Seneca Indians’ Smoking Gun
Enter Senecas + cigarettes into Google, and the first site that comes up is Seneca Smoke – “Your headquarters for the lowest possible prices on quality value priced products!”
And the next. And the next. They just keep on going. In fact, it seems the Senecas have cornered the online cigarette market.
Why not? – ask the Senecas. We’re a sovereign nation and we can do what we want on our own territory.
New York State, however, doesn’t agree and last summer, state officials said they were beginning to enforce a four-year-old state health law banning Internet and mail-order sales of smokes introduced to stop children and teenagers from buying cigarettes online.
Now New York State’s Seneca First Nation wants US District Judge William M. Skretny to find a state law banning Internet tobacco sales unconstitutional, says a Buffalo News story here.
“It’s not just a couple of Seneca business people,” it quotes Paul J. Cambria, an attorney for the Senecas, ias saying.
“Cigarette sales are an integral part of the Senecas’ economy and their quest to become independent. Tobacco sellers are licensed by the nation, and the money paid for those licenses goes toward all kinds of services provided by the nation.”
Cambria described the statute as unconstitutional and “a tax law masquerading as a public health law”
The Seneca Nation, by far, has the most Internet tobacco businesses of any tribe in the state. The tribe’s president estimated last year that businesses owned by Senecas and selling tobacco products over the Internet employ as many as 1,500 people, states the report.
But they’re far from being the only First Nation that’s upset by US tobacco legislation.
Last November, a meeting at the 60th annual National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) convention focused on the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act and the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Act, says a report here, going on:
“Participants said the bills would overturn hundreds of years of Supreme Court precedent and undermine their rights by unilaterally imposing taxation systems on Indian Country. ‘It is a challenge to our sovereignty,’ said Arlen Melendez, chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Nevada.
“PACT, introduced in the Senate as S.1177, would allow states to impose taxes on the sale of cigarettes online. It is backed by the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee as a way to recover millions of dollars in “lost” revenue.
“But tribal leaders said it would abrogate tribal sovereign immunity. Provisions in the bill allow state governments to bring lawsuits in federal court against retailers – including Indian businesses – that don’t collect the sales tax. The language toughens civil fines and criminal penalties for alleged violators. ‘It’s scary for one reason,’ said Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe of Washington. ‘For the first time in 200 years, it will make tribes subject to state enforcement.’
“Joe Brooks, chief of the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma and an owner of a smokeshop, said imposition of the state sales tax would wreck Indian businesses. “It’s merely a ploy to put Indian Country out of business,” he told meeting participants. It’s a direct stab on Indian Country.”
“The Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Act, introduced in the Senate as S.1736 and the House as H.R.3184, would set up a uniform system to handle taxation of goods sold online. State governments are pushing the bill because they say they are losing out on billions due to e-commerce.”
January 21st, 2004 at 10:39 pm
Joe Brooks is absolutley RIGHT!!! This is just a ploy to Keep Native People down. Think about it the goverment cant have us getting to rich. Look at all of the billions of dollar we might make!!! We might be able to afford lobbysts to go to Washington to get us even more deals. You would think that after over 300 years of squating on our land, reaping all the good from it. Displacing us , moving us on to concentrated reserves like animals, Oh lets not forget the broken treaties, the prejudice that is still present today, that they wouldnt mind that we made a few extra dollars selling cigarettes. It helps supplement the goverment cheese hand and powder milk outs!!!!!!!!!! I hope that the Seneca and any other Native who are selling cigarettes Never have to pay taxes to the Feds, State or Local goverment.