By Owen Moritz. Daily News Staff Writer. July 24, 2000
The Cuban embargo is going up in smoke — at least when it comes to pricey Cuban cigars.
Canadian tobacconists, including one using a Havana Web address, are shipping outlawed Cuban Cohibas at more than $1,000 a box to eager New York cigar lovers.
Cuban cigars are off-limits in the U.S. as part of a ban on economic dealings with Fidel Castro's regime.
Despite the Trading With the Enemy Act, which has banned economic dealings with Fidel Castro's Cuba since 1962, industry experts estimate 5 million to 7 million Cuban cigars a year illegally make their way into the U.S. market.
How do they get here? It's an updated version of the old brown paper wrappers — Cuban cigars are shipped via Federal Express and United Parcel Service, according to the dealers.
"We can get them to you, sir," one Canadian dealer declared over the phone. "We guarantee that."
Dealers in Toronto and Ottawa say they can't ship the good-life cigars fast enough. But because demand exceeds supply, experts warn many of the Cuban cigars on the market are fakes.
Any shipment of Cuban goods to Americans is a violation, a U.S. Customs Service spokesman said. But he wouldn't comment about whether the agency had ever seized a package believed to contain the outlawed stogies.
Dealers bank on one fact — seizing contraband cigars is not a high priority of the Customs Service.
What Canadian businessmen can do, and Americans can't, is fly regularly to Havana and cut deals for Cohibas, Montecristos and Romeo y Juliettas, which are produced in Cuba's soil-rich provinces under tight-fisted government supervision.
In pre-Castro days, the big Havana brands included H. Upman and Partagas. The Cubans who hand-rolled the world's best cigars fled to the Dominican Republican and Tampa, where the effort is made to reproduce the same great cigars.
At the Havana Cigar Co. in Toronto, a company spokesman says the big demand is for Cohibas, particularly the Esplendidos, which go for $1,275 for a box of 25 — plus a $25 shipping fee.
"We also have others at lesser prices," he assured a caller.
In the Internet age, a Web site called Cubamall, featuring top-of-the-line Cuban cigars from a well-known Havana establishment called La Casa del Habano, turns out to be located in Ottawa.
Over the phone from Ottawa, a salesman avers that the site's Cubans are the real thing. "Believe me they are," he said. "We have had no bad reactions from anyone in the States."
He further notes that no delivery to any individual in the U.S. has ever been interdicted by authorities, adding: "If one is, we guarantee a replacement."
Gordon Mott, executive editor of Cigar Aficionado magazine, a publication whose growth reflected the great cigar boom of the past decade, notes that 260million to 290 million cigars — the vast majority of them legal — will be imported this year, almost three times the number in 1992.
Top GOPer: Shame On Party for Cuba Vote / Daily News
Original Publication Date: 7/24/00
WASHINGTON — A top Republican yesterday said he is ashamed of his colleagues for voting to ease the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and its "ruthless, murdering dictator."
Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, the third-ranking Republican, believes Fidel Castro would use the food and medicines to increase repression in Cuba.
Two House amendments, both sponsored by Republicans, that were approved last week would ease sanctions in place for almost four decades against the Communist-ruled island, restoring virtually unlimited travel to Cuba as well as allowing exports of food and medicine.
"I think it's really unfortunate, and frankly, it's the first time I have really been ashamed of the House of Representatives," DeLay said on "Fox News Sunday."
Congress should have been "turning down the screws on this dictator that kills people, has killed American citizens over international waters, has put people in jail for being dissident," he said.
On ABC's "This Week," White House chief of staff John Podesta welcomed the legislation — but cautioned against anything that supports Castro.
"We want to [ease restrictions and increase people-to-people contact] in a way that doesn't support the Castro government," Podesta said.
News Wire Services
Original Publication Date: 7/24/00 |