Tribes May Cut Out National Smoke Brands
ST. REGIS MOHAWK RESERVATION - By Wednesday, a pack of Marlboros may be impossible to find on the St. Regis Mohawk reservation.
Following the lead of the Onondaga tribe, the St. Regis Mohawks are considering halting the sale of national brand cigarettes on their reservation in favor of native brands manufactured on the reservation.
"I haven't heard anything official," said David T. Staddon, the tribe's public information officer. "I have heard it discussed."
Beginning Wednesday, the state is planning to collect the $4.35 per pack tax on cigarettes from tribes. The Senecas and St. Regis Mohawks have both filed lawsuits seeking an injunction to halt the state's action. However, a federal judge in Buffalo on Friday reserved decision on the Seneca case. The St. Regis Mohawk lawsuit has yet to be assigned.
All of the tribes in the state have refused to collect the state sales tax, citing nation sovereignty.
Since state taxes cannot be applied to native brand cigarettes, the tribes are positioning themselves to stop selling national brands, such as Marlboro and Camel, entirely and focus on their own.
Though tribal officials will not comment on the likelihood of adopting the same policy as the Onondagas, other tribe members are saying the policy is a done deal.
"Nobody's going to sell national brands," said Raymond J. Cook, who has attended several meetings between the tribes on the cigarette tax issue. "We've got 12 native brands on the rez; we don't need national brands."
Sales from those 12 manufacturers account for about 70 percent of cigarette sales on the reservation, Mr. Staddon said. A pack of Natives goes for $2.60 a pack, compared with at least $7 for a pack of national brand cigarettes off the reservation.
Mr. Cook also is the former spokesman of the Mohawk Anti-Tax Steering Committee, which was part of the protests on the reservation in the late 1990s, the last time the state tried to collect the tax. Though there was no violence in the north country, state police blocked shipments of gas and cigarettes to the reservation, resulting in the closure of 30 gas stations and smoke shops and the loss of more than 400 jobs.
In Western New York, it was uglier as members of the Seneca nation blocked the Thruway with burning tires.
Though the law allowing the state to collect the taxes has been on the books for years, it has never been enforced.
The tax on national brands will be imposed at the distributor level - the middleman between the cigarette manufacturers and the individual smoke shops. Since the tax, if it comes, will be imposed outside of the reservations, there may not be violence, according to Mr. Staddon.
"I think the state government is well aware of the problems that may arise," he said. "I think as long as there's no incursion on tribal land, I don't think it will come to violence."
Mr. Cook, however, disagreed. The tribe imposes a tax of less than a dollar per carton on cigarettes and uses that money to fund human services such as health clinics and education programs. If those services are cut because the tribe has to collect the state's taxes instead of its own, there may be violence.
"This winter, there will be a lot of sick grandmothers who can't get help because there's no health clinics and very many angry grandsons who are very aware of who's to blame," he said. "There's not going to be violence Sept. 1. It's going to happen in the coldest dead of winter, I guarantee it."
