During its peak, Ybor City's cigar-making industry consisted of more than 150 factories.
Through the 1920s, thousands of factory employees rolled as many as 500 million cigars a year. Cuban, Spanish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants made lives for themselves and their families, coming to Ybor City for cigar factory work.
But the hey day of Ybor's cigar-making is long gone: evidenced by just one remaining Ybor cigar factory in operation. Now, that factory, owned and operated by J.C. Newman Cigar Company – a four-generation, family-owned small business, is fighting for its survival.
Federal regulations proposed by the Food and Drug Administration to crackdown on e-cigarettes would impact cigar sales as well.
That likely would force the closure of the city's lone remaining cigar factory and leave 130 people without a job.
There is a petition circulating online, Save Cigar City, to save the factory.
The deadline for signing the petition is Aug. 8.