By LELAND HAWES
The Tampa Tribune
Sunday, March 19, 2000

Stanford Newman's family was running Cleveland's only cigar factory - a large one - when his father telephoned from Tampa to say, "I just saw an empty cigar factory that's perfect for us."

The year was 1953, and Newman was reluctant to heed his father's urging to catch the next plane southward. His father, Julius Caesar Newman, was 78, sometimes impulsive but always imperious in running the company.

Son Stanford - wary of more union entanglements and aware of Tampa's reputation as a cigar union city - agreed to check out the situation at the old Regensburg factory in Ybor City.

In his handsome new book, "Cigar Family: A 100 Year Journey in the Cigar Industry," Newman gives details of how his initial misgivings were overcome and how the family business moved to Tampa.

He will sign copies of the book at Barnes & Noble, 213 N. Dale Mabry Highway, from 7-9 p.m. Friday. A cigar-making demonstration will coincide.

Newman said sizzling heat greeted him in Tampa - "unbearable for a Northern guy from Ohio." But he found the factory that intrigued his father was "one of the last - and largest - cigar factories ever built in Tampa."

Popularly known in Ybor City as "El Reloj," or "The Clock," because of its commanding clock tower, the Regensburg factory had been closed for a year and had come under the ownership of David Falk, a prominent Tampa businessman.

The senior Newman was dead-set on buying the factory, so Stanford agreed, but only for a year's trial on a limited basis.

"IF IT LOOKS like we can succeed here, we'll move our entire operation down from Cleveland," he told his father. "If things don't work out, we'll return our machines to Cleveland and close our Tampa operation."

The Tampa operation became known as Standard Cigar Co., and Stanford Newman found hundreds of former Regensburg employees swarming around the building. He passed out application blanks and said interviews would begin later.

That night, he relates, he returned to the Tampa Terrace Hotel, worried the venture would be doomed from the beginning.

"This is not going to work," he told his wife, Elaine. "These people have been making cigars by hand for decades. We'll never be able to train them to operate cigar machines."

But foremost in his mind was the fact that the veteran cigarmakers were likely to be affiliated with the union. He went on to say:

"I have nothing against the unions. If I worked under some of the conditions these people have had to deal with, I would want a union, too. But the union has far too much control over manufacturing operations. If they get started in our factory, I'll never be able to run things my way."

Elaine Newman suggested they take a walk around town. In the next block, the couple passed The Tampa Morning Tribune, then at Morgan and Lafayette streets (Lafayette is now Kennedy Boulevard). As he walked by, Newman hit upon an approach.

He decided to place a classified advertisement. It read simply: "Female help wanted - no experience required - excellent opportunity for advancement."

Thus, Newman charted an abrupt departure from his previous hiring experiences in the cigar business.

When the first 15 came to work, Newman said he told them the management "would pay employees at least as much if not more than the union factories paid."

One mechanic and an instructor from Cleveland trained the new employees.

Shortly after the factory opened, Newman said he had an unexpected caller - a man who offered him $150 a week "for the exclusive right to operate bolita concessions in your factory."

HIS FIRST REACTION was to ask, "What's bolita?" He had no idea that the Spanish word for "little ball" described the illegal numbers game popular for generations in Tampa. "I'll think about it," Newman told the man.

After a week of inquiries, and learning that bolita was often "fixed," the new cigar chief decided employees would have to play the game outside the factory if they chose to.

He vetoed another longtime Ybor City tradition: Having a coffee vendor pass through the factory several times a day. (He said he was offered $100 by a potential concessionaire.)

The trial period worked out well. "I had staffed the factory with good people, our proximity to Cuba allowed us to be close to our tobacco suppliers and the cigars coming out of our factory were better than ever," Newman writes.

So the decision was made to close the Cleveland factory. The union there threatened to block equipment transfers and strike. But Newman warned employees they would lose $150,000 in state unemployment insurance if they struck.

Opposition dwindled. The move went smoothly, he said. Newman, Elaine and their two young sons, Eric and Bobby, settled in Tampa.

Newman's father and mother also moved to Tampa, as did his brother, Millard Newman, and his family.

The years to come in Tampa brought a contrast of crises, beneficial collaborations, a family split and company strength in the midst of conglomerate takeovers. Some of the events:

J.C. Newman, who had come to the United States as a Hungarian immigrant unable to speak English, died in 1958 after a stroke. Although short in stature, he had become a giant in the cigar industry.

Stanford Newman found a new mentor "just when I needed it most." He met Karl Cuesta, then "in his early 70s, an elder statesman in the Tampa cigar industry."

Cuesta sponsored him for membership in the Tampa Rotary Club and proposed him as new president of the Tampa Cigar Manufacturers Association. Newman would hold the position for more than 30 years.

Then came a deal with Cuesta to buy the Cuesta-Rey brand - "one of the best cigar brands going." Cuesta-Rey became the Newman firm's top premium brand.

When Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959, Newman's prime source of tobacco was endangered. Thanks to advice from leaf tobacco dealer Angel Oliva, the manufacturer began to look for other sources.

When the U.S. government clamped an embargo on Cuban tobacco in 1961, Newman turned to high quality - but high cost - tobacco from the former French African colony of Cameroon.

"I believed it was worth the cost," Newman said. "As my father always told me, if you make and sell something of quality you can stay in business for 100 years."

Family tensions mounted as the cigar industry hit a slump in the 1980s. With 14 relatives sharing ownership, board meetings brought demands for more dividends, Newman says.

HE GIVES HIS version of what happened between him and his brother Millard. "My brother and I had gotten along fine when it was just the two of us, but now that both of our families were involved in the business, it just didn't work."

Buyout offers went back and forth, with Stanford finally buying out Millard's interest and eventually that of other Northern relatives. The deal was consummated Feb. 14, 1986.

The next day, Stanford Newman's son Eric became president of the company and son Bobby became executive vice president of sales and marketing. Stanford became chairman of the board.

Three weeks later, another alliance proved providential for the Newman firm. An agreement with Carlos Fuente of the Arturo Fuente Cigar Co. "raised both of our businesses to new levels," Newman asserts.

The two manufacturers helped make each other's cigars, with Fuente's factories in the Dominican Republic handling handmade Cuesta-Reys and Newman making machine-made cigars for Fuente in Tampa.

In 1997, the Newman firm resumed its original name, the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. It had passed the century mark, and the family continuity was assured.

Eric's son, 18-year-old Drew Newman, a senior at Berkeley Preparatory School, has set up a Web page at CigarFamily.com on the Internet. It is said to be "the most popular cigar site on the Internet."

Newman concludes his book by saying, "I would say our next century is off to a promising start."

"Cigar Family," written with James V. Miller, is available in area bookstores and tobacco smoke shops for $29.40.