Ok. I realize the Himalayans seem far away, but this is a good example of how things can quickly become absurd. Democracy? Not so much…
From The Syndney Morning Herald
Bhutan jails more smokers amid criticism
Bhutan’s opposition leader has condemned the country’s anti-smoking law, the strictest in the world, as “utter madness” after another three people were sent to prison for possessing cigarettes.
The remote Himalayan country banned the sale of tobacco in 2005 and tightened up its law again last year to combat smuggling, requiring consumers to provide valid customs receipts for any cigarettes or chewing products.
Tshering Tobgay, writing on his blog in a posting dated May 26, said a local court in the Paro district had sentenced another three men to three years in jail after they were stopped at an airport with undeclared cigarettes.
“Their crime: they were caught smuggling ten packets of cigarettes,” wrote the opposition leader in the national parliament. “I called the Tobacco Control Act draconian. It?s much worse. It?s utter madness.”
He added that “countless others — I’ve lost count really — are in detention or undergoing trial in various parts of the country.”
In March, a monk became the first person jailed under the anti-smoking law after a court handed him a three-year prison sentence for smuggling tobacco worth $2.50.
Sonam Tshering was jailed for bringing in 48 packets of chewing tobacco worth 120 Bhutanese ngultrums from India without declaring them to customs.
Bhutanese smokers are restricted to 200 cigarettes or 150 grams of other tobacco products a month, which can be legally imported with tariffs of 100 percent from India or 200 percent from elsewhere.
Bhutan, famed for its invention of Gross National Happiness to measure progress and its citizens’ well-being, is one of the most remote and reclusive places on Earth, sandwiched between India and China.
It held its first democratic elections in 2008 and the Tobacco Control Act has sparked rare public dissent, including a Facebook group where mostly young people have vented their frustration at the law.
© 2011 AFP
Per Action Center News 5/27/2011
Last cigar factory shuttered in Red Lion, Pa. |
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| WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN, THE YORK DISPATCH |
| FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2011 09:09 |
 J.C. Winter & Co. of Red Lion, Pa., also manufactured chewing tobacco. This metal thermometer advertises the company’s Happy Jim brand. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Morphy Auctions.
RED LION, Pa. (AP) – Joe Jacobs, now 63, can remember the smell of tobacco curing as he drove into Red Lion as a teen.The town’s cigar factories employed most of its people, and they sold more than 10 percent of the cigars manufactured in the United States, according to local historian Shirley Keeports. She said most current Red Lion residents can still say they know someone who once worked in a Red Lion cigar factory. But unless they know Jacobs or his receptionist, they don’t know anyone who presently works in one. Van Slyke & Horton Inc. was the last remaining factory from the industry that built the town – and it closed production about six weeks ago, said Jacobs, who manages the place. He and his secretary are all that remain. After an auction of most of the manufacturer’s possessions, they’ll be gone, too. “It certainly is the end of an era,” said Jacobs, whose father, Clark Jacobs, owns the factory. “There were a lot of people who lived a very good life because of it. The industry was responsible for Red Lion being such a flourishing community at that time, and there was a time when most men had a cigar in their mouth. We just always thought people would smoke.” He said Van Slyke & Horton, 49 S. Pine St. in Red Lion, was also the last operational cigar factory in York County. The Van Slyke building began manufacturing cigars in 1910 under then-owner J.C. Winters, Jacobs said. It had about 60 employees in the height of cigar popularity and was producing millions of cigars per year. Things had been “rolling downhill” for cigar manufacturers for decades, but the passage of a new tobacco tax a few years ago and the economic recession “pushed us over the cliff,” Jacobs said. The factory made nearly a million cigars last year, selling them to locations all over the world. Workers would condition the loose tobacco and feed it into 20 machines that rolled cigars, and then they’d pack and ship them. But orders slowed and the handful of remaining employees were let go around two months ago, Jacobs said. The machines were sold to an operation in Nicaragua and, on Thursday morning an auction was conducted to disperse decades worth of equipment and memorabilia, Jacobs said. Items sold included labels and bands, antique hand-rolling items such as cutting boards and knives, cigar molds and 250-capacity trunks in which cigars were packed, he said. The building is not for sale, and Jacobs said he’s not sure what will come of it. The cigar industry was so strong in Red Lion by the 1920s that the town was the richest place, per-capita, in the nation, said Keeports, who directs the Red Lion Historical Society’s museum. “I don’t think there were many households that didn’t do some kind of cigar manufacturing,” she said. “You could start stripping tobacco in your own home, and you were called a stripper. Most of the women were strippers, stripping the stem from the leaf.” The town’s opera house and theater were built on cigar profits. So were the lives of the townspeople. Workers wrote songs and poems about the factories, and they treasured their jobs enough to fight for them. In 1934, cigar workers afraid of losing work to machines went on strike. State police were called to control rioters. Women lay down in front of delivery trucks. One Red Lion man was blinded by tear gas, and, according to Keeports, had to make brooms for the rest of his life. Keeports said she’s “greatly upset” by the last factory’s closure. She planned to attend the auction and use Historical Society funds to buy and preserve as much of the memorabilia as possible. Things might be tight, she said, because she recently “spent a lot” at the closing of Loyer’s Pharmacy, another of the town’s institutions. “It’s our history,” she said. “I don’t like to see these things leave the town.”
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We need your help! (and it’s easy)
Posted: March 27, 2011 in UncategorizedYet another threat to our freedom of choice. Even if California is not “your state”, remember…when a constricting law is passed in one state, it will eventually spread to others. Prohibition is like a virus! Below is taken straight from the CRA website. Please take a moment to click on the link and sign the petition. It literally takes seconds. Every signature makes a difference!
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This is something dear to my heart <3
CRA Action Alert
Posted: January 25, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Found these on youtube today. Hilarious!!
One thing I have always appreciated is a beautiful cigar box. Besides having a love affair with cigars themselves, I am enthralled with how they are packaged. Small or large; ornate or plain; subtle or simply obnoxious…I love them all. The only problem is, I never want to get rid of them! Now, what to do with that empty box? I thought I had tried it all. Purses, schoolboxes, storage containers, art…but a guitar? Today I watchced a documentary called Songs Inside the Box and I became fascinated with the craftsman as well as the musicians. Too cool!!
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So true.
Posted: January 8, 2011 in UncategorizedThere are seven things that will destroy us:
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Religion without sacrifice
Politics without principle
Science without humanity
Business without ethics
— Mahatma Gandhi
They say Habano…so what!
Posted: January 3, 2011 in UncategorizedI read an interesting article in the LA Times today and, as always, thought…really? Why does the Cuban government continue to have a voice in our court system when their own people have none? Yes, I’ve been told time and time again that this a complicated issue. Blah. blah. blah. How about this? Cuban companies can have priviledges in the US when their citizens are given basic human rights. Seems simple to me.
Detroit-area cigar lounge has an aggressive challenger: Fidel Castro’s Cuban tobacco company
ED WHITE
Associated Press
PLYMOUTH, Mich. (AP) — A cigar lounge in suburban Detroit is decorated with paintings and photos of famous people with a stogie: John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, even the 1950s Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.
“We have only one thing in common,” said owner Ismail Houmani, a U.S. war veteran, pointing at a cigar in the fingers of Guevara, a Marxist rebel.
Cuba, however, believes the shop has too much common with its own famous cigar business. Cuba’s government-owned tobacco company is suing Houmani in federal court in Detroit, claiming the name of his four shops, La Casa De La Habana, is illegal because it’s too similar to its own franchised shops, known around the world as La Casa del Habano.
Cuba, of course, can’t do business in America because of a nearly 50-year-old trade embargo imposed after Fidel Castro, with Guevara’s help, turned the Caribbean island into a socialist state. Nonetheless, Cubatabaco claims it still has a right to protect its U.S. trademark even if it can’t export prized Cuban cigars to U.S. shores.
“I love cases like this,” U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III told both sides last year. “I find it to be extremely interesting and challenging.”
Houmani’s lawyer, Brad Smith, wonders why Cuba would care about a Michigan cigar lounge. “Small potatoes,” he said in an interview.
Cubatabaco’s lawyer, David Goldstein of New York, said in court that a trademark must be protected or “what I have is a worthless piece of paper.”
In Plymouth, a suburb west of Detroit, La Casa De La Habana has been open about a decade. A climate-controlled humidor displays dozens of cigars, some costing $38 each, from Honduras, theDominican Republic and Nicaragua. There is walk-in business, but customers also can have their own gym-locker-sized humidor with a nameplate for $100 a month.
There are televisions, leather couches and an espresso bar. In downtown Detroit, Houmani runs a 7,000-square-foot location offering martinis, live music and local handmade cigars stuffed with imported tobacco.
“Over a cigar, you can meet some interesting people — doctors, lawyers, judges, movie actors. They want to sit down and relax,” said Houmani, 42, who immigrated to Toledo, Ohio, from Lebanon when he was 18. “I wanted to create something that’s really unique.”
He said he was thinking about Cuba’s reputation for Latin jazz, rum and cigars when he chose the name La Casa De La Habana, which means “The House of Havana” in Spanish. Houmani notes that “Habano,” the word used in the name of Cuban shops, refers to a Havana cigar.
“I’m not selling or advertising Cuban cigars,” he said.
International agreements allow government-controlled businesses like Cuba’s to register trademarks in the U.S., even when dormant under an economic embargo. Still, Smith said the lawsuit should be governed by a simple rule: “You use it or lose it.”
A trademark expert at the University of Michigan law school believes Cubatabaco has a strong case for infringement.
“Cuba’s got reason to hope that it will be able to enter the U.S. market within the foreseeable future,” Jessica Litman said. “Its mark is pretty valuable, and the potential for confusion seems real.”
The judge has urged each side to settle the dispute out of court. Houmani concedes he may have to change the name of his business, although he would prefer to keep “La Casa” in it. He has much admiration for Cuba’s cigars, despite the lawsuit and that country’s communist government.
“It’s the best tobacco in the world because of the soil. It’s God’s gift to the Cubans,” said Houmani, who has smoked Cuban cigars during trips to the Middle East. “As cigar makers, we don’t look at political affiliations.”
