Cigar Rights of America Urges Delay of California’s Unflavored Tobacco List Deadline

On September 23rd, Cigar Rights of America (CRA) formally requested a delay in the rollout of California’s Unflavored Tobacco List (UTL) in a letter to the Attorney General. In the correspondence, CRA highlighted that the ‘emergency rulemaking’ exemptions were not just abused in this context, but had affirmative negative consequences because they circumvented the substantive notice and comment period which is so critical to sound regulations. 

While CRA and all other private industry groups have disagreements with regulators, the implementation of the UTL regulations were so rushed and ill-considered that there are numerous affirmative gaps in the regulations which do not address questions around premium cigars which are necessary for effective and complete regulations. By adopting the new regulations without a dialogue with the industry, premium cigar companies are left with critical unanswered questions that are creating a confusing compliance and registration process in the rush to register products by the October 9th deadline around questions California completely failed to address.

Among the specific issues raised were:

• How California intends to define “wholesale price” for the purpose of applying the premium cigar exemption.
• The required registration process for various forms of packaging, including boxes, multi-manufacturer sampler packs, and other formats.
• Whether brand owners can file directly if manufacturers or importers decline to do so.
• Whether retailers would be granted a sell-through period for products not listed once the UTL takes effect.

Because of these unanswered questions, CRA urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to postpone the October 9th deadline for manufacturers to file products for inclusion on the state’s first published UTL. 

While CRA supports the UTL’s goal of removing illegal flavored products from the market, without immediate adjustments, the current rules will unnecessarily burden premium cigar manufacturers and retailers and lead to confusion in the marketplace regarding what products are legal to sell.

To read a copy of our press release on the topic, please click here.