TAMPA, Fla. — Inside J.C. Newman Cigar Company are decades of history and the pleasant aroma of an artform that gives 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,” said Eric Newman, a third generation and President of J.C. Newman. “It’s our heritage.”
To this day, his Ybor City factory produces 60,000 cigars a day using antique machines. Upstairs, nine employees roll hundreds more by 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 said.
Newman, however, is somewhat worried about the future of the tradition because of a new proposal by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The new regulations would introduce new requirements for tobacco product manufacturers, including those who make premium cigars.
“They’re treating us as if, you know, we’re big tobacco, big pharma, big whatever,” Newman said.
The FDA said the rules will protect public health.
“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, however, argues that the regulations are a “one size fits all” approach that would damage his historic craft.
Wednesday, Newman’s son and a fourth-generation owner of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. — Drew Newman — voiced his concern during an FDA meeting.
He said the rules would bog down historic cigar-making in impossible paperwork 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 said. “We would have to hire new staff to record all of this.”
The regulations would also require the company to qualify and keep more stringent records 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 said.
Finally, the Newmans are concerned about how the rule change will require the company to “roll cigars in batches, keep detailed batch records, and put batch codes on every package.”
As Eric Newman demonstrated Thursday, a single box of cigars can contain individual cigars that were rolled by different people on different days. After they are aged, those similar in color are packaged together in a box.
Newman said labeling each cigar in a box with information about its creation would be nearly impossible and that the regulations are being unfairly applied with no regard to cigar-making’s intricacies.
“We are not big bad tobacco,” he said. “We are a different product. It’s an apple and oranges.”
An existing lawsuit by trade groups that represent cigar manufacturers is already fighting previous FDA rules.
While the repercussions of that lawsuit are still uncertain, Newman expects a new one will be filed if the FDA’s new regulations are approved.
“We would not go down without a fight,” he said. “We’re fighting for the industry. We’re fighting for the history of Tampa.”
Meanwhile, both Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) have filed bills in Washington that would shield J.C. Newman and other similar cigar manufacturers from FDA regulations.
