Senecas confident cigarette biz will continue, will ask Obama for Fed. Troops to protect

[The Straight Story]

Senecas confident cigarette biz will continue

BUFFALO — Seneca Indian President Barry Snyder Sr. said he is willing to reconsider plans to mobilize emergency response personnel and collect tolls on the New York State Thruway after receiving a letter from Gov. David Paterson expressing a willingness to talk. The state and the western New York tribe are at odds over a law scheduled to take effect next month that would tax cigarettes sold by reservation smokeshops to non-Indian customers. The two sides are expected to appear in state Supreme Court Tuesday on a request by two businesses to block the law's enforcement.

On Sunday, even as 150 Seneca members and supporters protested near a Thruway overpass on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, Snyder said he was hopeful Seneca businesses would continue to operate while the state and tribe worked to hash out their differences. "This letter provides some assurance that the governor will embrace dialogue over enforcement action regardless of what happens in the courts," Snyder said. Paterson, in need of revenue while facing a gaping budget deficit, signed the law in December.

That provoked a heated response from the Senecas, who said it would violate historic treaties shielding them from state taxation while disrupting their $313 million retail sector and the 1,000 jobs it supports. Earlier this month, the tribal council authorized Snyder to spend $1 million to hire "emergency response personnel" and to ask President Barack Obama for federal troops to protect the Seneca people against potential action by the state.

http://post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/521985.html?nav=5008

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. This has to drive Paterson and other nuts with good reason

Natives helping avoid sin taxes...its almost amusing. Just wait until they start doing alcohol and firearms