No matter how you slice it, 1.5 million is a big number - but trying to imagine two tractor trailer loads of cigarettes that do not have the required state taxation stamps on them in the possession of the Cayuga County Sheriff#'s Office and close to 2 million more in Seneca County, stretches one's imagination. What brings this into perspective - in a time when New York state is grappling with a multi-billion dollar budget gap - is the estimated loss of state revenue from the cartons seized from search warrants executed at two Cayuga Nation stores by representatives of both the Cayuga and Seneca county sheriffs' offices on Tuesday. It is estimated at upward of half a million dollars.

Critics will charge that local law enforcement of both counties have overstepped their bounds, moving from a purely “enforcing the law” role to policy making - in this case doing what no one to date had done so far by charging those who are selling cigarettes outside the state's statutes.

Interestingly enough, New York state troopers were not part of Tuesday's process. After a noteworthy arrest in October of a Lysander woman for the possession of five cartons of unstamped cigarettes (two is the legal limit) from a Cayuga Nation establishment, there might have been the reaction that Gov. David Paterson was doing what his three immediate predecessors had failed to do - collect the taxes on tobacco products sold at establishments owned by sovereign nations to non Native Americans. But in the end, the arrest by an alert trooper as part of a routine traffic stop was, alas, not a long overdue change in the state's non-enforcement policy. It was just a diligent law officer doing his duty.

It looks clear that the local law enforcement was moving in the direction of Tuesday's actions prior to the arrest in October and that through a letter from the state, that Albany did not want to have a part in the events this week, but wasn't going stop it either. That may be for two reasons - the first being that it would have been hard to explain politically, to the Legislature and local communities, as well as the association of convenience store owners, that they were going to oppose a long-standing rule. The second, is that they may have wanted to have someone else take the first step and be the “bad guy” doing what they wouldn't do, while still allowing them to be above the fray as they “negotiate” with Native Americans on this issue ad infinitum.

Yet, either of those reasons is charitable at best toward Albany. What local law enforcement did was to fill a void left by Albany's inability to do their job.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com