New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg asked a federal judge on Tuesday to stop smokeshops on the Unkechaug Indian Nation, a state-recognized tribe, from selling cigarettes.

The city says the smokeshops on the Poospatuck Reservation are selling cigarettes to non-Indians without collecting state taxes. "In making off-reservation sales, including bulk transactions in which defendants sell vanloads of cigarettes on a daily basis, which are then trafficked into New York City for resale, defendants grow rich at the expense of tax-paying retailers and city and state taxpayers," court papers stated.

The city says only reservation residents are entitled to tax-free cigarettes. But with only 279 people living at Poospatuck, there is no way they bought 11.3 million cartons of cigarettes last year, the motion for a preliminary injunction stated

Chief Harry Wallace said the state has no right to interfere with business on the reservation.

Get the Story:
City Tries to Curtail Cigarette Sales From Reservation (The New York Times 10/29)
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Mayor Bloomberg Relevant Documents:
Press Release | Video

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