Spent the afternoon at the Outlaw Cigar Store and lounge in Kansas City. Great place to hang out if ever in the area. Despite the name (and the fact that they do have biker events there) its actually a pretty high-end place with a huge well organized humi-room. They have a lot of great events including Jorge Padron & Alec Bradly coming in.
In any case talked to the manager at length about the new FDA regs. He and the owner have been following it and he actually had a copy of the reg itself.
Here was his take: If the reg takes full effect half of the cigars in his store would be gone.
He noted that a lot of people are not that worked up yet because of the supposed 2 year period where cigars that came on the market between 2007 and 2016 can still be sold while they are being tested.
HOWEVER, it is the cigar maker that must pay for the testing. Nobody knows right now how much this will cost but the buzz is that it will be above $100,000 per brand/blend/band that came on the market during that time period. While the big guys can afford that, the smaller manufacturers, given the uncertainty of the testing (see next item) might decide its too much for them.
Nobody knows what the test will be all about. Apparently someone has developed a cigar smoking machine that will give some sort of result on what a cigar smoker takes in. Of course cigar smoking is wildly different than cigarettes. There are the different sizes and styles, lose wrapped, tight packed, people that inhale, those that retro-hale, those that do neither. In short nobody knows what these tests are going to show. More importantly, nobody knows what the standard is going to be. How do 2007-2016 (and future) cigars "pass" the test to be allowed to continue on the market? No way the FDA is going to say that "such and such is a safe level of nicotine absorption."
Cigars were NOT put in the same category as cigarettes such that, while cigarettes have basically the same "safety" issue, they are - in effect - exempt from a total ban even though they are considered dangerous. Cigars (and vape-stuff) are in a category that that could, theoretically, be banned totally if they came on the market after 2007.
Which leads to the last real zinger. Obviously the FDA would not accept a totally new cigar being "grandfathered" in as a pre-2007 stick simply by putting a label on it from a brand that was sold back then. So how, then, does the FDA handle the fact that the blend on EVERY cigar is going to be slightly different from year to year, crop to crop? Unlike cigarettes what are a more homogenized product, the actual contents of a cigar can be quite different from 2006 to 2016 even though the brand is still the same. This is sometimes blatant and intentional where a blend totally changes but the name stays the same, and sometimes -even with the best of brands - it is just a natural and unavoidable consequence of how cigars are made, much like wine that is different from year to year.
It is quite possible then, that, at some point, the FDA could try to say ALL cigars that don't have the EXACT same contents as they did pre 2007 would be subject to the "testing" (again, "testing" for what?????)
The last thing he said was something I had not heard before is that, starting in August, the rules on "flavor characterizing" that apply to cigarettes will also apply to cigars. Thus you could no longer advertise or tell people indirectly through the name or descriptions or pictures on the box that a cigar had, vanilla, cherry, coffee or any other flavoring. This obviously wipes out the infused market (no jokes here, this is serious!)
So what can you do? There is already legislation pending in the House that would exempt premium and hand rolled cigars from these regulations. The Senate has not done anything yet one way or the other apparently. Now is the time to call and email the government.
