NEW YORK -- New York convenience store operators expressed their frustrations with Gov. Eliot Spitzer's inaction on the tax fairness issue with a television commercial. The 60-second commercial, which began airing in Syracuse, Albany and Buffalo, New York, on July 5, demands that Governor Spitzer begin collecting taxes on the vast amounts of cigarettes and motor fuel sold by Native American stores to non-Native American New Yorkers.

The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) paid for the ads, which will run for three weeks in select New York markets. NYACS has waged a 15-year battle to compel the state to level the playing field between Native American and non-Native American retailers by exerting its right under a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to collect such taxes.

Failure by the Pataki and Spitzer administrations to enforce the March 1, 2006, state law mandating collection of these taxes gives Native American retailers a price advantage of as much as $30 per carton of cigarettes (New York state has an excise tax of $1.50 per pack and New York City imposes an additional $1.50 per pack), a savings that lures tens of thousands of New York smokers away from tax-collecting convenience stores.

"Governor Spitzer pledged that on Day One, everything would change," James Calvin, NYACS president, said in a press release. "But on the tax collection issue, nothing has. Respectfully, our members think six months has been long enough to wait for Day One to arrive."

The TV commercial points out that Spitzer repeatedly said he intended to collect the taxes; he even included $200 million in new revenue in this year's state budget from those taxes. Yet the tax-evasion epidemic continues unabated, depriving non-Native American stores of the chance to compete fairly for retail trade.

"NYACS takes no joy in criticizing the Governor in this manner, in fact we are saddened and disappointed," said Calvin. "As attorney general, Eliot Spitzer was a champion of tax fairness. As a gubernatorial candidate, he vowed to collect the taxes. As governor, however, his initial tough talk about enforcement gave way to trying to negotiate a split in tax revenue with the tribes, which has yielded no progress to date. The law is the law. When is it going to be enforced?"

The commercial asks viewers to e-mail Spitzer urging him to enforce the tax collection law.