TAMPA, Fla. — Inside J.C. Newman Cigar Company are many years of historical past and the delightful aroma of an artform that provides Tampa its nickname: Cigar City.
“Cigars are to Tampa as Mickey Mouse is to Orlando, like wine is to Napa Valley, like automobiles are to Detroit,” mentioned Eric Newman, a 3rd technology and President of J.C. Newman. “It’s our heritage.”
To these days, his Ybor City manufacturing unit produces 60,000 cigars an afternoon the use of vintage machines. Upstairs, 9 staff roll loads extra through hand.
“I know my grandfather and father are looking down on us and are very thrilled that we’re still carrying on not only the family tradition but what made Tampa great,” Newman mentioned.
Newman, alternatively, is reasonably apprehensive about the way forward for the custom on account of a new proposal through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The new laws would introduce new necessities for tobacco product producers, together with those that make top rate cigars.
“They’re treating us as if, you know, we’re big tobacco, big pharma, big whatever,” Newman mentioned.
The FDA mentioned the rules will give protection to public well being.
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“While no tobacco product is safe, this proposed rule is intended to minimize or prevent additional risks associated with these products. Once finalized, it would establish requirements for tobacco product manufacturers that will help protect public health,” Dr. Brian King, the Director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, wrote in a March news release.
Newman, alternatively, argues that the laws are a “one size fits all” way that might harm his ancient craft.
Wednesday, Newman’s son and a fourth-generation proprietor of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. — Drew Newman — voiced his worry right through an FDA assembly.
He mentioned the rules would lavatory down ancient cigar-making in unattainable forms and record-keeping.
“The proposal would require us to keep detailed records on everything we do, including training, cleaning, staff clothing, pest control, water, product testing, sampling, risk assessments, purchases, and so much more for four years. Honestly, this is a tremendous amount of records and work and cost for small businesses,” he mentioned. “We would have to hire new staff to record all of this.”
The laws would additionally require the corporate to qualify and stay extra stringent data about its tobacco farmers.
“Maintaining all of the detailed records of our own activities will be very hard. Doing the same and being responsible for the activities of our tobacco farmers, many of whom do not speak English and live in Latin America will be much worse,” Newman mentioned.
Finally, the Newmans are involved in how the guideline alternate would require the corporate to “roll cigars in batches, keep detailed batch records, and put batch codes on every package.”
As Eric Newman demonstrated Thursday, a unmarried field of cigars can comprise person cigars that have been rolled through other folks on other days. After they are elderly, the ones an identical in colour are packaged in combination in a field.
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Newman mentioned labeling every cigar in a field with information about its introduction would be just about unattainable and that the laws are being unfairly carried out without a regard to cigar-making’s intricacies.
“We are not big bad tobacco,” he mentioned. “We are a different product. It’s an apple and oranges.”
An present lawsuit through industry teams that constitute cigar producers is already preventing earlier FDA rules.
While the repercussions of that lawsuit are nonetheless unsure, Newman expects a new one will be filed if the FDA’s new laws are approved.
“We would not go down without a fight,” he mentioned. “We’re fighting for the industry. We’re fighting for the history of Tampa.”
Meanwhile, each Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) have filed expenses in Washington that might defend J.C. Newman and different an identical cigar producers from FDA laws.