Jump to full article: Buffalo (NY) News, 2006-06-12
Author: TOM PRECIOUS News Albany Bureau
Intro: In the decadelong battle to end tax-free cigarette sales by Seneca Nation and other Indian merchants, a new advocate has joined the scene: Big Tobacco.
Long on the sidelines in this controversy, the nation's top cigarette manufacturers - Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco - say they now support a measure to make it illegal for them to do business with wholesalers that sell tax-free cigarettes to Indian retailers.
In addition, legislation was introduced last week to add a high-tech weapon to the state's arsenal to slow bootleg and counterfeit cigarettes flowing into New York from other states and as far away as North Korea and Russia.
The bills are a two-pronged attack on an illegal cigarette trade that costs the state an estimated $500 million in lost tax revenue and creates new generations of smokers lured to cheap cigarettes, lawmakers say.
"The state is hemorrhaging tax revenue that is rightfully due the people of this state from the sale of cigarettes," said Assemblyman Alexander Grannis, D-Manhattan, a leading tobacco critic. . . .
Last week, the Assembly overwhelmingly passed legislation directed at tobacco manufacturers that in turn supply the Indian retailers.
The legislation is seen as an end-run around Gov. George E. Pataki, who this year ordered his tax department not to enforce a new law that makes it illegal for wholesalers to sell tax-free cigarettes.
In a surprise to anti-smoking lobbyists, the nation's top tobacco manufacturers support the measure.
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