“It’s like Spain banning wine!” gasped one fan. “Like Scotland banning whisky!” fumed another. “Like Puerto Rico banning Salsa dancing,” chimed in another.

The Floridita bar, the favorite spot of writer Ernest Hemingway for daiquiris, banned smoking for the first time since it opened in 1817, but gave up a week later after tourist sales plunged.

The festival was ultimately granted a reprieve that allowed celebrants to light up freely, but Cuba’s cigar maker, Habanos S.A. - a joint-venture between the Cuban government and Spanish-French tobacco group Altadis S.A. - is now forging ahead in unfamiliar territory, requesting permanent ban exceptions from the Cuban government.

Smokers worldwide have viewed the Cuban smoking ban as a major letdown for the cause. “It’s not very helpful,” said Simon Chase, marketing director for Hunters & Frankau, a leading merchant of Cuban cigars in Britain who has been busy fighting proposed bans in his own country.

Cuba is hardly alone in its efforts; it joins Ireland and Italy as two recent nations implementing widespread bans. As yet, the effect on Cuba’s tourist trade, where a large percentage of visitors enjoy smoking cigars, remains to be seen: the government’s hasty announcement was a surprise even within some of its own branches, and to date, enforcement of the ban has been uncharacteristically underwhelming.

Cuban president Fidel Castro was once a cigar-chomping revolutionary but stopped smoking cigars in 1986. Years later, it’s ironic that his temperance for one of the nation’s leading exports and most famous cultural heritages has changed so drastically. One wonders whether other top cigar producing nations, like the Dominican Republic, Honduras, or Nicaragua, will find opportunity in embracing the cigar culture that Cuba has suddenly demoted.

E.H., M.B.