By Kenneth Macdonald
Buffalo, NY – A couple of advocacy groups joined County Executive Joel Giambra in his office Wednesday to support the Governor's efforts to collect state taxes on cigarette sales by Native American retailers to non-Indians.
Dr. Michael Cummings is the chair of Roswell Park's Health Behavior Department. He runs the Tobacco Research Program at the cancer center. His department recently conducted a study on the effect of reservation cigarette sales in Erie and Niagara counties.
He says the research shows higher prices curb consumer's addiction yet the state's $1.50 per pack cigarette tax revenue covers only a fraction of smoking-related health care costs. And Cummings says failing to collect taxes on cigarettes from reservations forces others to pay the price.
And there are other economic costs beyond the health care aspect. That is making for strange bed fellows in the fight for tax collection. James Calvin is president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores and represents 7,000 neighborhood minimarts throughout New York. He doesn't usually see eye-to-eye with Cummings on cigarette sales policy, on this front they are united.
Calvin says cheap cigarettes and gas at reservation stores make competition difficult for neighboring retail operations. He says tax collection is only fair.
The average cost for pack of reservation cigarettes is 60 percent less than elsewhere in the state.
Ironically, in the smoke break area on the street below the county executive's office, several county employees said they purchased cigarettes at reservations for the low prices. They declined to be recorded but they admitted being addicted to smoking and paying a couple dollars more wouldn't curtail their habit.