The Cigar Industry Report is a one stop place to catch up on the activity here at Cigar Coop and Stogie Geeks. It is a combination of our news reports, cigar reviews, and assessment updates we do throughout the week. We will also recap what happened on our Stogie Geeks show. Finally, each week we will look back at Cigar Coop history. Look for this report every Saturday morning at 8am Eastern time.

Cigar Industry Report: Volume 5, Number 50 (Edition 199 11/5/16)

Feature of the Week: Moves by Imperial Tobacco

Imperial Tobacco, best known as the parent company of Altadis USA made some strategic moves in its other division. First up, the company announced that under its Tabacalera USA division it has formed Casa de Montecristo Inc where it will focus on its retail operations. Rob Maneson has been named General Manager of that division. Simultaneously, Tabacalera USA acquired the brick and mortar and e-commerce operation of Serious Cigars. At the same time, former General Cigar President Dan Carr has been named President of Imperial’s ITG division – focused on cigarettes and machine-made cigars.


News Recap


Legislative News

  • Senate Bill S. 441: S. 441 is the Senate Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars. This week, no new co-sponsors were added.  The total sponsor count remains at 21.
  • House Bill HR 662: H.R. 662 is House Bill to gain an exemption from the FDA on premium cigars. This week, no new co-sponsors were added.  The total sponsor count remainsat 169
  • House Bill 2058:  H.R. 2058 is the House Bill to change the effective date for cigars subject to FDA regulation from 2007 to 21 months following any proposed regulations are put into effect. This week no new co-sponsors were added. The total number of sponsors remains at 78.
  • FederalTwo Members of Congress have written a letter to President Obama expressing concern for the recent trade easements with Cuba.
  • FDA: We reported on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration filing a response in court to the lawsuit filed by the Trade Associations as well as the one by Global Premium Cigars.

Assessments

Agile Cigar Reviews


Feature Story

Editor’s Corner


Stogie Geeks

This week was Episode 206 for Stogie Geeks. We welcomed special guest hosts Hector Alfonso Sr. and Dave Burck. For our Debonaire Ideal, we talked about Halloween Smokes. We did a special Hot Topics segment. Finally we had our Stogies of the Week which included:


On this date November 5th…