CANADA
The Premium Cigar Retailers of Canada has launched “The Better Cigar Plan”, a new portal that allows Canadian citizens and businesses to easily contact their member of parliament in support of an exemption for premium cigars from the bill’s plain packaging requirement.
The site, bettercigarplan.ca, went live on August 11.
Leading the project are Jerry Filice and Ryan Baker, founding partners of Village Cigar Co, who said the Canadian’s government plan for plain packaging “will, in turn, have a ripple effect that will all but wipe out the premium cigar industry across Canada.” Supporters are encouraged to write to their MPs pointing out plain and standardized packaging on premium tobacco is a useless endeavor based on statistics so low they are deemed to be insignificant.
Some well-known cigar industry figures are already supporting the campaign; Alan Rubin of Alec Bradley, Jose Blanco of E.P. Carrillo, Rocky Patel of Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, and Nicholas Melillo of Foundation Cigar Co., who have all created video messages encouraging Canadians to speak up in favor of the premium cigar exemption.