Hegemonic has most of it there. It's silly. Here's the rest:
We purchased a few hundred bundles of a brand called Biarritz. It's not a closeout, it's simply a good cigar made by Augusto Reyes, and distributed by a company run by an industry veteran. The size we bought was a little perfecto shape. Whenever manufacturers or distributors want us to buy something, they usually send a handful of singles to test out. We tried this one and happened to like it. So at the RTDA show in Tampa, almost as an afterthought, we committed to a purchase of about 400 bundles. The distributor called the shape a Short Story, and that's also exactly what it says on the invoice - Biarritz Short Story. A few weeks after that, someone claims on another board that we're "ripping off" a Fuente trademark. First off, short story is the name of a size. It's sort of like saying that the first cigar company to name a size a "Churchill" owns the right to use that name for a size. In fact, there are other brands that use the name short story as a size, one example is that boom brand called Nicole Miller. We didn't christen it with that name anyway. Regardless, we've all got better things to do than make an issue of some BS like this, so we decided to modify the name of the size as it appears on the site to reduce confusion and to avoid making a mountain of a molehill. It's a simple situation, and we acted right away to try and fix it on our own accord.
What I've said above here is fact, and I'd swear that on a stack of bibles. Instead, a group of 5 or 6 bootlickers on that other BB get themselves worked up into a tizzy about it. I've heard about that board getting malicious and attacking other manufacturers and retailers before, but I was truly surprised at some of the insanity I read there. I can appreciate a search for the truth and an inquiring mind, but not some lemming with an agenda. Those handful of drama queens that make this out to be a disaster clearly have an agenda, so I don't read it or respond to it there because people like that don't listen to reason. If they want to see a real disaster, I'll drive them 70 miles east to NYC to see the damage from the attack. Like many of my cbid friends here, I know people who were directly affected by that attack. Contriving a drama about something inconsequential like this, and without regard to facts, is ridiculous.
