Cigar Industry Sues California Attorney General
Today, Ashton Distributors, Oliva Cigar, Padrón Cigars, Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, La Flor Dominicana, Arturo Fuente, My Father Cigars, Cigar Rights of America and the Premium Cigar Association sued Robert Andres Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California.
The defendants are challenging California’s new “Unflavored Tobacco List,” and the policy of having to register and verify traditional cigars as unflavored, or risk having them banned for sale in the state.
“These regulations set up the Attorney General as its own, state-run U.S. Food and Drug Administration, demanding piles of paper and massive fees from tobacco manufacturers in order to conduct a review of each tobacco product before it goes to market and then make a determination whether it is a flavored tobacco product,” reads the suit. “The layering of a new premarket review scheme, on top of the federal government’s, is also preempted. It is one thing the ban the sale of certain products. It is quite another to set up a State official—frankly with no medical or public health expertise—as a parallel U.S. Food and Drug Administration, augmenting the FDA’s laboratory testing and data submission process for approving the marketing of tobacco products.”
This lawsuit brings together some of the biggest names in cigars, unified to battle for a truly important market.
“CRA and Oliva Cigar company are committed to protecting premium cigars wherever that road leads us,” says Cory Bappert of Oliva Cigar. “We look forward to our day in court to challenge the unfair burden put on our industry by the state of California. To our California clients we hear you and help is on the way.”
Rocky Patel called the California legislation “arbitrary and capricious….that would amount to defacto prohibition for most cigar manufacturers and retailers. The state seeks to distinguish between flavored cigars and non-flavored cigars. However, the state of California and the Attorney General’s office hastily set forth regulations to register our non-flavored premium cigars without taking the time to study and understand our boutique industry. The overreaching and aggregious regulations simply punish the industry without just cause. The yearly cost of compliance is far too expensive for too many companies. Most companies would be forced to stop selling our legal cigars in the state of California or at least reduce our SKU’s by 50 percent. Cost of compliance is too time consuming. There are much simpler and less costly ways to achieve the intended objective.”
This is a breaking situation and there will be much more on this story.
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