Tampa, Florida – Cigar culture is deeply ingrained in Tampa, Florida, and enjoying a sudden spirited revival amid the city’s wider ascendancy in recent years. 

“Cigar City” produced more than 500 million cigars annually in the 1930s, making Tampa the center of global manufacturing.

By the 1970s almost all of Tampa’s scores of cigar makers had vanished. 

Like other sectors of American industry, the cigar makers found cheaper labor and more inviting business and tax environments overseas. 

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However, signs of Tampa’s new embrace of the cigar lifestyle are everywhere in Tampa today. 

J.C. Newman Cigar Co., which dubs itself American’s oldest family-owned cigar maker, recently underwent a major overhaul to turn itself into a center of tourism and hospitality in historic Ybor City.

Sydney Elliott of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. in Ybor City, Tampa, displays dried tobacco leaf. J.C. Newman is the last major cigar-maker in Tampa. The Florida city was once the center of the cigar-making world, producing 500 million cigars each year.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

Local cigar cafés such as Tabanero Cigars are expanding both their retail and online business amid a wave of new tourists and new residents flocking to the region. 

Hockey fans, meanwhile, can smoke cigars at the Diamond Crown Lounge at Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa — home of the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

“We believe in the enjoyment of craftsmanship.” — Tampa cigar maker Yanko Maceda 

It’s the only space in an NHL arena where fans can smoke cigars and watch live hockey action, according to Cigar Aficionado.

Tampa’s unique pro-sports amenity is a tribute to the importance of cigars in local culture. 

“We believe in the enjoyment of craftsmanship,” Ybor City entrepreneur Yanko Maceda of Tabanero Cigars told Fox News Digital.

Cigar culture still thrives in Tampa. Tabanero Cigars is one of several Ybor City cafés that serve hand-rolled cigars and strong Cuban coffee in a relaxed, civilized environment.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

Guests visit his cigar café, and many others like it in Tampa’s historic district, to smoke hand-rolled robustos seated on faux-leather couches, sipping rich, dark Cuban coffee while reading Hemingway or making new friends. 

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Tampa’s cigar culture suggests a quiet and Old World sophistication — the Good Life — missing in many parts of a digital society that moves with breakneck speed today.

“This is how civilized men should live.” — patron at Tabanero Cigars in Ybor City, Tampa

“This is how civilized men should live,” said a visitor from Toronto, sitting outside Tabanero beneath palm trees smoking a cigar and drinking a cortadito (espresso with steamed milk) on a recent sun-splashed and warm winter day. 

Nearby, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. in Ybor City dubs itself American’s oldest family-owned cigar maker. 

Founded in 1895, it stands proudly as the last of Tampa’s glory-era cigar makers. 

Hand-rolled cigars placed between a press, where they will be set in shape before they’re finished with Connecticut-grown tobacco wrapper.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

Newman spent the last several years refurbishing its stately brick factory into a tourist and hospitality destination and museum.

Guests can learn about local history, host wedding receptions or business meetings — or learn to roll their own cigars in Friday night classes. 

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It plans to open a working tobacco farm in Ybor City, a living museum of American agriculture, by the end of the year. 

Tampa, and its historic Ybor City neighborhood specifically, earned the nickname Cigar City as the center of global cigar-making in the late 19th and into the 20th centuries.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

It will be built around a post-Civil War tobacco barn recently found and reclaimed from the Florida panhandle. 

“People can come down here, plant [tobacco], pick it, hang it in the barn, put it in bales, age it and roll their own cigars with tobacco we’ll grow right here in Tampa,” Bobby Newman, the third-generation co-owner with brother Eric of J.C. Newman, told Fox News Digital.

He cites agro-food tours such as the Kentucky Bourbon Trail as inspiration for what the Newmans hope to build in Ybor City. 

Renewed interest amid COVID

Several factors have fueled Tampa’s cigar resurgence, say local aficionados. 

COVID-19 inspired renewed interest in hand-crafted cigars as people locked in at home sought leisurely pursuits and comforts.

J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was founded by Julius Caesar Newman in 1895 in Ybor City, Tampa. Third and fourth generations of the family run the cigar maker today.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

“Cigars, premium cigars, have never been more popular,” said Neman. 

He said that, during COVID, “Who knew that so many people would stay home and drink their favorite beverages while smoking a ton of handmade cigars?”

An influx of tourists and new residents, meanwhile, have flooded Tampa from big northern cities where cigars are frowned upon — or even banned. 

They look at cigars, and the ability to smoke them openly in Tampa, as a taste of American tradition and Florida freedom. 

The trend has been buoyed by a rediscovery of City Cigar legacy and lore. 

A mural in Ybor City, Tampa, celebrating the neighborhood’s American pride. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

Ybor City is one of America’s great historic neighborhoods — one of only three National Historic Landmark Districts in all of Florida. 

It was built, quite literally to make cigars.

Neighborhood namesake Vicente Martínez Ybor was born in Spain in 1818 and became a cigar maker in Cuba before fleeing for Key West in 1869. 

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He purchased 40 acres of land northeast of downtown Tampa and moved his cigar-making operation there in 1885. 

Scores of cigar makers followed, giving Tampa its well-earned reputation as Cigar City.  

A great cigar is “well-balanced, like a craft beer or a good bourbon,” Maceda, of Tabanero Cigars, told Fox News Digital. 

Tampa cigar maker Luis Gonzalez hand-rolls cigars at J.C. Newman Cigar Co. in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, in February 2023.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

“From the first sip to the end of the glass, you’ll always have a rush of flavors.” 

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A great cigar, he added, should also be “well constructed, so you have a really slow burn. And definitely aging … makes a huge difference.”

He added, “A well-aged cigar will give you a beautiful experience.”

A woman from Georgia has gone viral for the candid and humorous obituary she wrote for her father eight days after his death.

Halliea Milner, the owner of Go With It Farm in Sandy Springs, Georgia, shared a 715-word obituary on Facebook that honored her late father, Kenneth “Kenne” Joseph Pluhar Jr.

Pluhar died on his birthday – March 2 – at the age of 62, according to Milner. 

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He died “after losing a battle with sepsis” while admitted into an intensive care unit at a local hospital in Alton, Illinois, Milner wrote.

Kenneth “Kenne” Joseph Pluhar Jr. died at the age of 62 on March 2, 2023, according to an obituary his daughter, Halliea Milner, wrote on Facebook.  (Courtesy: Halliea Milner/ Facebook)

She described her father as an outdoorsy person who was “hard as nails” and “stubborn.”

Pluhar’s three true loves were “hunting, fishing and drinking,” according to Milner. He also enjoyed listening to country and western music.

“Like every sad cowboy song, he couldn’t stay married, but that didn’t keep him from trying. Again. And again.” Milner wrote of her father. “He had a total of 4 legal marriages (and divorces) and one common law marriage under his belt – that we know of.”

Milner noted that she is Pluhar’s only known child, and that she too is a mother of one.

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Pluhar grew up in Oakridge, Tennessee, and worked as a carpenter.

“Kenne had a green thumb, was outdoorsy and was a skilled carpenter – this meant that he was great at growing his own weed and was champion of ‘hide and seek for $2k a week’ when he worked for the union,” Milner wrote. “He actually was a halfway decent carpenter – people bragged about his ‘craftsmanship’ – if you could convince him to show up and work, which most people weren’t capable of accomplishing.”

Milner wrote that while Pluhar was known to start fights, he had a strong friendship that spanned 50 years.

She noted that her father was “emotionally unavailable and yet overly sensitive, all rolled into one,” which Milner considers a “family trait.”

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Pluhar also liked to tell “a good story,” one which includes how he saved a life by being a doomsday prepper, according to Milner.

“Kenne was good at just about anything he tried to be good at and was wicked smart – but that didn’t stop him from trying his best to do absolutely nothing except drink, smoke, and listen to music,” Milner wrote.

Pluhar is survived by his father, Kenneth Joseph Pluhar, Sr., his siblings, his daughter, Halliea Milner, his granddaughter and a “plethora of nieces and nephews that he terrorized and traumatized in countless and original manners,” his obituary states.

An obituary is a biographical article that notifies the public of a death. (iStock)

“Truly, it was survivorship when it came to Uncle Kenne,” Milner wrote.

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Pluhar was preceded in death by his mother, Connie Mckinnon Donnelson, who he called “mommy” until the day he died, according to Milner.

“Proof positive that even the biggest a——- (jerks) have a soft side, you just may have to dig deeper to find it,” Milner continued.

Fox News Digital reached out to Milner for comment.

Historical records show that families started getting more detailed with obituaries in the 20th century. (iStock)

Milner’s obituary has gone viral and countless social media users have offered their sympathies in addition to their thoughts on Pluhar’s recapped life.

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“This is brilliantly and hilariously written,” one Facebook user wrote to Milner. 

“Quite the tribute,” another user shared. “He clearly had a rather unique place in your life.”

“Talk about a GREAT obit. All the grit and grime with sprinkles of love,” another user commented. “You truly get a sense of who and what he was all about.”

Pluhar’s obituary has been published in local newspapers.

Multiple articles in Psychology Today, a human behavior magazine, state that humor can help people cope with grief and stress.

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Milner told local news station Fox 8 Cleveland WJW, which is affiliated with Nexstar KTVI, that it took her about 45 minutes to write her father’s obituary.

The Milner and Pluhar family will host a celebration of life event in the “good old fashioned Kenne way” in Woodriver, Illinois, on Friday, March 24.

The first rock ‘n’ roll concert, the ill-fated yet legendary Moondog Coronation Ball, pulsed from the stage of the former Cleveland Arena amid chaos and controversy on this day in history, March 21, 1952. 

“There was a sense of dynamite going off,” Indiana University professor emeritus and rock ‘n’ roll historian Glenn Gass told Fox News Digital.

“Right from the start, it was seen as dangerous music. Kids loved it. Parents hated it. Great. What a way for rock ‘n’ roll to get its start.”

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The oversold show ended early and, fittingly, in a conflict with authorities — which quickly became a hallmark of the explosive, controversial and bawdy new musical art form.

“Described as the ‘Big Bang of rock ‘n’ roll,’ the concert was organized by DJ Alan Freed and music store owner Leo Mintz and was headlined by saxophonist Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers,” writes Guinness World Records in its confirmation of the show’s pioneering status in live-music history. 

R&B pianist and singer Amos Milburn with Paul Williams (baritone sax, center), Eddie Silver (tenor sax, left), Jimmy Brown (trumpet), Belton Evans (drums), and Steve Cooper (bass), circa 1950. Paul Williams, performing with the Hucklebuckers, co-headlined with guitarist Tiny Grimes the first rock concert in Cleveland on March 21, 1952.  (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

“The event was credited with ‘bringing Black and White kids together to dance in post-war America, but was abandoned after approximately 30 minutes due to overcrowding and rioting after more than 20,000 revelers stormed the 9,950-seat venue.”

The concert was co-headlined by guitarist Tiny Grimes, according to promotional posters from the landmark event. 

“Described as the ‘Big Bang of rock ‘n’ roll,’ the concert was organized by DJ Alan Freed and music store owner Leo Mintz.” — Guinness World Records

Apparently only Williams, the opening act, got to perform before the show was cut short in haste by local officials as crowds of ticket holders gathered on Euclid Avenue were unable to get into the arena. 

“In 1948, at the age of 33, Williams recorded ‘The Hucklebuck,’ an instrumental considered by many music historians to be an important precursor to rock ‘n’ roll,” writes Blackpast.org. 

Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, March 21, 1952, organized by DJ Alan Freed and record-store owner Leo Mintz, is regarded as the first-ever rock ‘n’ roll concert.  (y GAB Archive/Redferns)

“At a time when record companies promoted ‘race’ records only among African Americans, Williams’ song became a major crossover hit among both Black and White audiences.”

Fellow headliner Grimes recorded with artists such as Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday and pioneered rock sound with his up-tempo jazz-guitar style, according to various sources. 

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DJ Freed proved the real breakout star of the first rock concert.  

He was “the boundary-smashing, trend-setting evangelist of rock ‘n’ roll,” writes the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which made him a member of its charter class of 1986, alongside the genre’s greatest early icons, including Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Little Richard.

“Freed was the most effective proselytizer rock and roll has ever known.” — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Freed, among other claims to fame, is credited with popularizing the phrase rock ‘n’ roll as its aggressive beats and sexually suggestive lyrics swept over American radio in the 1950s and soon conquered pop culture.

“Freed was the most effective proselytizer rock ‘n’ roll has ever known,” writes the Rock Hall. 

American disc jockey and radio performer Alan Freed (1921-1965), who popularized the term rock ‘n’ roll, sits in a 1010 WINS sound studio during a radio broadcast, 1950s.  (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“Spreading the word from a radio pulpit that kicked off nightly to the strains of Freddie Mitchell’s ‘Moondog Boogie,’ Freed kept time to the music by smashing his hand on a telephone book. He first conquered Cleve­land over WJW, and then moved his show to New York’s flagship WINS.”

Freed’s celebrity soon extended far beyond the radio studio. 

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He appeared in numerous movies that popularized rock’s earliest stars, including “Go, Johnny, Go,” alongside American music icons Berry, Jackie Wilson and Ritchie Valens. 

The movie was released in June 1959, four months after Valens was killed in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. 

Chuck Berry performs his “duck walk” as he plays his electric hollowbody guitar at the TAMI Show on Dec. 29, 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. Rock promoter and DJ Alan Freed appeared with Berry and other rock icons in the 1959 movie “Go, Johnny Go” — the title taken from the lyrics of Berry’s rock hit “Johnny B. Goode.”  (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Freed has also been celebrated on TV and in various rock songs. 

“He had an amazing ability to find new music and new artists,” Jason Hanley, vice president of education for the Rock Hall, told Fox New Digital. 

“He got rock ‘n’ roll to reach a much bigger audience than it would have otherwise.” 

“There was a sense of dynamite going off.” — Glenn Gass, rock ‘n’ roll historian

Freed’s career ended in disgrace, however. 

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He was indicted on charges of tax fraud in 1964 and became the center of the “Payola” scandal in which radio stations were accused of taking money from record labels to play their music. 

The legend of the Moondog Coronation Ball, and Freed’s ability to see the future of music, changed global pop culture forever. 

Photo of marquee at unspecified theater promoting a rock ‘n’ roll concert hosted by DJ and early rock figure Alan Freed. The marquee also highlights “Don’t Knock the Rock,” a 1956 movie about a town that bans rock ‘n’ roll.  (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Metallica, Motley Crue and AC/DC, among others, played before 1.6 million people in Moscow in 1991, in what’s widely proclaimed the largest rock ‘n’ roll concert in history. 

“Crocodile Rock” crooner Elton John is in the midst of his COVID-interrupted global Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. 

Billboard in January proclaimed it the biggest selling concert tour of all time. It’s netted $818 million across 278 concerts with dates still on the docket. 

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Cleveland rose to prominence as a birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll, and became home of Rock Hall of Fame in 1995, thanks largely to Freed’s impact, said Hanley. 

“Cleveland has always been a rock ‘n’ roll town, and a gospel town, an R&B town and one of the great music towns,” he said.