Tag Archives: FDA

News: Largest Premium Cigar Manufacturers Join Together to Challenge Improper FDA Regulation

This news came to me by way of Drew Estate, but involves them, General Cigar, Davidoff, Perdomo, C.L.E. and Tabacalera U.S.A. This is a big deal getting these six companies putting up a united front. I love that they use the FDA’s own studies against them. Check it out. 

Largest Premium Cigar Manufacturers Join Together to Challenge Improper FDA Regulation

The largest manufacturers in the premium cigar industry today filed a joint comment with the Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) opposing the agency’s Proposed Substantial Equivalence (“SE”) Rule, which would require manufacturers to submit to an extensive application and testing regime to keep any “non-grandfathered” cigars on the market.

 

In this joint comment, premium cigar manufacturers Davidoff of Geneva USA, Drew Estate, General Cigar Company, Tabacalera USA, Perdomo Cigars, and C.L.E. Cigar Company call for full exemption of premium cigars from FDA regulation and specifically object to the application to the Proposed SE Rule to premium cigars.  According to Dylan Austin, President of Davidoff of Geneva USA, “Our joint comment filed today shows FDA’s Proposed SE Rules to be an overly broad and unjustifiably costly set of regulations that are so lacking in scientific substantiation as to be nothing more than an illegal economic ban on handmade premium cigars that will cripple the manufacturers and retailers in this important industry.” 

This joint comment marks the first time these premium cigar manufacturers, who are all also members of Cigar Association of America (“CAA”), have joined together to file their own set of comments specifically regarding premium cigars.   Javier Estades, President and CEO of Tabacalera USA, stated, “We are all proud members of CAA, which as the cigar industry’s oldest and most well recognized trade association, continues to robustly represent the interests of the entire cigar industry at the federal, state, and local levels.  We fully support CAA’s incredible work in challenging current FDA regulations, which are wrong for all cigars, and recognize that certain aspects of FDA’s regulations uniquely and disproportionately impact premium cigars.  We therefore decided to come together to address these issues head on.”

 

Added Glenn Wolfson, CEO of Drew Estate, “Our joint comment to FDA is very powerful because it is based on data.  The FDA has undertaken extensive research about the usage patterns of premium cigars and their impact on public health.  The resulting data from this scientific research is clear and unambiguous as to two critical facts.  First, premium cigars are not used by youth.  Second, based on the usage patterns of adult premium cigar smokers, there is no statistically significant difference in mortality rates or disease rates between the overwhelming majority (over 95%) of premium cigar smokers and non-smokers.  Said differently, the FDA’s own data makes clear that FDA regulation of premium cigars will neither impact what is virtually non-existent youth usage or materially benefit the public health.  On the other hand, due to the unique nature of this artisanal, handmade industry, the costs of FDA regulation of premium cigars will be devastating, particularly to small businesses.”

 

“The Premium Cigar Manufacturers have in our joint comment called upon FDA to look at their own research and reach the only conclusion their own data can support,” stated, Nick Perdomo, CEO of Perdomo Cigars, “that the Proposed SE Rules are simply inappropriate as applied to premium cigars and that premium cigars should be exempt from FDA regulation.”

 

Regis Broersma, President of General Cigar Company concluded, “As the leading manufacturers in the premium cigar industry, all of us proudly stand together today to protect all premium cigar manufacturers regardless of size, retailers and consumers from what can only be described as unduly burdensome, grossly over-reaching, and wholly improper regulation.  We invite all industry members to review our joint comment and to speak to your local representatives about the devastating impacts of FDA’s proposed regulations on your businesses.  Together we can make a difference.”

ABOUT DREW ESTATE

Founded in New York City in 1996, Drew Estate has become one of the fastest growing tobacco companies in the world. Under their mantra “The Rebirth of Cigars”, Drew Estate has led the “Boutique Cigar” movement by innovating new elements to the tobacco industry with their unique tobaccos and blending styles that attract new and traditional cigar enthusiasts. In their Gran Fabrica Drew Estate, the Nicaraguan headquarters, Drew Estate produces a variety of brands such as ACID, Herrera Estelí, Herrera Estelí Norteño, Isla del Sol, Kentucky Fired Cured, Liga Privada, MUWAT, Larutan by Drew Estate, Nica Rustica, Pappy Van Winkle Barrel Fermented Cigars, Tabak Especial, Undercrown, Florida Sun Grown, and Java by Drew Estate.

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A Gran Habano, An Emilio and Cigar News

On this day, in 1838, the electrical telegraph first debuted, setting in motion what would one day bring you the technology to read my nonsense about smoking rolled up leaves! I don’t imagine they were using Morse code to discuss where to get the best deals on cigars, whether the cigars their relatives brought back from vacation for them in the glass top box were genuine Havanas or not, or whether to remove the cello for storage back then. How times have changed. Anyway, I smoked a few of Gran Habano’s new Blue in Green toros, er…Gran Robustos…the 6″ x 54 vitola in the line.  I’m grateful that they sent my favorite size, although any size would be OK, as they only make this in a 7″ x 48 Churchill and a 5″ x 52 Robusto. The cigar is presented in a cedar sleeve, and has a Connecticut wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The documentation says Connecticut, not Ecuador Connecticut (twice!). I wanted to write about this earlier, but it seemed like every time I pulled this out to smoke it, I saw one of my colleagues in the blogosphere  was also featuring it on their sites.  To be honest, I enjoyed the first one I smoked so much I felt compelled to smoke another one and write something about it. This is one of those Connecticut shade cigars that tastes like a nice sugar cookie! It has some of those subtle spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and a little woodiness. It’s a really well made, nice tasting shade cigar, not overly mild, medium bodied with a lot of flavor.  I like the Gran Habano Blue in Green a lot, I’m not quite sure what the significance of the name of the cigar is, but it’s a good cigar, and I like it a lot.

 

I would have posted this as a stand-alone news post yesterday, but I didn’t have time, as I had to work and then go to a company holiday party right after work. It’s some news from my friends at J.C. Newman down in Tampa, who you’ll be seeing more from on these pages in the coming months.

 

Yesterday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) reintroduced legislation in the United States Senate that would exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation.  Joining Senator Rubio in co-sponsoring this bipartisan bill were Senators Corey Gardner (R-CO), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Joni Ernst (R-IA).  This legislation was just the ninth bill filed in the Senate in the new 116th Congress.
This morning, Fox 13 News visited J.C. Newman Cigar Company’s historic cigar factory in Tampa, Florida to discuss Senator Rubio’s legislation.  Reporter Josh Cascio interviewed Eric and Bobby Newman, third-generation owners of J.C. Newman, a 124-year-old family business.  A video of their interview is online.  In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided to apply the same massive and costly regulations designed for cigarettes to handcrafted, premium cigars, like J.C. Newman.  According to the FDA’s own estimates, regulation is expected to put up to 50% of the cigar industry out of business.“Senator Rubio’s bipartisan bill would exempt our premium cigars from regulation,” said Bobby Newman. “It would allow us to continue our family business without this tremendous albatross over our heads.”

In announcing his 2019 legislative priorities, Senator Rubio stated, “I will also continue the fight for small, traditional cigar manufacturers, a quintessential Florida industry, that are on the verge of being snuffed out by egregious federal overreach.”

Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-FL) and Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) are in the process of refiling this legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  In the prior Congress, this legislation had 149 co-sponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate.

“We are tremendously grateful to Senator Rubio, Congresswoman Castor, and Congressman Posey for their leadership in helping to save Florida’s historic premium cigar industry,” said Eric Newman.  “We are hopeful that our leaders in Washington will provide relief from these excessive regulations.”

 

 

Last summer when I was at BnB Cigars in Chestnut Hill visiting Vince there one night, he handed me a couple cigars that had just come in called Emilio M5, an Ecuador Connecticut and a Maduro, unbanded, simply called C5 and M5. Apparently these were exclusive to BnB and Underground in Texas, and had been made at Oveja Negra (Black Label Trading Co.) originally as a project for another small company who happens to be an old friend who has made some favorite cigars, so it was a little disappointing to hear that this project didn’t work out for whatever reason, and they were being sold off, basically, under the Emilio name. Oveja Negra makes great cigars, and Emilio certainly needs a boost.  It looks like these may still be available in multiple sizes, so they must have made a bunch. It took me about 6 months to get aground to trying these for whatever reason, and I might get to the shade C5 today or this week. The M5 is a 5½ x 48 Robusto-ish size with a kind of a nipple cap, a very unique shape. Also unique is the flavor, it doesn’t really have the sweet maduro flavor one expects, but more the brown bread kind of flavor, and it’s very interesting. It’s a savory smoke, with a hint of some spice, and the burn and draw were spot-on.  I really enjoyed this, it was certainly on a par with what I expect in terms of quality from that factory. I do feel bad that things didn’t work out with the original arrangement though, it would have done well.

 

That’s all for today, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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News: Drew Newman Speaks at the FDA Conference

I got this new this morning right before heading to work and tried to get it out, but had some formatting trouble that delayed things. Of course, Drew Newman is the son of Eric Newman, President of JC Newman cigars.  Good stuff here, we continue to hope that impassioned and well reasoned responses like this will make a difference in the fight against over-reaching regulation.

On behalf of the entire premium cigar industry
Drew Newman Speaks at the FDA Conference


Last week, the FDA held a conference on tobacco regulation. The agency invited Drew Newman, J.C. Newman’s general counsel, and a fourth-generation cigar maker, to address the conference on behalf of the premium cigar industry and respond to questions from the audience. Below are Drew’s remarks.

In his speech, Drew explained that “premium cigars are an old-world, handmade craft enjoyed by adults.” “It is not a science,” he said. “It’s an art, and the tradition has been passed down from generation to generation.” He discussed how the latest FDA data show that premium cigars are smoked infrequently and by adults — not children — and that the entire premium cigar industry is just 0.5% of the entire tobacco industry. He noted that the FDA’s guidance is “completely unworkable for handmade cigars.” In urging the FDA to provide relief, Drew said, “Our one goal as a family business is to continue my great-grandfather’s legacy and continue hand rolling premium cigars in America for another four generations and 123 years.”

FDA Tobacco Product Application Review Public Meeting
October 23, 2018

“Good afternoon, my name is Drew Newman. In 1895, my great-grandfather, J.C. Newman founded our family business. Four generations and 123 years later, we are the oldest, family-owned, premium cigar company in America.

My family rolls premium cigars in our historic cigar factory in Tampa, Florida using hand-operated, antique, semi-automated machines. We also roll cigars by hand in Nicaragua. Many of you have visited our cigar factory in the Ybor City National Historic Landmark District in Tampa, but if you haven’t, please come by. My father, uncle, and I would love to show you how we roll premium cigars in America.

If you are not familiar with premium cigars, they are all natural, handcrafted products. We roll them the same way that my great-grandfather did 100 years ago – the process has literally been the same for a more than a century.

We sell our premium cigars to 3,000 specialty retailers across the country. These are mom-and-pop, small family businesses with just a handful of employees. If you’ve never seen how premium cigars are sold, there’s a store called Signature Cigars a half-mile down the road.

Premium cigars are just 3% of the cigar industry and just one half of one percent of the tobacco industry as a whole. We are a tiny sliver of the tobacco world. The premium cigar industry is made up of old, family-owned businesses just like ours.

When someone asks me about premium cigars, I often compare them to fine wines, because the process is remarkably similar. Just as the soil, sunlight, wind, and rain cause a Merlot grape grown in France to taste different from the same Merlot grape grown in California, the same is true of premium cigar tobacco. As with wines, certain vintages or years are known to be better than others; the same is true with premium cigar tobacco. And just as aging red wines makes them better, the same is true for premium cigars as well. Like old world French winemakers who blend together different grape varietals to create unique tasting wines, as cigar makers, we do the exact same thing with premium cigar tobacco. We harness the natural variation in premium cigar tobaccos to make interesting blends with limited production, low-volume runs, just like winemakers do with grapes. None of this is standardized. None of this is written down. None of this is formulaic. It is not a science. It’s an art, and the tradition has been passed down from generation to generation.

Patterns of use for premium cigars are also distinct from other products. Recent PATH study data show that the typical premium cigar consumer smokes just 1.7 cigars per month; 97% of premium cigar consumers smoke cigars exclusively, and the same 97% smoke fewer than one cigar per day; and there is no statistically significant use of premium cigars by youth.

My point here is that premium cigars are an old-world, handmade craft enjoyed by adults. This is why we are very worried about FDA regulation.

For example, a year from now our HPHC reports are due, yet no premium cigar company knows what to do. Given that premium cigars come in thousands of shapes and sizes, how are we supposed to test them? What are we testing for? There is no standardized process for testing premium cigars.

We are even more worried about SE reports. There are tens of thousands SKUs of premium cigars sold today and no one knows how to file a SE report for them. The guidance we have so far received is completely unworkable for handmade cigars.

For this reason, we are very grateful for the agency’s compliance policies – which are giving both the agency and the industry the breathing room to figure out what to do. We are also very grateful that Commissioner Gottlieb, Director Zeller, Dr. Holman, and CTP staff have recognized that there is a broad spectrum of tobacco products and that regulation needs to be tailored to each product category. More work is needed. We continue to need guidance for premium cigars.

In conclusion, as the only speaker here at the conference from the premium cigar world, I ask you to please not overlook our traditional, handcrafted segment of the cigar industry – again just 0.5% of the tobacco industry. Premium cigars are very different. If you want to hear more about premium cigars, please let me know. I’d love to talk. My email address is dnewman@jcnewman.com. And please come and visit our historic premium cigar factory in Tampa.” Our one goal as a family business is to continue my great-grandfather’s legacy and continue hand rolling premium cigars in America for another four generations and 123 years. Thank you very much for your attention and I would welcome any questions.

 

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Podcast: Episode 6: Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicana and an Altria Rant

Last week I attended an event at my local CigarCigars store with La Flor Dominicana‘s Litto Gomez, and got a few minutes to talk to him afterwards. I wrote about the event in my Sunday post. Since it was a short interview, I decided to rant for a few minutes about this weeks Cigar Aficianado “news” story about Altria’s FDA nine page comment which drew their ire, but, it the grand scheme of things, probably wasn’t as evil as everyone thought! Welcome to episode 6 of the CigarCraig Podcast!

 

 

CIGAR EDITORIAL: THE ALTRIA FALLOUT – 2 DAYS LATER

 

 

halfwheelSIX THOUGHTS: ALTRIA’S PREMIUM CIGAR EXEMPTION STANCE

 

 

That’s all for today, until the next time,

 

 

CigarCraig

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News: Sen. Marco Rubio Strongly Advocates for Premium Cigar Exemption

This came to me via the folks at J.C.Newman, written better than I ever could! Great speech, I tried to embed the video, but it was gikving me fits technically. so click the link in the article to go to the speech or the fine folks at J/C. Newman went to the trouble of transcribing it at the end of the piece. Fingers crossed that this makes a difference, the FDA comment period ended yesterday, I left mine, and the IPCPR/CRA left a 500+ page comment. Considering the FDA’s own studies show zero, I repeat, ZERO percent of children interested in premium cigars, perhaps they’ll at least get off that particular piece of the regulations…

 

In an 11-minute speech, Sen. Marco Rubio called for Congress to save Florida’s premium cigar industry – including J.C. Newman Cigar Co. in Tampa – from FDA’s excessive regulations.

 

Yesterday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the United States Senate about the urgent need to exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation. His speech can be viewed here, https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4742275/sen-rubio-cigar-speech-july-26-2018 , and a full transcript is below.

 

Sen. Rubio noted that the premium cigar industry “is on the verge of extinction” because of excessive and costly FDA regulation that “was never intended to apply to premium cigars.” Exempting premium cigars, Sen. Rubio said, would “free up the FDA to go after what they intended to go after, what everybody thought this was about, which is common tobacco products like cigarettes.”

 

Sen. Rubio cited J.C. Newman Cigar Company, a four-generation, 123-year-old family business in Tampa. He explained that FDA regulations are projected to cost J.C. Newman’s historic Ybor City cigar factory $30 million – more than three times its annual revenue.

 

Legislation to exempt premium cigars from regulation was introduced by Sens. Rubio and Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Reps. Kathy Castor (D-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL) and has been co-sponsored by more than 160 Members of Congress. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives included the exemption in a FY 2019 budget bill. Senator Rubio spoke yesterday while the Senate was considering companion legislation. When Congress finalizes the FY 2019 budget later this year, Senator Rubio said, “we’re going to be fighting for this. . . this needs to get fixed because this is the last chance.”

 

“We are extraordinarily grateful for Sen. Rubio’s leadership and support of Florida’s historic premium cigar industry,” said Eric Newman, president of J.C. Newman. “As Sen. Rubio noted, this is truly a bipartisan issue and one that Congress urgently needs to solve.”

 

“Our family has been proudly hand crafting, all natural premium cigars for more than a century,” said Bobby Newman, executive vice president of J.C. Newman. “Like Sen. Rubio explained, our premium cigars are nothing like cigarettes.”

 

“The premium cigar industry is an important part of Florida’s cultural heritage,” said Drew Newman, general counsel of J.C. Newman. “We sincerely appreciate Sen. Rubio bringing this important issue to the Senate floor and for fighting to save our historic industry.”

 

Transcript
In my home state of Florida, we have a rich history in manufacturing, hand-rolled premium cigars. And for those who aren’t familiar with it, a hand-rolled premium cigar is not the same thing as a cigarette.

 

Number one, they’re an expensive product, and they are consumed very differently from a cigarette or some other tobacco product. I would say they’re more like wine than they would be like a cigarette, for sure.

 

The interesting thing about the cigar industry and its history, not just in Florida, but in this country, is that almost exclusively, the manufacturers of premium, hand-rolled cigars are small, family-run businesses.

 

By the way, so, too, are the retailers that sell it. This is not the kind of thing you go and buy at 7-Eleven. There are stores that specialize in the sale of premium cigars. They cater to a clientele that can afford to buy these things and they’re significantly older than someone who would walk into a convenience store and buy a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter.

 

And the companies that are involved in this endeavor are not the big companies that we see involved generally in the tobacco industry. They’re family-owned businesses, both at the retail level and also at the manufacturing level. They are, in addition to all this, they represent a rich part of the cultural history of the Cuban community in Florida.

 

Ybor City in Tampa is an example of it. It was a city that — an area that was settled over a hundred years ago by Cubans that came to Tampa to start a very vibrant hand rolling cigar industry, which again these are hand-rolled, premium cigars. These are people literally sitting down and rolling it the leaves and these are high-end products.

 

This industry is on the verge of extinction. I’ll tell you why. In 2016, the previous administration, they finalized the rule based on a 2009 law that, by the way, it’s intended — its intended target was not premium cigars. They meant to go after tobacco products that were mass produced. But this law was interpreted that would require premium cigars to regulate the manufacture, the import, the packaging, the labeling, advertisement, promotion, sale, and the distribution of their products. And with each new product, they’d have to do it over again.

 

So from year to year, the premium cigar industry may change the blend inside the hand rolled cigar. They come in boxes of eight or 12. Every time that one of these things was changed, you’d have to redo the labels, redo the packaging, redo — everything would have to be completely redone which is simply cost prohibitive because these blends change constantly, especially as you bring new markets.

 

Now, I’ve offered an amendment to the minibus that’s before us that would exempt premium, hand-rolled cigars from the FDA regulation, not just so the industry can survive but so it can thrive and also to free up the FDA to go after what they intended to go after, what everybody thought this was about, which is common tobacco products like cigarettes and some of the other things that we are aware of.

 

Now, any time you talk about this, it gets a little tricky because people talk about tobacco use and causing cancer. I’m as sensitive to that as anyone. My father was a lifelong smoker. He lost his life in his early 80’s because of cigarette smoking. We need to do everything we can to discourage people from smoking and consuming tobacco, especially cigarettes that are consumed in mass quantity and are cheap to buy in large quantities. I would note that it is already illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone who is under the age of 18. I would also tell you that beyond that, that the numbers have continued to decline in tobacco use. So we know that the laws that are in place and the programs have worked.

 

But one of the things that we’ve focused on that’s brought to bear some of these issues is that tobacco is a legal product and small — tobacco is a legal product and small manufacturing of cigars is being harmed by this but the regulations were not intended for them. The regulations were designed to target cigarettes for flavored, fat cigarettes and other commonly used tobacco products, the kinds that could potentially be marketed to young people, that are not like a premium cigar five, eight, $10 each one, $80, $90 a box but the sort of flavored fat cigarettes, all the new stuff that’s coming out that you can buy if behind the counter and they’re very cheap to buy and they’re manufactured, mass manufactured. That’s what the rule was about.

 

It was never intended to apply to premium cigars but the way it was written and the way the rule was interpreted, that’s would it’s now doing. It’s putting the same requirement on a completely different product and it’s a requirement they simply can’t meet.

 

And here’s the irony of it. All of the things that were targeted under this new rule are going to survive. They’re still going to be around. A little bit more expensive, a little harder to bring to market. But they are still going to survive. All the mass-produced tobacco products will continue — continue to be more accessible. But the premium cigar manufacturers are going to get wiped out. One more irony in all of this — it is still illegal to mass-import Cuban cigars, but you can bring them in on an individual quantity. Those are not impacted by these regulations at all. None whatsoever. So you just think about that for a moment. A product made in another country doesn’t have to meet the same guidelines but has all the same attributes.

 

Now, I talked a little moment ago about Tampa and in particular Ybor City. And today after all these time there’s only one factory left, a company called J.C. Newman. It is within the area and is known as Cigar City. They’ve been making premium cigars — not cigarettes, not flavored cigarettes, not JUULs so people can vape. I’m talking about premium, expensive, handmade cigars. They’ve been making them since 1895 and that’s going to come to an end in the very near future in this rule goes through. They’re a profitable company. They sell about $10 million worth of product annually. That sound like a lot of money. It is nothing compared to the mass-produced tobacco products. It is going to cost them three times that amount just to comply with the FDA regulations. Three times just as much — upwards of $30 million to comply with the way this rule has been interpreted.

 

The sad part about it is that everyone knows this. You go to the FDA and they say, look, we get it. The law was supposed to go after these guys, but that’s the way it was written. Everyone admits it. But yet that’s the way it’s going to be. And not just J.C. Newman, it’s going to put other retailers, and then the specialty cigar stories, it is going to put them out of business all because of a stupid regulation that was written as a result of a law that was not properly drafted and interpreted inappropriately. The federal government is going to put these guys out of business. And the irony is the people that they were trying to impact by the regulation are going to survive and remain in business and be as — survive and remain in business and be as successful as ever and the people that it was not meant to harm are going to get wiped out.

 

This is the epitome of government overreach abuse. Regardless if the business is 100 years old, this represents the livelihood of hundreds of American families. There are people that work in the factory, own those retail stores and they are going to be out of work not because the market shifted, not because Americans no longer wanted to smoke premium cigars. They’re going to be out of business because no one can stay in business if the cost of following the law is three times as much as what you can make. You can’t do it. That is legal product made by a hardworking Americans who have been designee it for a very — doing it for a very long time, not the intended target of this rule. And it is unjust for them to be singled out, just unfair, it’s wrong.

 

Here is the worst part about this rule. It is written retroactively. Not only will they have to start complying moving forward. You could argue just don’t change your blend in the future. They will have to go back and relabel, repackage everything they have been making for the past 11 years. That explains the cost for just this one business. By the way, they’ve broken no laws and yet they’ve been singled out and this threatens their livelihood.

 

This is a bicameral and bipartisan issue. A number of members here in the Senate from across the aisle agree with this. I have been working with Senator Nelson on this for a long time. This is not a partisan issue, this is, no sir, a big tobacco issue. This is — this is not a big tobacco issue. This is a premium cigar issue consumed by people in different ways. You don’t smoke ten cigars a day.

 

We just know — common sense. But this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to wipe these guys out because of a government rule and the way it was interpreted, even though it was never meant to be about them.

 

We have an amendment, we have a law that fixes all this. I’m not going to offer it on this bill because it’s already part of the House package that lines up with the appropriations bills that are before us. But I wanted to point this out because I know people in Ybor City and I know people who care about this are watching. And I want them to know when this issue gets conferenced with the House that we’re going to be fighting for this, that this needs to get fixed because this is the last chance.

 

That’s the other point. This rule is about to kick in. The comment period is about to end, and the rule is going to kick in. So this is our last chance. If we don’t get it right here when we work this out, this is going to happen.

 

You’re going to be reading about it and maybe it doesn’t matter in some places. It matters a lot to Florida. It matters a lot to this company in Ybor City, in Tampa. It matters a lot to the hundreds and thousands of people across the country who work in the retail shops that sell them and who work in the places hand rolling and making them. And this is just wrong. And we should do everything we can to stop it from happening. And I hope that we will in conference deal with this issue. I’m glad it’s in the House version. I wish we could get it in the Senate version. We’re going to fight to include it in the final version.

 

We are not going to stand by and watch as J.C. Newman and small businesses like them are put out of business by a rule that was never supposed to apply to them.

 

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

 

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