune that his client still was angry about the eminent domain proceeding, but “He’s got a family to feed and needs to get on with his life, so he needed to be paid for the property.”

Former cigar factory in Tampa could be turned into condos?
The V. Guerrieri Cigar Factory in the Palmetto Beach section of Tampa was built in 1899, but it has been a while since a cigar was made there.

Last week, The Tampa Tribune reported that Inman Park Properties, which bought the facility in 2006 for $880,000, is now planning to create 20 lofts in the old factory and five town houses on adjacent land. Maybe. The building is still for sale by Inman for $2 million.

According to the Tribune, the Guerrieri cigar was a popular, five-cent brand in the 1940s but called the building as it stands today “dark and dank.” The Guerrieri family sold the factory in 2000 to an investment firm.
~ Rich Perelman

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