Deputy’s observation leads to 2 arrests in burglary

Two Elkmont brothers have been arrested in connection with a burglary and cigarette theft at a Salem convenience store, an official said.
Joel Dwight Gooch Jr., 24, and Joshua Matthew Gooch, 21, both of 22574 Easter Ferry Road, were arrested Saturday on one count each of third-degree burglary, said Limestone County Sheriff’s Chief Investigator Stanley McNatt.
They are accused of breaking the glass in the front door of Discount Food Mart in the Salem community on Saturday morning and stealing assorted cartons of cigarettes of undetermined value, McNatt said.
“A video camera caught them and even their truck,” McNatt said.
The video images were sent to other law-enforcement agencies along with a description of the vehicle.
While on patrol that same morning, Deputy Tom Gilbert saw a truck fitting the description on Poplar Point Road.
“He was very observant in noticing the vehicle,” McNatt said.
Gilbert called Sheriff Mike Blakely, and together the two recovered some of the cigarettes at a home on Easter Ferry Road that belonged to the brothers’ relatives, McNatt said. The two recovered most of the cigarettes, as well as the suspects, on Poplar Point Road, he said.
Each remained in the Limestone County Jail in lieu of posting $2,500 bail.

Cigarettes seized in Cork city

Over 300,000 cigarettes and about 10kgs of tobacco was discovered today during a customs operation in Co Cork.
The items, which have an estimated retail value of €130,000 were seized during a search of three houses in the north side of Cork city earlier today.
A commercial vehicle and saloon car were also seized during the operation.
Revenue officials estimate the loss to the exchequer from the cigarettes and tobacco would have been about €100,000.Investigations are ongoing.

Cloverdale fuming over tax-free tobacco shop

A new tobacco shop in Cloverdale is prompting complaints that its American Indian owners enjoy an unfair advantage by not charging sales tax.
When Native Tobacco 101 opened this month, it not only brought cheap cigarettes to Cloverdale, it also touched on a national controversy over Indian smoke shops and the taxes they sometimes avoid.
The shop manager confirmed he does not charge any state or other taxes, such as the 7.75 percent sales tax his competitors are required to levy.
“It seems to me an unfair business practice,” said Cloverdale Mayor Carol Russell, who worries about the effect the new business may have on several “mom and pop” stores that sell tobacco.
“What is it about tobacco that allows one group not to pay taxes and another group to pay?” she said. “It puts other retailers at a disadvantage.”
Chuck Gerken, manager of Native Tobacco 101, said the owners are working with a Native American company licensed to use the land and operate the tobacco business, but he declined to provide more detail.
Most of the tobacco he sells is made by Indians on Native American lands in the states of Washington and New York, he said.
A pack of Smoking Joes, for example, advertised at $2.75, “is $2.75 out the door,” he said, with no additional taxes.
“People are very happy,” Gerken said. “For those who elected to smoke or chew (tobacco) in today’s times, we make it affordable.”But his competitors are not pleased.
“We work hard and pay part of sales taxes they don’t have to. That’s not fair,” said Ravi Singh, owner of Quick Pick Liquors, on the other side of the freeway.
As his store, a pack of cigarettes goes for $3.95, plus 7.75 percent sales tax, bringing the total to $4.26.
A state tax official said tribes that sell cigarettes on Indian land to non-reservation members are required to collect a “use tax” equal to a sales tax.
But experts say the state can’t force tribes to collect it and the responsibility technically lies with the customer to pay the tax.
“It’s difficult to enforce because Indian reservations operate under different rules than other retailers,” said Anita Gore, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Equalization.
The rules differ from state to state, and the stakes can be high.
In New York, officials have pending lawsuits against tribes to force them to pay taxes the state says are lost to bootleg sales of cigarettes, tobacco bought on reservations or through the Internet. The lost revenue may have been as high as $576 million in 2004 alone, according to New York.
In Cloverdale, Native Tobacco 101 is on a frontage road next to Highway 101 at the south end of town. It sells mostly Native American cigarettes, not premium national brands.
The plain-looking building and its banner advertising “discounted cigarettes and tobacco products,” is clearly visible from Highway 101.
The business is on a remnant of the former Cloverdale Rancheria owned by the survivors of John Santana, a Pomo elder and postmaster who was allotted the land more than 40 years agoafter the rancheria was dissolved.
Some residents thought the tobacco store opening signaled the impending construction of a proposed Indian casino, but that is likely years away, assuming federal and state approvals are obtained.
The restored Cloverdale Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, who are proposing the casino, have distanced themselves from the smoke shop. Tribal leaders said they have no connection with it and the tobacco business is not tied to the casino project planned on nearby property.
In a letter published in the Cloverdale Reveille newspaper, the tribal council said the smoke shop is not on land belonging to the tribe.
But the parcel is still held in federal trust as Indian land belonging to Santana’s heirs, which exempts it from local zoning regulations and clouds the issue of sales taxes collection.
Even though Native Tobacco 101 doesn’t offer major cigarette brands, it does have bulk and chew tobacco that other local stores sell, such as Copenhagen and Skoal.
A 1.2-ounce tin of Copenhagen, for example, sells for $3.75 — with no taxes — at Native Tobacco 101.
But at Quick Pick Liquors, it goes for $3.95, plus 7.75 percent tax, bringing the total to $4.26.
Holding up a small tin of Copenhagen, Singh said, “I used to sell a lot of these guys — 50 rolls a week. Now, not even 10.”
He said his sales have dropped off dramatically because he can’t compete with the Native American business.
Les Marston, a Ukiah attorney who litigated a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case in the mid-1980s involving tobacco sales by a California tribe, said the court made it clear tribes have an obligation to collect and remit state tax on the sale of cigarettes to non-tribal members.
But he said when it comes to tribes around the country, federal law requires an examination of state law as to who has the obligation to pay the tax — the buyer or the seller.
“Every state is different,” he said.
Marston said he represents a half-dozen tribes in California that sell tobacco, typically as part of their casino operation.
“I do know all the tribes I represent are collecting and remitting state tax on cigarettes,” he said.
But if Indian tobacco shops don’t send in the tax, it’s not simple for the state to enforce collection.
Marston said the state can’t sue the tribe nor file a lien on real or personal property on the reservation, seize off-reservation bank accounts or come onto the reservation for judicial or administrative enforcement.
Basically, the responsibility in California falls on the consumer to pay the tax. It’s similar to making a purchase on the Internet, in which consumers are not charged sales tax but are supposed to remit the equivalent tax to the state.
But Cloverdale Mayor Russell, worries that when an Indian cigarette retailer doesn’t collect the tax, the health programs that rely on the revenue will suffer.
Other taxpayers will “eventually have to take care of people who are ill because they smoke cigarettes,” she said.

High school tougher on tobacco than sex

Two Clinton High School students who engaged in oral sex in school were suspended until Friday, while a student caught with tobacco for a third time was expelled for a year.
The differing punishments raised eyebrows and sparked discussion among Anderson County school board members during their latest meeting.
"There's certain behavior that there's no question, it's wrong," member Dail Cantrell said of the oral sex incident. "You have to send a message."
"I understand we do not have a policy on oral sex and we do have one on tobacco," board chairman Dr. John Burrell said Tuesday.
Still, he said, the punishment meted out to the 16-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy for the sexual episode "should have been a lot stronger than a two-week suspension," Burrell said.
A video surveillance camera spotted the two students entering a restroom, and they later admitted to having the sexual encounter there, officials said.
The case illustrates the challenges school officials face in imposing suitable punishments, Director Larry Foster said.
In the tobacco case, there's a state law against underage possession, he said.
Foster said the case in question was a third-offense tobacco violation and that the school system's code of student conduct recommends expulsion.
Guidelines about in-school sexual activities are only broadly mentioned as "immoral, disreputable or disruptive conduct" in the conduct code.
Disciplinary measures for those cases span the gamut from verbal reprimands to expulsion, according to the code.
And punishments have varied widely, said Lisa Fair, the school system's deputy director of student services.
In October, she said, a 13-year-old girl performed oral sex on a 16-year-old boy while they were on a school bus and other students were present.
Those students were expelled, and they are now in the system's alternative school for children with disciplinary issues called the Learn Center, Fair said.
Even if students are expelled, "you have to continue providing services," former director V.L. Stonecipher said Tuesday.
School board members each month receive a report that lists disciplinary cases - with students only identified by age and school - on various offenses and the punishments meted out.
Offenses for November included possession of knives and box cutters, fighting, drug possession and use, and repeatedly cutting classes.
Burrell, during the latest board meeting, expressed dismay at some of the penalties that were handed out.
"It does not seem like very much of a punishment to me for some of these things," he said.
"Somebody's got to put their foot down," Cantrell said.
He said there are more disciplinary problems at Clinton High than at Anderson County High, the system's other high school.
Foster said principals impose punishments on a case-by-case basis, but students and their parents can appeal those penalties to the school system's Disciplinary Hearing Authority. That group of eight administrators conducts appeal hearings and has the power to modify punishments, he said. Any further appeal proceeding goes to him, Foster said.
While board members questioned the severity of various punishments, no action was taken during their Dec. 10 session.
"I think we need to get more strict somewhere down the road," Burrell said Tuesday.

Cigarettes stolen during burglary

About $600 worth of cigarettes were stolen during a Thanksgiving burglary at Valero, 848 N. Broadway.
Eight cartons of Marlboro and 40 packs of other cigarettes were stolen, along with cash, between 4:40 and 5:45 a.m. Thursday, according to a Salina Police Department report.
The loss, combined with damage to a glass door, amounted to about $900.

"Cigarettes kill," but don't tell smokers

Study shows that warnings related to self-esteem were more effective than those indicating "cigarettes kill" in reducing smoking, according to media reports quoting the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Monday.
Psychologists from the U.S., Switzerland and Germany conducted a small study and drew the conclusion that warnings such as "smoking makes you unattractive" or "smoking brings you and the people around you severe damage" do a better job in talking people out of their habit.
This worked especially well when people smoked to boost their self-esteem, such as young people who learned to smoke to become popular or fit in with their peers, the psychologists figured out.
"To succeed with anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs one has to take into account that considering their death may make people smoke," the study said.
A total of 39 psychology students, smokers aged between 17 and 41, participated in the study.
"On the one hand, death-related warnings were not effective and even ironically caused more positive smoking attitudes among smokers who based their self-esteem on smoking," the study said.
"On the other hand, warning messages that were unrelated to death effectively reduced smoking attitudes" among those who smoke for self-esteem.

Virginia, the US state built on tobacco, goes smoke-free

The US state of Virginia is poised to ban smoking in most restaurants and bars as of midnight on Tuesday, turning the page on 400 years of history that is tightly tied to tobacco.
"December 1st is an historic day in that we are enacting a smoking ban across the Commonwealth, which is a tobacco state," Gary Hagy, director of the Virginia Department of Health's division of food and environmental services, told AFP.
Outgoing Governor Tim Kaine has called on state residents to dine out on Tuesday, "when the daily special will be smoke-free air," said Hagy.
"A lot of people are very excited. They've been wanting to go non-smoking but kind of needed a little reason to go non-smoking and this has provided that for them," said Hagy.
But Jimmy Cirrito, who runs a bar in Herndon, Virginia, near Washington, was less than happy with the new law.
"It's not really a ban because the Virginia government said if there's a separate room with ventilation and a door, people can smoke there. So there are bars all around me where people can still go and smoke. But I can't do anything to my bar -- it's in a 100-year-old building," Cirrito told AFP.
"And it's not as if I'm letting people smoke marijuana or do things that are illegal. I'm allowing them to smoke a cigarette that they bought in a machine in my bar or in the 7-Eleven across the street," Cirrito, a life-long non-smoker, said.
Virginia joins 27 other states and the US capital, Washington DC, in enacting legislation prohibiting smoking in restaurants.
But for Virginia, banning smoking carries great significance because the history of the state -- or commonwealth as it is called -- is inextricably linked to tobacco.
English settler John Rolfe -- who went on to marry Pocahontas, the native American princess -- planted tobacco in the settlement of Jamestown in 1612.
Two years later, the first shipment of Virginia tobacco was sold in London, and by 1639, tobacco had become the American colonies' chief export.