Andorran tobacconists sell fewer Havana cigars

[El Presidente]

2 minutes ago, cookj1 said:

I can confirm this.  I was at the Hotel Nacional in March 2016.  It just so happened that the Stones and Obama were there when I was, including a few cruise ships.  The LCDH was absolutely flooded with Yanks and they were buying everything they could, even though the majority of them had no clue what they were buying.  I helped a couple from Chicago pick a few boxes of cigars.  It’s not a myth; it’s fact.  
 

When you go there, what else is there to buy?  Coffee, rum, cigars, perhaps some art?  There really isn’t anything else.  Sure, you can buy some trinkets and sh*t, but tourists are buying hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars worth of cigars.  You’d be hard pressed to spend that much on anything else in Cuba.

...and I reitorate 

There is nothing wrong with that!   Regardless of the nationality of the people buying!

If it is on the shelf....it is fair game 

[cookj1]

4 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

...and I reitorate 

There is nothing wrong with that!   Regardless of the nationality of the people buying!

If it is on the shelf....it is fair game 

Ditto!

[Chas.Alpha]

14 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

...and I reitorate 

There is nothing wrong with that!   Regardless of the nationality of the people buying!

If it is on the shelf....it is fair game 

I think I made a comment a couple of years ago about the Chinese bus showing up at the old Partagas factory, with a crowd of 15-20 tourists all muttering "Cohiba, Cohiba". I thought it was both cute and funny, as I was hunting completely different game. That said, had I known about the existence of FOH/CigarCzar, my shopping list would have been vastly different. I mean, who would have ever thought that there was a secondary market for cigars??? 🤔

[Fuzz]

[Fugu]

A brief update. Visited my dealer yesterday: Never, really never have I seen him so depressed. He was even cursing! A decent man of good manners, haven’t heard him say a harsh word in over three decades. First time that I could not buy complete boxes! He said, they were just not getting resupplies, apart from a very, very few exceptions (shortfiller mainly, the dreaded DF tubos etc). We didn’t need a long discussion to get to the point - reason and cause for all this hassle not simply being the limited Cuban production. It is a completely altered distribution since the Chinese consortium bought out Imperial Brands from HSA. No doubt about this, he said, the majority of Cuban production currently disappears to Middle and Far East.

[Rhinoww]

This remains very depressing. 
 

It seems that it takes roughly six months (give or take) for a box to go from getting its code to hitting the market. It also seems that while we can point to many real and imaginary causes for the shortages, the reality may be that it will take six months before we can see any production changes in Cuba hit the market. 
There have yet to be any firsthand reports of changes to production in Cuba. Roller tables remain empty. 
Seems to me this is gonna be a problem for a while as Habanos has yet to address their core problem. To me, this is a rolling six or so month “we will see” from a demonstrable change/uptick in production. Next month it will still be six months for me. And so on until there is change. 
I see a lot of the smaller Vitolas where there will be production. I’m glad I like the PC format. I will approach my bigger stock on hand a bit more sparingly although I remain well supplied. There is a difference between considering you supply on hand “your lifetime supply” and simply being required to pay more for it. Currently thinking some of my DC may be in the “your lifetime supply” beyond those that are discontinued. 
This all sucks quite a bit.