The Seneca Indian Nation, whose member-owned businesses dominate the discount mail order cigarette industry, claimed that the Prevent [image-nocss] All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act will gut its $100 million-per-year tobacco economy and eliminate 3,000 jobs held by workers inside and outside the tribe, said the report.
The tribe's businesses are estimated to sell four of every five packs of mail order cigarettes.
Health and anti-smoking groups cheered the mailing ban as a way to limit teenagers' access to cigarettes, according to the report. Philip Morris USA praised it for keeping smokers from dodging state taxes, which the Senecas do not charge. In New York, the excise tax is $2.75 per pack but is being raised to $4.35 per pack.
"It's a crying shame when you can't mail cartons of cigarettes to people anymore without verifying their age or collecting applicable taxes," James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS), old CSP Daily News. "I'm confident the court will agree that Congress rightly exercised its power to require tobacco sales to be face-to-face transactions."
The law's Indian country opponents, however, see it as an attack on tribal sovereignty and a ploy by big tobacco to regain market share being lost to fast-growing native brands that, at half the price, often outsell name brands, said the report.
"I sell three cartons of Seneca brand, at least, to every carton of Marlboro," Bob Stevens told AP from behind the counter at Red Nation Tobacco, which was advertising a preclosing sale because of the PACT Act. Before closing its doors, the Salamanca convenience store counted on walk-in customers for about 10% of its business and cigarette mail orders for the rest.
Seneca businesses are estimated to account for at least 80% of all cigarettes sent through the mail, the report said. Pedulla and others put the number of customers who receive cigarettes by mail in the tens of thousands, but precise numbers are unavailable.
A four-year-old internal stamping program ensures that 75 cents per pack goes to the nation for health and education programs.
PM USA spokesperson David Sutton said the tobacco giant's support for PACT was based on efforts to see that its products are sold through face-to-face retail transactions, in which sales taxes are collected and the buyers' ages are verified.
"To claim that it was some sort of a conspiracy or some sort of shadow dancing is a bit of a stretch," Sutton told AP, noting much of the state's congressional delegation voted in favor of the bill.
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