Thursday, November 16 2006
TAMPA, Florida - During five years in the 90's, the cigar business boomed in the United States, with celebrities and affluent youths adopting the fashion to smoke imported 'puros.'
But this trend was cut short when quality tobacco supply was unable to satisfy demand. The market was inundated by expensive cigars speedily produced with low-quality tobacco, while many already entrenched in the fashion along with neophytes moved on to another fad.
Since then, the industry has risen slowly but surely. The unqualified products have disappeared, the market has settled and tobacco grown for cigars in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras is considered as good as the famous Cuban option, forbidden to enter the United States.
Cigar sales have yet to reach levels attained during 1997, the year of major imports. Sales this year tripled by far, levels registered at the start of the 90's before the surge, notwithstanding new laws prohibiting smoking in diverse and multiple localities and environments.
A prestigious tobacco industry entrepreneur in Tampa, Gary Bahrenfuls, stated that the product at the present time "is unrivaled," adding that "Today's [tobacco] product is the best ever cultivated." œ
Reprinted by permission. This article originally appeared in Dominican Today online, November, 15, 2006.
