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Jack Knox: Shifting U.S. policy has cigar sellers on edge

It was only a two-cruise-ship day Monday, and the big one, the 2,680-passenger Carnival Legend, didn’t even dock until 7:30 p.m. Saturday, when four of the vessels dropped anchor in Victoria, was busier.
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Gautam Arora with Cuban cigars at Old Morris Tobacconists on Government Street.

Jack Knox mugshot genericIt was only a two-cruise-ship day Monday, and the big one, the 2,680-passenger Carnival Legend, didn’t even dock until 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, when four of the vessels dropped anchor in Victoria, was busier. By peak season in the heart of summer, the Old Morris Tobacconist shop might keep its doors open until 11 p.m. to accommodate the cruise-ship passengers and their hunger for Cuban cigars.

How many of the store’s Cubans are bought by American tourists? “Pretty much 100 per cent,” says Gautam Arora, who runs the place. Some go to yachters, most to cruise-ship passengers.

So, yes, it should matter when Donald Trump changes the rules, a rock thrown in Washington D.C. sending ripples all the way to Victoria. Except Arora doesn’t seem bothered. So far, there hasn’t been much out of Trump but noise. Cigar buyers aren’t famous for paying attention to the White House anyway.

Other local tobacconists are warier, wondering if Trump will slam shut a door that Barack Obama opened in October. “We’re in limbo, waiting to see,” says Aemon Baeyat, owner of Fort Street’s Cuban Cigar Shop.

Few Victoria businesses are tied as tightly to U.S. foreign policy as are tobacconists.

Much of their success — or at least the Cuban cigar part of it — has been built on the trade embargo that John F. Kennedy slapped on Fidel Castro’s Havana in 1962.

For more than half a century, Americans barred from buying Cuban cigars in the U.S. have enjoyed the vaguely illicit thrill of purchasing them here instead.

Americans weren’t even allowed to take the cigars home until 2014, when Obama said tourists could bring back $100 US worth. Last October, he eased the rules even more: No limit on the quantity of Cuban cigars for personal use, and no duty on the first $800 worth. It’s still illegal to buy them in the U.S., though. Not supposed to mail them there, either.

Trump made a lot of noise about rolling back Obama’s Cuba policies, but when he announced his planned changes Friday, they amounted to little more than tighter limits on financial transactions and travel.

Baeyat is waiting to see what, if anything, the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments will have to say about cigars after devilling out the details of Trump’s directive over the next month. “That will obviously affect us.”

The Cuban Cigar Shop’s sales to Americans have increased since Obama eased restrictions last year. Before that, some customers would walk out after Baeyat told them they risked having their cigars confiscated if caught trying to take them across the border.

Likewise, the Goodfellas Cigar Shop on Yates Street has seen sales to Americans rise a bit now that getting smokes home no longer means trying to keep a poker face at Customs. “People are more comfortable,” manager Phil Turcotte says.

Arora, whose Government Street store sees more tourist traffic than the others, has seen less impact. Maybe the nascent tourist season has seen a few more mom-and-pop buyers pick up a couple of Cubans to bring home to the son-in-law, but the serious cigar buffs, the ones willing to pay $1,200 to $1,300 for a hard-to-get box of 25 Cohiba Behikes, never did let rules they don’t believe in trump their passion. They bought Cubans before Obama eased the rules and they’ll do so if Trump tightens them.

Frankly, the embargo has long been scoffed at by many U.S.-based travellers, including the rich and famous. Pamela Anderson — “the nicest person, extremely polite,” Arora says — comes by now and then.

Wayne Gretzky and Kiefer Sutherland, a couple of U.S.-based Canajun boys, once stocked up at Goodfellas together.

Then there were John Travolta, Kid Rock, Diane Lane, Billy Connolly, Nick Nolte … . Many years ago, John Wayne scooped some cigars from Old Morris and rode off into the sunset with a promise to pay but never did. Jet jockeys on visiting U.S. Navy aircraft carriers like their Cubans, too, as do the captains and admirals.

For the visitors, it really is all about the Cubans.

No Americans buy non-Cuban cigars in Canada, where taxes make tobacco products three, four, five times as expensive as in the U.S. “A cigar that we have to sell for $40, they can sell for eight or nine,” Arora says.

If anything is going to make Americans balk, it’s those Canadian prices.

At Goodfellas, Cubans range from $6 for a low-end, machine-rolled cigar to up to $90 for a top-quality smoke, but most buyers go for a good cigar in the $25 to $40 range — still high enough to make all but the well-heeled swallow their gum.

Arora keeps a cruise-ship schedule on the counter, tracking not only the size of each vessel but whether it’s stopping at the beginning or end of the cruise, and how much the passengers paid for their trips — all factors in how many and what type of cigars he should order.

If Canadian prices make American tourists blink (particularly those passengers who don’t know about our 75-cent dollar) so do Canadian laws: In the middle of Old Morris, a business that has sold tobacco products to smokers for 125 years, stands an ancient cigar lighter whose flickering flame can not be used to light customers’ cigars.

Likewise, over at Goodfellas, Turcotte last week had a hard time explaining to a confused cruise-ship passenger that no, you may not smoke a cigar in a cigar store.

“I think we’re more illegal than pot in this city,” he says.

Yes, well, laws change, though not that much when it comes to Havana and Washington. Some thought it would be legal to sell Cuban cigars in the U.S. once Castro kicked el bucket.

With Cuban production already maxed out, that would be a double whammy for Canadian vendors: Not only would they lose American buyers, but the added demand in the U.S. market would drive up prices for all.

Baeyat doesn’t see that happening. “Castro wasn’t the only issue.”

Right now, the concern is tighter rules, not looser ones.