While the cigar industry as a whole awaits FDA’s decision on how it plans to regulate premium cigars, tobacco retailers have a new and very real threat to be concerned about. A federal program called Operation Choke Point was created targeting “high risk businesses” that present a significant “reputational risk” for the banks that service them, and has resulted in the banks that process their credit card transactions and provide other financial services dropping them without any level of recourse. Now tobacco retailers are being targeted as part of the initiative. Last week, the International Premium Cigars & Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR) sent out an email advisory to its members notifying them that two retail members had already been “seriously affected” by the program, which they describe as having been launched as an effort to “target certain industries by pressuring banks to deny financial services to legitimate businesses for political reasons.” Since that email, the number has increased to five retailers across the country that have contacted IPCPR as of Thursday afternoon. The IPCPR’s advisory, which was signed by Kip Talley, senior director of federal legislative affairs for IPCPR, went on to say that “it is our understanding that the IPCPR members that have been ...
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