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Photo courtesy AP/Office of the Mayor, Ed Reed.
After consistently complaining about the state's failure to enforce tax laws on Indian reservation retailers who sell cigarettes to non-Indians, Mayor Bloomberg took action yesterday, filing a lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn against eight smoke shops on the 50-acre Poospatuck reservation in Mastic, Long Island. The suit accuses the stores of selling cigarettes to bootleggers who smuggle the cartons off the reservation to sell them in the city, saving smokers a $4.25 per-pack tax.
To drive his point home, Bloomberg spoke to reporters yesterday next to a table stacked with packs of cigarettes, declaring that each of the 279 residents of the Poospatuck reservation (including children) would have to smoke 960 packs, or 19,200 cigarettes, a day to account for the millions of cigarettes sold there in 2007. In New York, reservation residents are allowed to buy cigarettes tax-free, but the lawsuit contends that reservation smoke shops routinely cooperate with bootleggers by concealing illegal bulk sales, by helping load contraband cigarettes into vans, and even making their own bulk deliveries.
Bloomberg also took Governor Paterson to task yesterday for not enforcing the tax law, and framed the suit in the context of the current financial crisis, stressing that the lost taxes amounted to $195 million a year in uncollected revenue, at a time when the city is facing a sizable budget gap. Contacted by the Times, a lawyer for the reservation said he had not yet heard about the lawsuit: “Before we get a lawsuit, before we even get served, [Bloomberg] serves the media first. This debate has reached fanatical levels, where we are being scapegoated from everything from the fiscal crisis in New York to the mortgage crisis. I assume that at some point we’ll be blamed for global warming.”
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All that smoking must contribute to global warming a little.
"we are being scapegoated from everything from the fiscal crisis in New York to the mortgage crisis. I assume that at some point we’ll be blamed for global warming"
He has a point.
Mike is a jerkoff. He would be far more comfortable in London where people are more ready to accept his notion that people need to be protected from themselves.
you have a happy new year mayor.
Maybe if New York State didn't overtax cigarettes, this wouldn't be an issue.
If the chief wants to do a little side business that's fine w/ me but 960 packs a day per person? How did he think he wasn't going to get caught?
Puff away people....die young and save Social Security for the rest of us. It may be enough to cover my property taxes.
Oh I loved the quote from the guy on the news last night, it went something like "I don't need a billionare accusing me of stealing money from his pocket"
Does Bloomberg have any jurisdiction here or is it all for show?
Bloomberg doesn't know what he's doing. He's raised the price of cigarettes to the point where a black market exists. And the only thing that will stop a black market is lowering the price of cigarettes.
Meh, I wouldn't mind seeing the price of cigarettes going up. I'm going to go ahead and preempt your argument that the government allows us to ingest other things that are bad for us by saying that I don't pour coffee in your mouth on the way down the street in the morning. The lack of smoke in a lot of places is one of the things New York has going for it.
"He's raised the price of cigarettes to the point where a black market exists."
Exactly.
This is Bloomberg's personal agenda. He used to be a smoker. The three most annoying types of people in this world:
Born Again Christians
Reformed Drinkers
Reformed Smokers
He needs to be told that nobody wants him acting as the city's "mommy."
Get out Bloomberg, nothing you say means anything anymore. YOu don't respect our votes for term limits. I hope the chief scalps you.
Gee, you mean that if you tax an addictive substance to death that people will try to find ways to get around the tax and profit by doing so? Who would have thought that?
Brooklynbobby, I would add to that list people who don't own a television and love to tell the whole world about it every chance they get.
First it's genocide and then it's taxes for these Native Americans. Have a heart.