Faced with mounting protests, Miami-Dade County leaders decided Sunday to lift a ban on sales of the June edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine at Miami International Airport.

The glossy publication with Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton on the cover could hit airport newsstands as early as this morning.

``Basically what I'm going to do . . . is give the order to put it back on the shelves,'' Dade Aviation Department Director Gary J. Dellapa told The Herald on Sunday night.

``Even though we have to be sensitive to the Cuban exile community here, in the end, we have to come down on the side of what has been the tradition in the United States of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. If people don't want to buy it, they don't have to buy it.''

Bureaucrats at the county-managed airport instructed their subcontractor last week to keep the 282-page edition off all 18 newsstand shelves because they decided the edition, featuring a travel guide for the communist-led island, was flattering to Castro and the Cuban government.

The American Civil Liberties Union threatened a lawsuit. Mayor Alex Penelas said he was worried that the action could constitute censorship, and the magazine's managing editor said that by seeking to silence alternative opinions about Cuba, the county was acting like Castro's regime.

On Sunday, Penelas said he read the magazine and -- although he was offended by its content -- believed the county should defend press freedoms.

``Banning the sale of this issue of the magazine at Miami International Airport goes against some of the very principles which make this nation the free society it is,'' he said.

He ordered County Manager Merrett Stierheim to order Dellapa to tell the subcontractor to place the $4.95 edition in newsstand racks, as usual.

``I think that's great. In truth, everybody benefits,'' said Cigar Aficionado managing editor Gordon Mott, when told Sunday night of Dade's decision. ``I think the magazine is at least establishing the groundwork to begin a little bit more rational and open discussion of the embargo.''

Penelas said the magazine's coverage was ``a total misrepresentation of the state of affairs in Cuba, which recently was condemned in Geneva by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.''

In part, the magazine characterizes Cuba as a desirable, exotic haven for tourism, teeming with sizzling nightlife, offering grand hotels and international gastronomy. Editorially, it also urges Washington to rethink its decades-old economic embargo.

Told that the mayor didn't like the edition, Mott replied, ``It's a free country.''

Dellapa, who initially supported the ban, said it was decided last week by Myra Bustamante, assistant director of the Aviation Department for business and finance, after an unidentified employee of the vendor, Sirgany Century, inquired whether the company could withhold it from the shelves.

Bustamante was out of town over the weekend and could not be reached for comment.

A few years back, Dellapa said, Sirgany similarly withheld sales of a Cuba travel guide. But he characterized the case as different because it was a one-shot publication, not an edition of a regularly sold magazine being withheld because of its content.

Civil liberties lawyer Lida Rodriguez applauded the decision.

``It's nice to see the quick reaction of the mayor and to see that this kind of speech is not suppressed in Miami,'' said Rodriguez, secretary of the Dade and Florida ACLU chapters. ``It is very reassuring and should give every citizen a sense of comfort that our mayor, while expressing his distaste for the content, understands the very important First Amendment issues involved.''

Rodriguez said ACLU lawyers could still sue the county to protect the magazine's right ``to make sure it doesn't happen again in a week or two weeks because of popular opinion.''

Dellapa said he was preoccupied with a County Commission meeting Thursday and supervising a multimillion-dollar United Airlines contract Friday, so he was unaware of the entire decision-making process -- and had not read the magazine.

Dellapa also said he had already independently decided to rescind the ban over the weekend. But Penelas made the decision, also independently, and issued the order Sunday.

E-mail to The Herald continued Sunday opposing the county's ban.

``This decision is the product of a few well-placed anti-Castro fanatics attempting to impose their narrow views on an entire community and, now even on citizens of the entire world,'' said Alonso Rhenals, president of the Colombian-American Democratic Council of Miami-Dade County.

e-mail: crosenberg@herald.com