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State seizes truck carrying cigarettes for Seneca business |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 10 August 2010 |
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State seizes truck carrying cigarettes for Seneca business
By Tom Precious
News Albany Bureau
August 10, 2010 
ALBANY -- The state has seized a Seneca tobacco retailer's truck containing thousands of cartons of cigarettes, a move some are seeing as a test by the government as Albany looks to start collecting taxes on Indian cigarette sales in the months ahead.
The truck was seized Monday by at least one state tax and finance agent as it made its way between the tribe's Cattaraugus and Allegany reservations.
Brad Maione, a tax department spokesman, said the state confiscated "thousands of cartons of cigarettes that did not have a New York state tax stamp as required by law." He said the cigarettes were "allegedly possessed illegally by an individual not on reservation property."
Maione declined to answer any questions about the case.
Senecas said the truck was owned by Aaron J. Pierce, a Seneca businessman who has been one of those challenging in court the legality of a new federal law that targets mail order cigarette trade.
Pierce declined comment, and referred calls to his lawyer. Lisa Coppola, a lawyer with the firm representing Pierce, released a statement today from Pierce's company, AJ's Wholesale Inc., calling the warrantless seizure "illegal."
The statement pointed to a bid last year in Central New York by local officials there seizing Indian cigarettes, a move later rejected by the courts.
AJ's said the tax agents "abandoned" the truck driver "and boxes of melting candy" along a stretch of rural Route 353A outside the town of Dayton. It said the seizure was unconstitutional.
"This outrageous seizure is clear retaliation for my company's litigation in federal court," Pierce said in a written statement.
The seizure has caused a stir on Seneca land, with officials concerned that cigarettes stamped with a tribal tax stamp would be confiscated by state officials.
"We're waiting on news, too," Richard Nephew, chairman of the Seneca Tribal Council, said this afternoon.
"Stopping vehicles going from one territory to another is something new. We're all one entity: the Seneca Nation," he said.
Nephew said the story has morphed since word spread of the truck being stopped Monday. At first, Seneca officials believed it was the federal government halting the shipment. By this morning, the state tax department said it was responsible for the truck being stopped and its contents seized.
Tensions are already high on the reservations. Between the new federal PACT Act targeting mail order shipments and a looming state effort to halt tax-free cigarette sales by Indian tribes in New York, Seneca business owners see their thriving tobacco trade in jeopardy. For years state officials have expressed concern about violence erupting, as was seen in the late 1990s the last time the state tried to collect the cigarette tax.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/southern-tier/article97865.ece |
