Photo courtesy of Samuel Chambaud

Since it’s illegal to purchase Cuban cigars in the United States, Canada continues to appeal to American cigar aficionados.

When former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger openly disclosed his taste for expensive Cuban cigars, it sparked a bit of a controversy. Indeed Cuban cigars – as well as many other Cuban goods – are still under embargo in the United States and therefore illegal for American citizens to purchase.  This is a ban that doesn’t exist in Canada where commercial ties with the Castro regime have never been cut.

Walking along Vancouver’s busy tourist streets, cigar shops have an unspoken appeal to American visitors.  But Kiarash Kalhor, owner Cigar Connoiseurs, a prominent cigar shop in Gastown, says he’s not targeting them.

“You’ve got a lot of American tourists who are stepping in just to have a try,” says Kalhor.

Cuban cigars are in fact a leisure they can’t enjoy at home for they would be liable to breach the embargo.  Meanwhile, a few tricks exist to discretely bring it back to the United States.

The internet can be a bastion for answers, especially when it comes to illegal stuff.  So, at your own risk, just go to the answers.yahoo.com and type How to smuggle Cuban Cigars, and a bounty of answers are at your discretion.

Somebody under the username Beardo claims that the most efficient way is to take off the original labels. “If challenged, claim that they are Dominican unbundled cigars,” recommends Beardo.

Canada’s involvement with Cuba

In place since 1960, the embargo on Cuba has been a big loss, not only for American cigar smokers, but for US companies as well.

Alejandra Bronfman, a University of British Columbia scholar who wrote a book on the recent history of the Caribbean, qualified it as a “failed policy.”

“While American companies aren’t allowed to do business with Cuba, it has been very profitable for others,” says Bronfman.  Canada being one of the biggest.

Bronfman acknowledges that Canada figures amongst the greatest investors in the country as it helped build the new international airport José Marti. Canada is also involved in the mining sector with Sherritt, which extracts and processes a great deal of Cuban nickel.

The same brands available in the US

Cigar companies in the United States have therefore come out with their own scheme to overtake the embargo.

“They copyrighted all the famous Cuban brands under the same name though none are from Cuba,” says Kalhor. “If the embargo is ever lifted, Cuban companies would have to commercialize their goods under a different name.”

In other words, his business is for the moment safe.

It appears, nonetheless, that American bigwigs – such as Schwarzenegger – are keen on crossing the border to spend over $10,000 for a single cigar. A range of famous characters who would probably spare themselves the journey up to the great white north if Cuba’s finest cigars became available at their doorstep.