Finally, a moment to myself. Well not to myself I guess because I’m sharing it with whoever wants to check it out.
A “Jewban” update: We decided we’re always going to put the word “Jewban” in quotations. I think it’s a good idea. When we started this assignment 5 or 6 weeks back, I wasn’t even sure if that word was acceptable, which it is. I spoke to a man outside of Temple Moses, where Olivia and I went Friday morning for Shabbat services, and I asked him what he thought of the place and he replied, “It’s full of…’Jewwwbans’”, lowering his voice when he said the word. I let him know that it wasn’t derogatory and he seemed delighted to have learned something new that day.
So we’re on the prowl for our next story and we have some ideas floating around. A man by the name of Oscar Boruchin is the president of Mike’s Cigars located in Bay Harbor, Miami. He came to Miami in 1961 and began driving taxi’s. Real original, but it paid the bills. One day when he was making a run to the airport, the man in the backseat paid him in quality Cuban cigars because he did not have the cash. Oscar immediately went down to Miami Beach, sold his cigars to a small vendor and profited about 20 percent.
From then on he continued to go from airport to beach, buying up cigars from the Cuban’s getting off the plane looking to make a quick buck, and reselling them at a higher price.
In 1985, after putting in years and years in the cigar business, Mike Mersel, then owner and president of Mike’s Cigars, turned the business over to Oscar. The rest is history. Currently, the company, which used to be a small local storefront in Miami Beach, now sells 20-30 million cigars a year. WOW
