Police harass (Unkechaug) smoke shop in prelude to tax crackdown

[Up2Late]

(Since none of the wire services seem to picked up this story, I though may be it was important enough to be posted here.)

Police harass smoke shop in prelude to tax crackdown

Posted: January 13, 2006
by: Jim Adams / Indian Country Today

POOSPATUCK RESERVATION, LONG ISLAND, N.Y. - Police cruisers from Suffolk County have been ringing inlets to the Unkechaug Indian Nation reservation since mid-December in an open attempt to drive away customers of the tribe's four smoke shops. The siege has raised tensions among the 450 tribal members, 250 of whom live on the 55-acre reservation near Mastic.

Unkechaug Chief Harry Wallace called the campaign the opening wedge for enforcement of statewide taxation of reservation sales to non-Indians, scheduled to go into effect March 1. "They're practicing," he told Indian Country Today.

New York Gov. George Pataki suspended the last state attempt to tax reservation sales in 1997, after widespread resistance from tribal members closed interstate highways and led to violent confrontations with state police. The Unkechaug and Seneca nations are credited with sparking the resistance. After lobbying by convenience store and gasoline station associations, however, the state Legislature in 2003 passed a law over Pataki's opposition reviving the reservation tax regulations.

Although state officials have been preparing for months to enforce the regulations, they have distanced themselves from the local action against the Unkechaug, one of the two state-recognized Algonquin tribes of eastern Long Island. But Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas J. Spota has drawn the connection.

"Uniformed Suffolk County officers have handed out leaflets stating - inaccurately, say tribal officials - that "the possession of untaxed tobacco is ILLEGAL!" The leaflets bear the seal of the Suffolk County district attorney and its police department and go on to say that penalties for possessing and transporting untaxed tobacco include jail time, fines and seizure of the vehicle. At the bottom they state: "In cooperation with: New York State Department of Taxation and Finance." "The flyer misstates the law," retorted Wallace. "It is inaccurate and purposefully vague."

(more a link below)

<http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412264>

[oneighty]

1. Oh boy

Some years ago our Indian friends collected old tires to burn along the thruway as well as donations of food and beer money for the stand off. It was not pleasant. Our village water supply crosses Indian lands and that pipe line might be in jeopardy.

180 Western NY.

[mrmartinbong]

2. Remember the reservation

I remember the reservation near my grandmother's house in western ny. My aunt and uncle who lived nearby would go there often to fill up on gas, buy smokes, and beer. I also remember going with my dad and getting gas on the gowanda reservation and also going to cultural events there also as a kid in the late 70's, I still have some of the things we bought there. This crap pisses off the locals that take advantage of the tax exempt sales and I don't remember that the businesses around the area where hurting. My parents grew up in western ny in small town gowanda and where exposed to much more culture and different ethnicities than I did when we moved to small town ga.

[oneighty]

4. You are

speaking of Cattaragus Indian Reservation. My SIL is a Seneca. Every time she dances it rains.

Welcome to DU.

180

[Missy M]

3. Buy a pack of cigarettes and face jail time, fines and....

seizure of you vehicle. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?

[sarcasmo]

5. Welcome to the new Amerika under the current Dictator.

Those who protest will be deemed enemy combatants. If your not with us your against us and if your not with us we will detain you. No Medicare, No Social Security, two class warfare system. Working class VS the Rich. A new age has dawned. I feel they will run little brother Jeb to continue the legacy.