Cigars face extinction under Labour ‘nanny state’ attack

Cigars face disappearing from Britain within a matter of years under “nanny state” health plans to make smoking less attractive.

Health ministers are considering fresh proposals to ban them unless they come in plain packaging with graphic photographs, similar to cigarettes.

It threatens to outlaw centuries-old artwork that adorns the boxes and bands of authentic handmade cigars, sold largely by small family businesses that have long been exempt from onerous packaging rules applied to corporate tobacco giants.

The proposals have caused uproar across the industry, which fears the rules will cut off imports to Britain.

Tobacconists are warning the rules will put them “out of business” for good and lead to a “total wipe-out” of the sector within a matter of years.

Leading the fightback against the proposals is James J. Fox, the 140-year-old cigar shop of which Sir Winston Churchill was a dedicated patron.

Daniel Freeman, the shop’s director, said: “From the day it comes in, we will become unprofitable.”

He said the cost of repackaging imported cigars, a responsibility that would fall to UK businesses, would make the premium products fundamentally unviable.

Many of his customers, who visit London especially for its cigar shops, would simply go elsewhere. He said this had already happened in Ireland, which introduced similar rules in 2018.

The proposals are being consulted on under new powers extended to health ministers under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill introduced by Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, which gained royal assent in April.

The bill was designed to create a future smoke-free Britain and bans anyone born after 2009 from consuming a tobacco product.

But opponents say enforcing plain packaging would effectively accelerate the cigar ban and decimate an industry catering to typically older customers and which they say does not pose a health risk to the youngest.

Mr Freeman said Mr Sunak’s original plan was a “slow death”, but warned “plain packaging will instantly kill the [cigar] industry”. Sir Winston would be “turning in his grave”, he added.

Jemma Freeman, chairman of Hunters & Frankau, the exclusive distributor in the UK for all cigar brands by Habanos S.A., Cuba’s partly state-owned speciality tobacco company, said: “This one step on cigars will end this business in between three to five years. It will be a total wipe-out.”

The plans are thought to put around 120 of these businesses in peril, with similar legislation in Canada and Australia previously blamed for destroying the cigar industry there.

Eddie Sahakian, whose father fled Iran during the revolution and in 1980 founded Davidoff of London, another St James’s cigar trader, said Labour’s cigar box ban meant he would be unable to pass the business on to his children.

Mr Sahakian, who still owns and runs the shop today, said: “If this plays out, there will be no business to pass on. It’s the end, it’s game over in the UK.”

He said previous attempts to reform cigar packaging had failed, but anti-lobbying laws introduced in 2018 meant this time the Government was refusing to engage with the industry.

Mr Sahakian believes the new rules will force him to repackage millions of pounds’ worth of rare vintage cigars he holds in storage. Discarding historic cigar boxes – alone worth a small fortune – and replacing them with plain packaging would make these cigars “worthless”, he said. “That puts us out of business.”

Laurence Davis, the owner of Sautter Cigars, said Labour was “giving the world of cigar forgery the opportunity to just go wild” and explained that “a cigar with no brand, no box and no label would be very difficult to distinguish whether it was real or wasn’t unless you taste it or cut it apart”.

Philip Buckthorpe, founder of the Save Cigars campaign, said it was an example of the “nanny state getting out of control in Britain” and asked: “What’s next, wine in plastic bottles with no label?”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are currently consulting on plain packaging requirements for all tobacco products, as part of our effort to tackle a habit that remains the single leading causes of preventable death, disability, and ill health in this country.

“All stakeholders, including specialist tobacconists, have been encouraged to contribute to this consultation, and we will consider their responses carefully before any final decisions are taken.”