ND1019112

Title: New York Convenience Stores See Boost in Cigarette Traffic

Description: The Oneida Indian Nation is allowing its inventory of name brand cigarettes to dwindle to avoid paying taxes.

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VERNON, N.Y. ? Cigarette sales at area convenience stores and gasoline stations are slowly inching up as supplies of name-brand smokes drop at Oneida Indian Nation smoke shops, the Observer-Dispatch reports. In June, New York began enforcing a state law that required Native American retailers to pay cigarette taxes on non-Indian cigarettes sold to non-Indian customers.

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Because the tribes did not charge the state tax, they were able to sell brand-name cigarettes, such as Camel, Lucky Strike and Marlboro, for less than non-Native American retailers. Now, the Oneidas have decided to only stock Indian brands to avoid paying taxes.

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That change has sent customers packing to other retailers. The lower name brand prices were ?hurting us real bad,? said Paul Badham, owner of a FasTrip store. ?Gas and cigarettes are our main business. We think it?s going to be better for us now. ? Now people come in and then we sell a lot more stuff.?

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Many Indian nations have chosen to sell only those cigarettes manufactured by a tribe. ?Our customers are able to purchase lower-cost cigarette brands manufactured by the Nation in its own factory on Nation lands,? said Mark Emery, a spokesman for the Oneida Nation. ?Other cigarette brands not manufactured on Oneida Indian Nation homelands will be available to our customers as long as the current supply in our stores lasts.?

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While applauding the positive results from the change, James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, said the problem of cheap tribe smokes still remains. ?In some cases, the improvement [at convenience stores] has been significant, but it?s not universal,? he said.

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Part of the reason tribe smoke shops halting of selling name brand cigarettes isn?t a permanent fix for convenience stores? loss of income is that many smokers are simply switching to the lower cost Indian cigarettes. ?Those products are still being sold in huge quantities at the SavOn stores and other tribal stores in New York,? said Calvin.

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Content Subject: Operations

Formatted Article Date: October 19, 2011

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