Cigar labeling delayed

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted the Cigar Association of America’s request to postpone the effective date of FDA’s labeling requirements for cigars, which were to take effect August 10, 2018.
The court has yet to set a date to hear the appeal and if the FDA regulations are upheld, companies will have 60 days to comply.
In a press statement, Tampa-based cigar manufacturer J.C. Newman Cigar Co. celebrated the decision.
“We are extremely pleased that Judge Mehta has delayed the implementation of the FDA’s new massive cigar warning labels indefinitely until the courts have a chance to decide their constitutionality,” said Drew Newman, General Counsel of J.C. Newman Cigar.
“As Judge Mehta noted in his opinion, it would cost millions of dollars for our family business and other premium cigar companies to redesign the tens of thousands of different decorative cigar boxes sold in America to accommodate the FDA’s massive new warning labels.
“Forcing premium cigar companies to apply these massive new warning labels now—while the FDA is in the midst of reconsidering the regulation of premium cigars and after the Supreme Court just struck down similar statements as unconstitutional—made no sense and amounted to, as Judge Mehta explained, a ‘grossly unfair exercise of agency authority.’”