Upstate Citizens for Equality extends a sincere thank you and appreciation to district attorneys Richard Swinehart and Jon Budelmann and Sheriffs Jack Stenberg and David Gould for implementing a superbly coordinated uneventful raid.

It is evident that two Lake Side convenience stores were not remitting taxes on over 175,000 packs of cigarettes a week. That's a loss of $495,250 in taxes every week and it isn't even tourist season. That's close to $26 million a year.

Since 2003, four local taxpaying convenience stores have gone out of business and another burned down that wouldn't rebuild because they can't compete with the state selectively enforcing the law.

The state is acting no differently than the strong arm of a mob by ignoring tribal businesses and enforcing the laws on their competitors.

It is evident that the governor's estimates of lost taxes are grossly underestimated. The state won the right to collect taxes on reservations from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995. I fully do not understand why, even in retrospect of the riots, all people that break the law are not merely dealt with equally, regardless of race.

Our governors have outright refused to enforce the laws they swore to uphold. We are thankful that district attorneys Swinehart and Budelmann aren't afraid to treat everyone equally under their jurisdiction.

Properties purchased by the Cayuga tribe are the same as anyone else's privately owned property. If they were a qualified reservation, the tribe would not have a trust application filed.

Richard Tallcot

Union Springs

Tallcot is chairman of the Cayuga-Seneca Upstate Citizens for Equality