Regards,
Anyone know whats the deal with the new regulation in Cuba for taking out cigars? It is true that you can only take back 50 habanos? or this 50 cigars only wothout invoice and with invoice unlimited quantity?

Thanks. In the basis is the same rule: get always invoice and only ask for 20 cigars to La China...

Typical laws made by Cuban politicians who are the same as the minions of the law elsewhwere. This law will make it easier to export fake Habanos. The first 50 cigars will not need the government documentation so they can be fakes.
They have their heads up their asses if they think that required seals, halograms, packaging etc. will stem the tide of bartender supplied cigars. Those things are stolen regularly for use in the black market. Plus, I'll bet that there are already counterfit duplicates in the works by the resourceful Cubans.

*Keeping my fingers crossed!

Overturning Cuba Travel Ban May Pass House This Year, Farr Says

Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Legislation to end a ban on Americans traveling to Cuba has enough support in the U.S. House of Representatives to win approval by year-end, said Representative Sam Farr, a California Democrat.

The bill to let U.S. citizens resume travel to the Caribbean island except in times of war or cases in which they face imminent danger has 181 votes in the House and needs 218 to pass, said Farr, a co-sponsor of the legislation. The plan is backed by travel groups such as the United States Tour Operators Association and the National Tour Association and human rights groups such as the Washington Office on Latin America and has been helped by President Barack Obama’s election, he said.

“It is believed we can get to this before the end of the year,” Farr, 68, said in an interview in New York. “We haven’t had a policy about Cuba. We’ve had policies about getting votes in Florida and Obama changed that by getting those votes.”

The U.S. ended restrictions on Sept. 3 on Cuban-Americans travel and money transfers to relatives in Cuba. The new rules also allow U.S. telecommunications companies to provide service in Cuba for mobile telephone, satellite radio and television. Exceptions to the 1962 trade embargo on communist Cuba include $500 million per year in agricultural exports, Farr said.

“If you are a potato, you can get to Cuba very easily,” he said. “But if you are a person, you can’t, and that is our problem.”

Pressure

Obama is under pressure from Latin American leaders to end the trade embargo to help improve relations in the region. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will ask Obama to end the embargo during the United Nations General Assembly this week, spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said Sept. 17.

Obama announced in April he would lift travel limits for Cuban-Americans visiting family in Cuba. At the same time, Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Florida Republicans, issued a statement that the president had made “unilateral concessions to the dictatorship” that would “embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalize pro- democracy activists.”

Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro, who handed power to his brother Raul Castro last year, called on Obama to completely lift the trade embargo.

White House officials have said there are no plans to lift the embargo. At the same time, the administration is undertaking a full review of policy toward Cuba with the goal of advancing “the cause of freedom” in the country less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the coast of Florida, Daniel Restrepo, a special assistant to Obama, said in April.

March Proposal

A group of House and Senate lawmakers proposed in March ending restrictions to allow all U.S. citizens and residents to travel to Cuba. Farr said the legislation, known as the “Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act,” also has enough votes to clear the Senate, where Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, and Republican Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming introduced the legislation.

“There’s a lot more openness in the Congress,” Geoff Thale, program director in the Washington Office on Latin America, said in an interview in New York. “Support is building. The travel industry and business community are not just formally in support but actively engaged. That’s why I think we’re going to see a difference.”

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is of Cuban descent and sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, has vowed to fight the easing of travel restrictions.

Philip Peters, a vice president and Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a public policy research group in Arlington, Virginia, said proponents of the bill may succeed in winning congressional approval as public opinion grows among Americans that U.S. rules on Cuba aren’t in line with much of the country’s foreign policy.

‘Good Shot’

“They’ve got a good shot,” Peters said in an interview. “Certainly right now they’re in striking distance and they’ve got plenty of time left in the session.”

Ending the travel ban may lead as many as 1 million Americans to visit the island every year, Lisa Simon, president of the National Tour Association, known as NTA, said in an interview. It would also help push forward talks on human rights issues, Thale said.

“We’ve had a policy for 50 years of isolating Cuba and it hasn’t done anything about the human rights situation,” Thale said. “I don’t think there is some magic solution. I don’t think ending the travel ban will cause Fidel to say let’s have elections, let’s release all the political prisoners tomorrow. What it will do is open the process of dialogue.”

Obama’s administration has been showing a “gradual relaxation and diplomatic opening” toward Cuba, Thale said. He cited the government’s decision to reinitiate talks on migration and direct mail, and also to put down the billboard operated by the U.S. government outside its special interests section in Havana, which he said often displayed anti-Cuba messages.

I would love to see the embargo lifted. However, Cuba will become Miami-South once Americans are allowed to legally visit. As for the importation of CC, don't hold your breath. It will take years for all of the legal trademark cases and licensing agreements to be settled.

quote:

Originally posted by Sloburn:
I would love to see the embargo lifted. However, Cuba will become Miami-South once Americans are allowed to legally visit. As for the importation of CC, don't hold your breath. It will take years for all of the legal trademark cases and licensing agreements to be settled.

We are talking about Cuban export regs here and not US import regs.

Sorry,

I was responding to Parface1's post.

Whoever is in charge of the Cuban cigar industry should be shot. No doubt, the individual has absolutely no clue about what's going on...throwing out the baby with the bath water is putting it mildly.

Yes, there are counterfeits, but stopping a few people from taking 50 cigars out of the country is not going to stem the tide. The problem isn't going to be solved there. Rather, the problem is the fact that the officials in charge are being paid (while they write this hogwash, no doubt) so that the sellers of counterfeits take out 500 boxes of counterfeit cigars...not just a bundle of 50!

Who does it hurt?? First, it hurts the tourist who wants to buy custom cigars. Second, it hurts the roller who makes the custom cigars and a few bucks on the side (as well as everyone else who has the hand in the pot, from the jinetero who sets up the deal, the store manager who authorizes it, the salesperson who writes it up on anything BUT the register receipt so that the only accounting is between the people in the store, and the person who goes and gets the prime materials). Third, it hurts the store, because it's not as if they can give big discounts to their favored clients who do big business.

In the past, when there is a special guest of the store, or someone who drops some serious coin, the store manager will give them a bundle of salomones, or gran coronas...something to show their appreciation for the purchases. What happens now?

The rule USED to be a maximum of 23...one less than a box of 24 Trinidad. Did that stem the tide of counterfeits? HECK no!! So, they raised it back to 50, which has been the rule for a while. Now down to 20?

What a bunch of idiots.

Oh - and for anyone really worried about trade with Cuba, even if things were wide open, there would be a myriad of legal roadblocks before we'll see cigars in the shops. Not only that, I think Cuba will impose some sort of 'reverse' embargo, and only allow licensed travelers to come to Cuba. Imagine thousands and thousands of US citizens with pent-up curiosity landing in Cuba thinking that they're going to find casinos and Sloppy Joe's Bar. Imagine the thousands of so-called 'exiles' who think that they'll waltz right back in and move into their old home that they abandoned to the revolution, or take over the farm they left behind. Ain't gonna happen.

So, even if the US ends the embargo, it'll only be the beginning of other things that are, no doubt, already in the works.

I thought a good dealof the copyright issues were handled through the merging of names by non us companies.

Cuba can't keep up with demand now, when the US market is opened prices will skyrocket in my belief. I think yu will see some really good blends though. Remember when cigars had Cuban filler and Connecticut wrapper. There will still be puros however.

That said I will be first in line for a box at the B&M.

Obama just extended the embargo another year.

My post was referring to actually visiting Cuba. I know that the embargo is still in effect and has been extended a year. Once travel restrictions are lifted it would only be a matter of time before the import of goods will open.