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November 22, 2006

New World Record in Tampa, Florida __________

Whether you call it Cigar City or the Cigar Capital of the World, Ybor City in Tampa, Florida hosted the annual Cigar Heritage Festival on Saturday. Although thousands attended to celebrate cigar culture in the historic distric, the main attraction was the rolling of the biggest cigar in recorded history.

A core team of about 14 volunteers were supervised by Wallace Reyes, and his wife Margarita, of the Gonzalez Habano Cigar Co. in Tampa. They worked on breaking the previous cigar record in Cuba, of 67 feet 11 inches. The idea of this attempt was to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the cigar company.The giant cigar wound up measuring 101 feet long with a 61 ring gauge, and used 53 pounds of premium tobacco.

Assuming no one creates a longer cigar by July 2007, the Reyes's record cigar will be acknowledged in the 2008 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Tampa holds now two records, "Capitol Cigar of the World & World's Longest Cigar." So far the record was confirm by Guinness, London this week.