Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars

SCHIP: IT’S NOT OVER YET

Plus: a $60,000 work of art that’s also a humidor!

Los Angeles, October 15 – The battle over the State Children’s Health Care Program (SCHIP) will continue this week with votes in the U.S. House and Senate to try and override the veto of U.S. President George W. Bush and pass a bill with potentially devastating consequences for the cigar industries of the U.S., the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and other cigar-producing countries.

If Bush’s veto is overridden, the bill passed by the Congress (H.R. 976) would raise federal taxes on cigars from the current 20.719 percent of the manufacturer’s price to 52.988 percent, an increase of 256 percent and would raise the tax cap on large cigars from the current 4.875 cents to $3.00, an increase of 6,154 percent!

The Senate, which passed the bill by a 67-29 vote, is expected to vote similarly on Wednesday with enough votes for a two-thirds majority that would override the veto. However, in the House, some 291 votes are expected to be needed for an override on Thursday (October 18) and Democrats are short as only 265 votes for the bill (with 195 against) were cast in favor previously.

House Democrats have been putting on a full-court press to try and pass the bill, although their approach was well summarized on Friday in the Wall Street Journal:

“All Democratic ‘universal’ health-care plans combine more government subsidies with more coverage mandates. Today's Schip expansion is the down payment for 2009, when they want to extend it well into the middle class. The fact that there are better, and more economic, policies to cover more people is less important than getting ever more Americans on the government health care tab.”

Smokers are being asked, once again, to send messages in favor of sustaining the President’s veto to their Representatives and Senators in advance of this week’s vote. The easiest way to do this is through the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailer Association Web site, which has special, easy-to-use tools just for this purpose:

Click here to go to the IPCPR site now!

With the enormous pressure being placed on Republicans and the few Democrats who voted against the SCHIP bill in the House, your calls, e-mails and faxes can make a difference. Don’t delay, send your message today!

When a box isn’t enough:
Humidors are simple enough in concept: a box with a tight-fitting seal around the opening and a humidification device to keep your cigars in good condition. But sometimes, a humidor needs to be more than a simple box and that’s when the variable of size and style come into play.

If you need to humidify thousands of cigars, you’ll either need a special room adapted for the purpose or some converted, room-sized wine cellars/wine cabinets. But for a smaller collection that needs to be housed in special style, you’ll need to think about a special humidor, probably from Europe. The famed Michel Perrenoud firm, headquartered in Switzerland, has long provided some of the most intriguing humidors on the market: as part of an armchair, controlled over the Internet or using a biometric fingertip reader to unlock the box.

But if you want a work of art – and are willing to pay for it – perhaps the HavaCube is for you.

Made in Paris, the HavaCube was developed by Vincent Loret, who created a storage unit that includes both temperature control and a humidification system that he designed and patented. The project took 14 years for Loret to bring his first model, the Cube, to market in 2004. It was followed by the MiniCube in 2005 and MicroCube in 2007.

The Cube holds up to 800 cigars and stands 45 inches tall; the MiniCube has room for 500 (27 inches tall) and the MicroCube is designed for 200 cigars and stands 21 inches high. All models feature a 3/4-inch-thick glass door and have a temperature and humidity control panel that can be seen without opening the humidor.

The HavaCube program is unique in that the humidification system doesn’t need to be refilled for up to an entire year! And while the interior features the expected Spanish Cedar, the exterior is covered in a choice of cow, ostrich or crocodile leather in your choice of 30 colors!

But Loret has taken the HavaCube to another level. He engaged noted artist David Kessel to paint individual humidors and create unique works of art (pictured above). Said Loret in an e-mail message referring to Ferraris, “But [a] model like Dino 206 GT 1967 is always a good investment and when you get one you can’t during all your life sell it because it’s a singular model!”

But art, like a Ferrari, does not come inexpensively. Prices of the HavaCube range from $15,000 for a “standard” MicroCube model up to about $60,000 for one of the David Kessel-painted models.

OFAC continues fining U.S. buyers of Cuban cigars:
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, a unit of the Treasury Department, issued its latest list of sanctions and once again, an individual U.S. citizen was fined for buying Cuban cigars.

During September, OFAC collected a fine of $765.75 from an individual who purchased Cuban cigars over the Internet on three separate occasions in February and March of 2005.

OFAC assessed one fine for the purchase of Cuban cigars in August and two in July for transactions which took place as early as 2003 up to 2006. The number of violations isn’t large, but the OFAC continues to enforce the U.S. trade embargo no matter what.
~ Rich Perelman

Bookmark

Email This

Comments (0) add comment