CI "Fake" Cigars?

[Skeat5353]

I don't see how CI looks terrible here. If they're unfairly accused, then they're not a morally degenerate bully. If they're fairly accused, maybe Glynn would stand up to them. Either way, at best CI looks fine, and at worst we don't know anything more than we knew last week.

As far as everyone wanting to sue the retailer, what? Did CI manufacture the product? I doubt they dissect anything, let alone samples of everything they sell. If Glynn had gotten that infamous stem-filled Padron from CI, should CI be sued for that too? I don't see how anyone is so damaged by this episode that anyone needs to go to court for a few years and a couple hundred thousand bucks. I know everyone wants to take shots at the big guy and win the lottery (thus, in this case, driving up cigar prices for the rest of us by the way), but come on. We're talking about a $1.50 cigar, not an exploding vehicle gas tank.

I guess you are right. A prolonged legal battle over $1.20 cigar is silly. However, I think that CI forcing him to remove the video with legal repercussions is wrong. I try always to support the small guy. I buy local, I buy from smaller online retailers. I like to support small businesses. Sure you pay a little more, but to me that's just an investment in a healthy local economic climate.

I like to still believe this is a free country. If a 'self-obsessed' dope like Bryan Glynn (nod to Emperor Zurg! LOL) wants to show his viewers a cigar that was marketed as 'premium' but turned out to be scraps from the rolling room floor, he should have that right. If I'm paying $2 for a cigar, when really it should cost 50 cents and when it's being marketed as 'premium' (which implies a cigar of $8-10 value), so that I am fooled into believing I'm getting an $8 cigar for $2 and I should really only be paying 50 cents for it, well then I have been deceived by the company selling it. Period.

If I want to then make a Youtube video exposing the marketing scam, I should have the right to do so, so long as my claims are not libelous or false. If CI did indeed sell a $2 cigar under the guise that it was 'premium' (thus implying a higher value than what it's currently retailing for) and if it was indeed not 'premium', then I should have the right to expose the marketing scam to people. It follows along the same lines as "THE LEMON LAWS" now in place in most states to protect suckers like me from getting swindled and fleeced by sleezy carsalesmen.

But I remember when I first started out. I opened up all the catalogs in the mail and read about this brand and that brand. In an attempt to save money and at the same time pursue a cigar hobby, I just figured a 'premium' was a 'premium.' Why spend $8 for a 'premium' cigar, when I could just as easily spend $2 and get the same product. A good friend of mine likes to say, "You don't know a good cigar until you've had a bad one." So here I am buying awful cigars that taste like crap and thinking all along they're 'premium.' Then, finally, I splurge on a 15-dollar cigar and BOOM. You know what the first thing I said to myself was? How can that website pass off that crap as 'premium.' It's fine to sell crappy cigars for $2. But to market them as if they are the same quality as an 8-dollar cigar is, in my humble opinion, wrong.

So here's Bryan Glynn. A dope with a cigar show. Great. Wonderful. He wants to show his more inexperienced viewers that CI is selling subpar product under the title 'premium.' It's no different than a used-car salesman selling you a lemon. He told me the transmission had been replaced recently, but it crapped out after 1000 miles. Well, CI is selling me a 2-dollar 'premium' cigar that isn't 'premium' at all. In fact, it's probably only worth 50 cents. But because I don't know any better, I think I'm getting a deal. Some of those cheap cigars are so harsh and awful, it surprises me they even sell for more than 10 frickin' cents.

Anyway, Bryan Glynn--dope that he is--still has a right to say whatever he wants, so long as he is not providing false and libelous information. Was the cigar marketed as 'premium'? Yes. Was it 'premium'? No. That's where it begins and ends for CI or any other cigar retailer trying to pass off crap as 'premium.' Like Ropey alluded to, these cigar retailers fall into an unregulated grey area and, until the FDA creates standards for the industry, any and all cigars could be considered 'premium.' All the FDA would have to do is create a standard like in the meat industry: Premium has this type of tobacco, Non-premiums has that kind of tobacco, etc., etc., etc. Until that day comes, cigars smokers will be buying shite and thinking it's 'premium.'