Gov. David A. Paterson renewed his pledge Thursday to start collecting taxes on cigarettes sold by Native Americans, acknowledging that "violence and death" could result.

During an interview on a New York City radio station, Paterson, said the state is moving ahead with its controversial plan to start collecting a $4.35-a-pack sales tax Wednesday on Indian cigarettes sold to non-Indian customers.

"There will be quite an uprising and protest to this," Paterson said, "but I am going to maintain this policy."

He also noted State Police warnings about the potential consequences of his decision.

"This is a very dangerous situation," he told WOR Radio. "There is a, I think, high alert. The State Police tell us over and over again that there could be violence and death as a result of some of the measures we're taking."

Paterson said state troopers will be kept off the state's Indian reservations to avoid conflict and indicated the taxes will be collected from wholesalers sending cigarettes to the tribes.

In 1997, the last time the state tried to collect taxes on Indian cigarettes, a confrontation between Indians and state troopers shut down a 30-mile stretch of the Thruway south of Buffalo.

In 1992, during another tax dispute, burning tires also closed part of the Thruway.

Indian businesses have a long history of refusing to collect the state's sales taxes, citing their sovereignty and treaties with the federal government. The state is projecting $150 million in new revenue from the tax.

As Paterson renewed his pledge to tax Indian cigarettes, opposing factions in the dispute took their cases to the public.

Leaders of a statewide business coalition held a news conference Thursday in downtown Buffalo, calling on state leaders to stick to the collection game plan.

The Seneca Nation of Indians, meanwhile, released a new poll indicating that more than two-thirds of the state's voters think governments should honor Indian treaties, including one that bars state taxation of businesses on reservations.

A day earlier, the Oneida Indian Nation had announced the closing of its cigarette manufacturing plant in Angola in anticipation of the state's new taxing effort.

The Oneidas are moving Sovereign Tobacco, which they bought for $6.6 million in 2008, to Indian territory between Syracuse and Utica.

The plant has about 15 jobs. The tribe claims that federal law ensures that cigarettes manufactured and sold on Indian territories will be free from all taxes.

A group calling itself the Enforce the Law -- Collect the Tax Coalition met in Buffalo and called on the state to stop passing up nearly $1 billion in annual cigarette sales tax revenue.

James Calvin, head of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, argued that the collection effort is a prudent step in grappling with the state's fiscal crisis. He also called the move a long overdue action to level the business playing field.

But in past years, governors who had vowed to collect the taxes called off those efforts at the eleventh hour. Calvin said he hopes that won't happen this time around, but he admits that business owners are concerned about that prospect.

"Our industry has learned to be skeptical of promises from Albany," he said in reply to a question from The Buffalo News.

Michael F. Newman, president of Noco Express Shops and chairman of the association, said cigarette sales at his stores have dropped by 30 percent since taxes increased in July.

"It does great injury to our businesses and people who work there to continue to allow us as taxpaying citizens to be injured because the state refuses to act on what is a legal tax-collection policy," Newman said at the news conference.

Joining coalition members at Thursday's event was Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, a Buffalo Democrat, who said small businesses, particularly in regions like Western New York where reservations sell tobacco products, have been penalized by the state's unwillingness to collect the taxes.

"They all talked the talk," Hoyt said about Paterson. "It's time for the governor's office to walk the walk."

The Senecas' telephone poll, released a few hours later, was conducted this week by Zogby International. It found that 68.4 percent of those responding said they believe state and federal governments should honor treaties, including an 1842 treaty that bars taxation of Seneca businesses.

In a written statement, Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder Sr. claimed that state leaders just "don't get it."

"Rather than pursuing unlawful and ill-advised tax policies that stifle economic growth and chase people to other states," Snyder said, "the State Legislature should begin to exercise some fiscal discipline and pursue measured policies that foster economic opportunities."

bmeyer@buffnews.com; pfairbanks@buffnews.comnull