The fact of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ granting – after three decades – of federal status to the 1,300 members of the Shinnecock Nation was quickly overshadowed by speculation about the tribe’s casino intentions. Here‘s how Danny Hakim of the New York Times puts it:

With federal recognition, the tribe can build a casino on its 800-acre reservation in Southampton, N.Y., but the tribe, the state and local officials would prefer to find another location, in New York City or its suburbs, for the casino. That would mean plunging into a thicket of complex federal law, court rulings and political considerations.

Still, there are powerful motivations to help the tribe locate its casino anywhere but the Hamptons, where traffic is already choked by tourists in the summer. The state has been negotiating with the tribe in anticipation of the recognition.

The recognition becomes official after 30 days for public comment. The new status will let the tribe build a Class II casino with slots on its own land, but it would rather build a Class III casino with both slots and table games, elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Jed Morey of the Long Island Press takes New York state Sen. Craig Johnson to task, here, for his report recommending that the state revoke recognition of the should revoke its recognition of the Unkechaug Tribe. Except that Johnson called the tribe Poospatuck.

Morehy writes:

First of all, the tribe is Unkechaug. The reservation is Poospatuck. Second, not only is there no legal precedent for this ridiculous recommendation, there have been numerous opinions written by New York State itself declaring this idea (not the first attempt at this) unconstitutional.

This recommendation can only be classified in the following categories:

A) Stupid
B) Ignorant
C) Racist
D) All of the above

Just for the record, Morey says the correct answer is “D.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Bureau of Indian Affairs, casinos, Federal recognition, Gwen Florio, Indian gaming, Long Island, Native American news, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, Shinnecock Nation, Unkechaug

We don’t much care for the “totem pole” headline on this story in the Long Island Press, nor the accompanying illustration – but the story itself is a useful examination of the challenges facing some tribes in New York state. (For an explanation of the headline and illustration, please click on the comments section below.)

It looks at the Unkechaug tribe on the Poospatuck Reservation on Long Island, which derives a large part of its income from cigarette sales.

Harry Wallace serves as chief of the Unkechaug Nation, and also owns the Poospatuck Smoke Shop. Because the reservation is a sovereign nation, Wallace doesn’t have to charge tax on the cigarettes he sells – to other Native Americans. Traditionally, though, tribal smoke shops haven’t charged taxes to anyone, and just as traditionally, the state of New York has declined to demand those taxes.

Jed Morey’s story tells how that’s changed:

With the Great Recession as the backdrop to this unfolding drama, the stage is set for a David versus Goliath battle between Indian Country, the US government and Big Tobacco.

The price disparity between cigarettes available from reservations and traditional American-based retailers is at an all-time high. A carton of Marlboro cigarettes, the most popular brand in America, will run the consumer as much as $95 in New York City (NYC), where Mayor Michael Bloomberg has initiated an all-out war on smoking. The same carton costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $43 at a Native American-owned smoke shop on reservation land.

Morey’s story further points out that income from cigarette sales on the reservation has boosted the tribe’s overall economic standing. New York’s gain in taxes would almost certainly be the tribe’s loss.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, cigarette taxes, Gwen Florio, Native American news, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York state, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, Tribal smoke shops, Unkechaug

The city of New York has taken them to court. A judge recently shut down some smoke shops on Long Island’s Poospatuck reservation. The issue? Whether tribes can continue to sell cigarettes without collecting taxes on those sales to non-Natives.

The tribes have done so for years. You know, sovereignty and all that. But now New York, feeling the effects of the lingering recession, is looking for new sources of revenue.

The latest twist is reported here, in the Albany Times Union, whose Capitol Confidential blog says that a Long Island senator has set an Oct. 27 hearing on the issue.

In a release announcing the hearing, Sen. Craig Johnson (D., Nassau) says that “the failure to secure this badly needed revenue continues as other states – most recently Florida – have been able to reach tax collection agreements with their local Native American nations.

“This committee wants to be helpful in crafting a solution to this problem, but first we – and the public – need to be apprised of where the state and the nations stand.”

According to the state Office of the Budget, forcing tribes to collect the taxes could fill New York’s coffers with an additional $65 million this year.

We’ll keep posting about this as it unfolds.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, Tribal smoke shops

A decision yesterday by a New York court means that people who aren’t members of the Unkechaug Tribe can’t buy tax-free cigarettes in four stores on the Poospatuck reservation on Long Island.

There are about 14 cigarette stores on the small reservation. But the court order was limited to just the group of shops sued by the city of New York City, according to this Newsday story. The story reports that other smoke shops not included in the lawsuit were still in business, cars filling the narrow streets as they do most days when Long Islanders travel to Mastic to buy tax-free cigarettes.

Unkechaug Chief Harry Wallace says he expected the court order would be overturned when the appeal is heard early October.

New York law bans the sale of tax-free cigarettes to state residents who are not members of an Indian tribe. But lawyers for several tribes have argued for decades they are independent nations recognized by numerous treaties, and that Indian shops cannot be made to enforce it, the story by Mitchell Freedman says.

New York, suffering the financial effects of the recession, decided this year to go after tax revenues from tribal cigarette sales.

The tribe’s objections to that move were spelled out on a banner hanging from one Poospatuck smoke shop yesterday: “Sovereignty yes, sales tax no.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, Tribal smoke shops, Unkechaug Tribe

The Associated Press takes a look at the looming problems for the type of untaxed cigarette sales that have proven extremely lucrative for some Indian reservations in New York state.

David B. Caruso’s story (here in the Washington Post) centers the effects of a federal judge’s ruling that untaxed sales to non-Indians are illegal. Such sales comprise a $6 billion-a-year business in New York, and account for a third of that state’s cigarette sales.

Sales on, say, the Poospatuck reservation on Long Island, can cost less than half those in New York City, where a carton sells for $95, just about half of which is taxes, Caruso reports. (The situation has given rise to so-called “buttleggers.”)

As Caruso writes: “Technically, New York law allows reservation merchants to sell tax-free tobacco only to members of the tribe for their personal consumption. And in recent years, police have arrested at least 220 people leaving the Poospatuck reservation with loads of cigarettes.

“But until now, the rule has never been enforced against the smoke shops themselves, despite the loss of more than $700 million a year in state and local tax revenue. Since the mid-1990s, New York governors fearful of stirring up tribal unrest have instructed state tax officials to leave the smoke shops alone.”

But that fear has ebbed as the recession drains New York’s coffers, and both the state and city of New York look toward the tax money they could get from tribal cigarette sales. Needless to say, the tribes aren’t pleased with the judge’s ruling.

That ruling, which came at the end of last month, was stayed for 30 days to give tribes time to appeal. Things could get really interesting next week.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, smoke shops, tribal sovereignty