Tampa’s Last Cigar Factory Ponders More Competition From Cuba

Voice of America – March 20, 2016
Rising hopes that the half-century U.S. trade embargo on Cuba might be coming to an end are raising concerns for U.S. cigar makers who may face stiffer competition from Cuban cigar imports. But the people who run the last major cigar factory in Tampa, Florida, say they have been making fine cigars for a very long time and expect to keep working far into the future. The J.C. Newman cigar factory in the historic Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa is a ballet of complex old machines and deft hands, as 130 people make 60,000 cigars a day. Get details from the Voice of America.