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A federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments on a request for a temporary restraining order Thursday to stop the state from enforcing the ban.In the meantime, sellers said they would comply."We are law-abiding businesses, and we believe we have been operating within the law, even cheap cigarettes online though we believe the law is unconstitutional and unfair," said Ali Davoudi, president of the Online Tobacco Retailers Association.The group, along with a Seneca Indian retailer and two disabled smokers, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit claiming the ban is discriminatory."We will wait to have our day in court," Davoudi said.Law enforcement officers were on alert for potential protests on the Seneca Indian Nation's two western New York reservations, the site of past, sometimes violent, clashes over taxation issues.More than half of the approximately 200 New York-based Web sites offering cut-rate cigarettes for sale are run by Indian businessmen.In April 1997, demonstrators burned tires to close roads and skirmished with state troopers to protest the state's attempt to collect taxes on reservation tobacco and gasoline sales. The Pataki administration later quietly abandoned the tax collection attempt."We would far rather have this settled in the courts," said Seneca Larry Ballagh, owner of Traveling Smoke. But he and others did not rule out other means of expressing their opposition."We are a nation being attacked by another nation," he said, "and like all nations being attacked, we will respond accordingly."

Indian tribes argue they are sovereign nations and immune from state tax laws.State Police Lt. Glenn Miner said there had been no incidents on the reservations as of Wednesday afternoon.The 2000 legislation _ which has never been enforced because of legal challenges _ prohibits private trucking companies cheap cigarettes online from delivering Internet and mail-order shipments of cigarettes to consumers. The law does not prevent vendors from using the U.S. Postal Service for cigarette deliveries, a loophole some businesses were taking cheap cigarettes online advantage of, Davoudi said.Tom Bergin, spokesman for the state Taxation and Finance Department, said the first day of enforcement was uneventful."Reasonable people will comply with the law," he said. A New York state law that bans direct sales of cigarettes...A New York state law cheap cigarettes online that sought to prohibit the direct sale of cigarettes through the Internet, as well as by mail order and via telephones, was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in Manhattan.
In a 79-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska wrote that the law violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, which limits the powers of states to restrict interstate trade. While the state''s interest in protecting the health of residents is "indeed commendable," Preska said, that can''t be done in violation of constitutional guarantees to companies.
The law, signed last August by New York Gov. George Pataki, banned direct sales of cigarettes over the Internet and the two other mediums in an attempt to prevent minors from making illegal purchases. The measure also sought to halt untaxed sales of cigarettes in the state via mail order and other means. But Louisville, Ky.-based cigarette maker Brown & Williamson Tobacco filed a lawsuit challenging the direct-sales ban last October, arguing that it unfairly limited the ways companies could do business in New York. A month later, Preska issued a temporary restraining order against the law just before it was due to take effect.
Brown & Williamson spokesman Mark Smith on Friday called the ruling "a caution to the states" in how they try to cheap cigarettes online legislate online sales and business. Preska "made clear that states have many tools at their disposal to protect their interests without banning direct sales," Smith said, adding that state officials "ought not use a meat ax when a scalpel will do."

Marc Violette, a spokesman for the New York state attorney general''s office, which defended the law, said that it''s disappointed by Preska''s ruling and is considering options for an appeal. "We view the issue of Internet sales of tobacco as being an important health issue cheap cigarettes online in New York, particularly when it allows [minors] access when using the Internet," Violette said. Brown & Williamson, the third-largest cigarette maker in the U.S., set up a new division called BWT Direct last year to sell some of its harder-to-find cigarette brands directly to smokers. The direct-marketing strategy is aimed at making the brands cheap cigarettes online more visible at a time when retailers have finite amounts of shelf space cheap cigarettes online for products such as cigarettes.
The hard-to-find brands currently account for about 3.5 percent of the company''s annual sales. Brown & Williamson has said BWT Direct will collect all taxes on direct sales of the cigarettes and forward the money to the federal government and to state revenue departments, as required by existing laws.