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YOUNG CYCLISTS ride around a course while participating in a bike safety session
at the West Vancouver YMCA. The riders learned the rules of the road and how to

check their equipment at the Y summer sports camp.

Appeal court ruling cuts discount
cigarette trade on local reserves

A B.C. Court of Appeal ruling has curtailed the discount
sale of cigarettes on North Shore native reserves.

Last year two smoke shops
opened on Squamish Band
teserves and one cigarette seller
opened for business on the Bur-
tard Band reserve. The outlets
sold cigarettes to native and
non-native smokers.

A spokesman for the consumer
taxation branch in Victoria said
the local appearance of native dis-
count smoke shops resulted from

By Michael Becker
News Reporter

a BC. Supretae Court decision
made in June 1991.

The Tseshaht Band from Port
Alberni successfully challenged a
provincial system of agreements
limiting the quantity of tax-ex-

empt cigarettes available for
reserve purchase.

The province had agreements
with about 120 B.C. native bands.
Bands could purchase 4 quantity
of tax-exempt cigarettes directly
from a wholesaler. The purchase
quota was based on reserve popu-
lation.

But the court ruling found that
the province could not limit the
number of cigarettes natives may
buy. In October, the province es-

tablished a new system chat, in ef:
fect, licensed reserve cigarette sell-
ers.

During the period when the
purchase limits were removed, the
province estimates that revenues
lost from provincial tobacco taxes
jumped from $250,000 to $3.9
million per month.

The province appealed the B.C.
Supreme Court decision, and on
June 25 the appeal court ruled in
its favor.

As a result of the ruling the
province immediately implemented
a purchase limit for tax-exempt
tetail dealers of 1,000 cartons of
cigarettes per month.

In February, the provincial fi-
mance ministry pulled the sales
permit of a vendor selling dis-

count cigarettes from a store near
Park Royal South on the
Squamish Band Capilano reserve.

Earlier this month a discount
cigarette shop operated on the
Squamish Band Mission reserve
was closed.

Neither of the outlets was
operated by Squamish Band
members.

Smokers buying from the stores
paid on average $8 per carton less
than the average $50-per-carton
price at non-reserve stores.

Said North Vancouver resident
Joan Morris, a former customer
of the smoke shop that closed
earlier this month at the Squamish
Band Mission reserve, ‘‘M'm_ sur-

See Opening page 2