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 Travel & Outdoors | The Cuba Connection | February 2005 
Cigar Aficionados Let Down by Cuban Smoking Ban
 Anthony Boadle - Reuters
Havana - Cigar aficionados who see Cuba as the Mecca of smoking are dumbfounded by a Cuban smoking ban they say has let down the cause for smokers' rights worldwide.
Still, the hundreds of cigar lovers and retailers who showed up at the annual Habanos tobacco industry festival were grateful for a reprieve that allowed them to light up freely for the week.
Smokers puffed away at opening night in Havana's Museum of Fine Arts and stubbed out their Montecristos and Cohibas in flower pots and on the floor in the absence of ashtrays.
"Nobody could believe Cuba would ban smoking. It's like Spain banning wine," said Jose Luis Flores, a sommelier at a top restaurant in Toledo, Spain, who attended the event sponsored by Cuba's famed tobacco industry.
"It's a bad idea to prohibit smoking in Cuba. If you can't smoke here, where can you smoke?" he said.
"Everyone is puzzled by the ban, because Cuba produces the best tobacco and the best cigars in the world and we look forward to coming here to smoke freely," said Jimmy Ng, manager of The Cigar Divan in Singapore. He was glad an exception was made for the festival he described as a "walking humidor."
Cuban president Fidel Castro (news - web sites), once a cigar-chomping revolutionary, gave up cigars in 1986 and now says tobacco is poison and boxes of cigars are best given to one's enemies.
One of his enemies, the United States, once considered trying to blow him up with an exploding cigar.
Cuba on Feb. 7 banned smoking in air-conditioned public buildings, theaters, schools, sports centers, buses and taxis as part of a health initiative.
"No smoking" signs have gone up in public offices and hotels removed ashtrays from lobbies, but it is far from clear how effective the ban will be in Cuba.
Ban Flop At Papa's Bar
The Floridita, writer Ernest Hemingway's favorite bar for daiquiris, prohibited smoking for the first time since it opened in 1817. But management gave up after a week because sales to its tourist clientele had plummeted, an employee said.
Travelers can still light up at Havana's airport.
The ban has not been enforced in the factories where Cuba's premium cigars are hand-rolled by workers while they listen to books and periodicals read out on the public address system.
A spokesman for cigar maker Habanos S.A., a joint venture between the Cuban state and Spanish-French tobacco group Altadis, said the company has asked authorities to make exceptions to the ban.
Spanish cigar vendors said restrictions on smoking in public, mainly bars and restaurants, are hurting their trade, with sales down by 15 percent as a result, according to one retailer.
Spain is the largest market for the 120 million cigars Cuba exports each year, a business worth $300 million in 2004. Cuba has a 30 percent share of the world cigar market.
Aficionados in town for a week of good smoking, cigar rolling courses and visits to tobacco plantations and factories, were seeking clarification on how wide-ranging the Cuban ban will be.
"It's not very helpful. If Cuba has introduced a total ban, it will put me on very weak ground," said Simon Chase, marketing director for Hunters & Frankau, which sells Habanos in Britain, and has sought to forestall a ban in that country.
"Everybody in the tobacco industry now appreciates that you have to acknowledge that tobacco smokes is, at the very least, annoying to people," he said, adding that he believed the health dangers of third party smoke have been exaggerated.
"Provided there are places where people can enjoy a cigar, and they are something you should enjoy in company, then I would be happy to return to Cuba," Chase said. |
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