Tobacco.org

Senecas mounting ad blitz seeking Paterson veto of tobacco tax bill  

Get ready for a huge advertising blitz from Seneca Indian leaders who want Gov. David A. Paterson to veto a bill on taxation of Native American tobacco sales.

The advertising blitz began Tuesday in Buffalo and five other cities and is scheduled to last two weeks.

According to Seneca Nation President Maurice A. John, the tribe hopes to use radio, television, newspaper and Internet blog site ads to persuade Paterson to veto a bill designed to end tax-free cigarette sales by Indian retailers to non-Indians in the state.

"Our ads urge the governor to be a statesman and do what all other governors have done by honoring the 214-year treaty between the Seneca Nation and the United States," John said in a statement released Tuesday.

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• MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST CIGARETTE TAX EVASION GETS MAJOR BOOST 

In the latest development in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign against cigarette tax evasion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reversed several March 2006 lower court orders and reinstated the City's lawsuits against numerous corporations and individuals who own or operate Internet websites selling cigarettes. The decision is the latest step forward in Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to reduce smoking in New York City, which have led to a 21 percent drop in adult smoking and a 52 percent drop in smoking among public high school students in the last five years.

"We will continue moving forward vigorously against those who break the law and deprive the City of vitally needed tax dollars - especially when such lawbreakers also undercut public health," said Mayor Bloomberg. "I once again urge Albany to take decisive action to crack down on cigarette bootlegging, beginning with collecting the state sales tax on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations."

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Potential NYC Mayoral Candidate Wants Taxes Collected on Native American Retailers 

John Catsimatidis, chief executive officer of the Red Apple Group and Gristedes Foods, is taking aim again at two Native America tribes on Long Island for what he claims is an unfair cigarette taxation issue.

In 2006, Gristede’s brought legal suit against the Unkechaug and Shinnecock tribes, contending the tribes violated civil racketeering statutes by selling untaxed cigarettes. Marlboros cost about $4.20 from the tribes’ retailers vs. twice that at New York City retailers after the latest tax hike, The New Yorker reported. The suit was later dismissed.

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• Investigation: Creek smoke shops skirting state rules 

Four years after the state of Oklahoma entered into a new tobacco compact with the tribes, the state is continuing its efforts to stop the methods used by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to sell low-tax and cheap cigarettes in the Tulsa area.

The Oklahoma Tax Commission has launched an investigation into whether the Osage Nation is using a loophole in a new tobacco rule to supply low-tax cigarettes to Creek-affiliated smoke shops, a Tulsa World investigation shows.

Low-tax cigarettes are meant to be sold along the Oklahoma border by smoke shops in competition with lower tax rates in adjoining states.

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LETTER: DISTASIO: Time to collect unpaid state cigarette taxes 

Governor Paterson is absolutely right — New York state must face budget issues head-on and address the growing fiscal crisis with courage. To us, "courage" includes collecting taxes on tobacco products sold by Native American retailers.

Because higher prices discourage consumption, Big Tobacco's grip on as many as 100,000 nicotine addicts would go up in smoke if consumers had to pay the taxes due on their cigarettes.

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• Indian cigarette tax bill action urged 

State Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette, this week sent a letter to Gov. David Paterson seeking support for his bill that would force Native American businesses to pay state sales tax on cigarettes they now sell tax-free.

Nozzolio said Thursday the measure, if enacted, would raise about $400 million in new revenue for the state, which is in the throes of a budget crisis. It also would "level the playing field" for non-Indian businesses that already collect the tax, he said.

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EDITORIAL: Concerted effort needed 

The federal government has to move to stop the flow of cigarettes from across the United States border. Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, is calling on Ottawa to insist American authorities shut down illegal cigarette production operations on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont. . . .

Much has been done to reduce smoking rates and initiatives such as removing the so-called power walls have helped people butt out. However, until law enforcement agencies are given the tools necessary to crack down on contraband tobacco, we will never achieve a smoke-free society.

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• Decline in smoking rates flatlines; cancer group blames contraband cigarettes  

Efforts to cut smoking rates among Canadians have stalled and the Canadian Cancer Society is blaming huge sales of cheap contraband cigarettes in this country.

Federal and provincial governments need to take action, including insisting that American authorities shut down illegal cigarette production operations on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont., the organization said Monday.

Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the cancer society, said the RCMP has identified the American side of Akwesasne as the most important source of illegal cigarettes sold in Canada.

"So it's essential that (Minister of Public Safety) Stockwell Day persuade his U.S. counterpart, the secretary of homeland security, to shut down the illegal operations on the U.S. side of Akwesasne," Cunningham said in an interview.

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• BEN LASMAN - Smoking And The Bandits 

We pulled out of the train station onto a desiccated main drag of Mastic, NY--all tilting delis and RadioShacks--and rolled into a woodsy suburbia.

"Where exactly on the reservation do you want to go?" the driver asked, and I said anywhere on Squaw Lane would be fine. He nodded, but he probably could have guessed where to drop me without asking. I was carrying a backpack. I had just gotten off the LIRR. I was obviously a New Yorker in town to score . . .

Crossing the street to the big trading post, I noticed the crop of vehicles had rotated in its entirety. A woman in an SUV was ordering take-out cigarettes at the smoke shop's drive-thru. I walked past the teenager on the steps and into the store. ...

excise taxes inevitably punish young, poor and minority smokers disproportionately to their more affluent, predominately white counterparts. Add to that the continuing ambiguity over tobacco's place in popular culture (Mad Men offers an illicit fix of smoking porn every week), the massive disparities between states' stamp duties and Bloomberg's monomaniacal anti-cigarette rhetoric--and the moral and economic, if not medical, consequences of smoking--become increasingly difficult to dissect.

"Cigarettes are a legal product," argues Audrey Silk .. .

Silk, with a voice like a trash compactor, sounds as if she had been smoking packs in her sleep since the '60s. For a woman who advocates for the inalienable rights of smokers, I can't think of a more persuasive poster child to dissuade kids from lighting up. Then again, the current generation of 18- to 24-year-old smokers, myself included, are as willfully ignorant as anyone that our nicotine fix won't eventually kill us.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 16, and never really stopped. It was a few years later that I realized that every bit of anti-smoking propaganda I'd heard as a child was effectively true. . . .

Visiting the reservation, one is struck not only with the scale of the operation--a dozen or more stores within yards of each other--but the seemingly uninhibited desire to expand. All around the block, construction crews were erecting new stores, and outside the existing sellers, residents had erected mountains of cartons on foldout tables. The entire population, it seemed, had cohered around a single business model. Even Chief Wallace has his office inside a smoke shop. . . .

the incident still served as fodder for critics of the reservation's practices, indicating simultaneously that enormous sums of money were being made in the absence of tax enforcement and that infiltrating the community from the outside, as Mullen had done by marrying a Native American woman, was not particularly difficult. While Mullen had no proven terrorist ties, the basic message gleaned from the scandal remained consistent with Bloomberg and King's warning: Violence and disorder were inherent to the continued forbearance of the state. The reservations must be forced to tax their customers.

What these arguments fail to acknowledge is that criminal consequences occur on both sides of the legislation. While cracking down on reservation sales may mean the curtailing of certain smugglers, it also may lead to more felonies being committed in the city in the name of cigarettes.

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Casinos urge level playing field on smoking front 

Two Calgary gambling companies want the province to close a smoking-ban loophole that permits gamblers to light up at first nation casinos.

Gamehost Income Fund, which owns the Deerfoot Inn and Casino, says it made nearly a million dollars less in the second quarter of 2008 -- a slide of more than five per cent compared to last year.

Sam Switzer, who owns the Elbow River Casino, estimates his profits are down by at least 25 per cent. . . .

After Alberta's smoking ban took effect, both the Tsuu T'ina Nation, which opened the $40-million Grey Eagle Casino last December, and the Stoney Nakoda Nation, which launched the $60-million Nakoda Entertainment Resort in the spring, invoked federal bylaw exemptions for native lands.

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Campaign hopes to end Maori smoking cycle  

A government-funded trust says early results from its latest initiative give it hope it will finally break the cycle of Maori smoking.

The Quit Group, set up to help New Zealanders quit smoking, is particularly focused on reducing the number of Maori smokers and launched a text based campaign in June in which smokers received personalised messages to help them quit.

Despite a number of previous Quit Group campaigns, Maori still have the highest smoking prevalence rate in the country.

Auckland Tobacco Control Research Centre director Marewa Glover thinks the new text option will appeal to young urban Maori.

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State looking to tax Indian tobacco products 

Seneca officials say its burden their people shouldn't have to bear. Fewer customers are willing to pay the increased price.

"We're not part of the problem, we're actually part of the solution to New York's economic woes right now," Nephew said.

The Indian Nation contends it’s a major contributor to the Western New York economy, raking in $313 million in tobacco sales in 2007. They say if the state taxed those sales, it would be a $71 million loss to their economy.

State looking to tax Indian tobacco products

Lawmakers are preparing to return to Albany on Tuesday to take part in Governor Paterson's emergency economic session.

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Estabrook: State using, not helping smokers 

Bottom line: It isn't fair or ethical to place the state's entire financial burden on smokers. The New York state economy is far too dependent on people who are sick or addicted. Consider: smokers often become very ill with exorbitant medical bills and they tend to die young, freeing up pension funds. Why would Albany care about people who are suffering when they generate so much revenue?

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Capitol confidential » New bill on Native American cigarette sales 

Tribal representatives who hated the original version will dislike this one too.

The anti-smoking lobby is still trying to figure out whether the bill is an improvement. The goal is the same - to collect hundreds of millions of dollars a year not currently picked up because Native American stores do not collect or remit excise and sales taxes.

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DENOGEAN: Tribes: Snuff the butts at casinos 

The Navajo Nation recently came close to doing the right thing and beginning a smoking ban in all public areas, including its future casinos.

It was close, but no cigar, as concern for casino profits took precedence over tribal health, as has been true with nearly every tribe that enters into the gaming business.

Apparently, they've learned too well the ways of the white man, who also refuses to let customer or worker health concerns stand in the way of maximizing profits in his smoke-filled casinos. . . .

The doors, walls and slot machines require less cleaning. And the casino never has to buy ashtrays or matches.

As someone who has enjoyed concerts, dining, dancing and gambling at all four Tucson-area casinos, I've always thought the tribes were doing a disservice to their customers and their employees, many of whom are Native Americans, by allowing smoking.

What's sad about it is they don't have to sacrifice people for profit. The Taos Mountain experience proves that a smoke-free casino can have both healthy profits and healthy people.

Anne T. Denogean can be reached at 573-4582 and

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