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Senate Tobacco Tax Measure Would Outlaw Tampa’s Seminole Cigarettes

Posted Apr 7, 2009 by William March

Updated Apr 7, 2009 at 09:11 PM

A key state Senate committee passed a tobacco tax proposal Tuesday that would outlaw cheaper, untaxed cigarettes bought from reservation stores, like the popular Seminole smoke shop on Orient Road in Tampa.

Many Tampa Bay area smokers buy cigarettes at the smoke shop, which is located on the grounds of the Seminoles’ Hard Rock casino and hotel and open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The state can’t prevent the Seminoles from selling the cigarettes – it doesn’t have jurisdiction to enforce law on the land of a sovereign Indian tribe.

But the measure, if enacted into law, would make it a first-class misdemeanor with a fine of $1,000 or more for any non-Indian to possess tobacco products sold there.

The measure was added as an amendment to a bill that would add a $1-a-pack tax to cigarettes, along with a $1 per ounce applied to loose tobacco and cigars.