The Commonwealth Cigar Club offers a comfortable setting for tobacco aficionados. David Meyer leaned back in a leather-upholstered chair and smoked a Davidoff Aniversario No. 3. Seated nearby, Kelly Morrison savored a Davidoff 1000 and Rich Carney a Davidoff Puro D’Oro. The three lounged and puffed in the members-only Commonwealth Cigar Club one floor above David and Renee Meyer’s Milan Tobacconists retail store in Roanoke. An annual fee of $1,000 and a biometric lock that reads fingerprints offer entry into the not-for-profit club, which formally opened April 16. Cigar aficionados ... Jump to full article >>

With the state facing a budget deficit of up to $1 billion, and with tobacco companies developing new products designed to appeal to young people, two Democratic legislators say it’s time to enact a stiff new tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco. Reps. Dan Frankel of Squirrel Hill and Gene DePasquale of York, joined by the American Cancer Society, urged legislators Tuesday to end Pennsylvania’s dubious distinction of being the only state that doesn’t tax smokeless tobacco products and one of only two states that doesn’t tax cigar sales. They’re pushing House Bill 5 ... Jump to full article >>

Relax, enjoy a free cigar and beer, get a free day’s entry to Walt Disney World and other famous amusement parks, or cash in on an additional free seat for a local swamp tour. Retailers, theme park operators and hoteliers in Orlando, one of the top tourist destinations on the planet, are looking to ease the pain of thousands of stranded foreign travelers with a raft of ‘freebies,’ discounts and cut-price promotions. The website of the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Inc has created a special link window, called European Air Service Disruption Offers, to ... Jump to full article >>

Hundreds of friends and relatives bid farewell to the godfather of Cuban tobacco, who was buried Sunday in a casket adorned with a half-smoked cigar bearing his name and a yellow tobacco flower. Alejandro Robaina, a 91-year-old legend who was the only Cuban to have a cigar brand named after him, died Saturday from cancer after doctors discovered inoperable tumors on his lungs and kidney, his grandson Hirochi Robaina said. Wreaths of flowers filled his modest, ramshackle home and engulfed much of the surrounding porch. Four generations of family and neighbors choked back tears while greeting fr ... Jump to full article >>

It was a memorable evening. The occasion: the first ever of its kind – the inaugural gathering of what is going to be known as the Islamabad Cigar Club. The founder being an extremely pleasing person called Dominique Simon, Head of the Economic Department at the French Embassy in Islamabad. A get-together of about 35 representatives of Islamabad’s civil and business communities — friends of course – at his residence on a fine April evening, turned out to be a refined meeting point of cigar smokers from France, Argentina and Pakistan including notable personalities like Naveed Qamar, th ... Jump to full article >>

Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba’s annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make ... Jump to full article >>

EPC CIGAR COMPANY manufactures and distributes cigars that are hand-rolled in the Dominican Republic from Ecuadorean, Nicaraguan and Dominican tobacco. It has been in business since April, although the family that owns it previously ran a successful cigar company that was sold to Swedish Match in 1999. THE CHALLENGE To develop a cost-effective and efficient marketing strategy to promote the company and its new brand, E. P. Carrillo, while building on the family’s legacy. THE BACKGROUND EPC Cigar, based in Miami, is owned and operated by the Perez-Carrillo family, whose Cuban-born patriarch, ... Jump to full article >>

Cuban cigar sales tumbled 8 percent to $360 million in 2009 and have fallen by more than a tenth in the past two years as the demand for luxury goods around the world has plunged. Government-run tobacco company Habanos SA said Monday that sales were most sluggish last year in Spain, the top market for the island’s coveted stogies, but one also ravaged by recession and rising unemployment. A drop in international travel also hurt sales at airport duty free shops in Cuba and elsewhere, which account for as much as 23 percent of the company’s total business, said Habanos Vice Presiden ... Jump to full article >>

Philip Morris USA’s domestic volume cigarette sales last year, at 148.7 billion, were 12.2 per cent down on those of the previous year, 169.4 billion. Sales of Marlboro were down by 10.6 per cent to 126.5 billion, while sales of Parliament, Virginia Slims and Basic were down respectively by 26.9 per cent, 17.4 per cent and 23.9 per cent to 4.0 billion, 5.2 billion and 9.2 billion. Sales of ‘other’ brands were down by 6.8 per cent to 3.8 billion. During the fourth quarter to the end of December, sales of Marlboro, Parliament, Virginia Slims and Basic were down respectively 9.3 ... Jump to full article >>

Following Gov. Beverly Perdue’s signing into effect the no smoking laws in North Carolina, many businesses struggle to remain open. “We know from the 2006 Surgeon General’s report that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke,” said Karen Caldwell, a tobacco prevention specialist in Asheville. “The best way to protect everyone is to have smoke-free policies and laws.” Many grassroots coalitions and nonprofit agencies influenced legislators to pass the non-smoking policies and emphasized the importance of smoke-free workplaces, according to Caldwell. “The state legi ... Jump to full article >>

The New York State Liquor Authority suspended the liquor license of the Cigar Bar in Sag Harbor last weekend after numerous fights in recent months, including three in a two-week period over the holidays. In a press release issued Friday, the State Liquor Authority, or SLA, said a special meeting was called to issue the suspension because of “the recent history of escalating violence at the premises, including the gang-related assaults involving weapons, the persistent pattern of sale[s] to minors, the numerous fights and ensuing arrests.” The SLA said it was notified by the Sag Harbor Vil ... Jump to full article >>