In a play for Albany’s attention, the Gristede’s supermarket chain is filing suit today against two Long Island Indian tribes that do not collect taxes on cigarettes, claiming their practices foster a black market that costs the company millions of dollars in profits.

The claim opens a new front in the long-running battle among state officials, retail stores, and Indian tribes over a cigarette tax law that’s on the books but which the Pataki administration says it will not enforce. The law, requiring wholesalers to collect taxes on cigarettes sold to Indian tribes, took effect March 1. The state Department of Taxation and Finance has said it is premature to enforce the law – a policy denounced by the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, who is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Gristede’s is seeking more than $60 million in damages from the Unkechaug and Shinnecock nations. Lawyers for the chain said the suit was an effort to pressure the state to crack down on the Indian tribes. “Our hope is that in the next month or two, we’re going to get the enforcement from the state that we all think is warranted,” attorney William Wachtel said.

Mr. Wachtel would not rule out future action against the state itself and said Gristede’s was going after the Unkechaug and Shinnecock nations because they are not federally recognized tribes, unlike major upstate tribes that also sell tax-free cigarettes.

The chief of the Unkechaug Nation, Harry Wallace, blasted the lawsuit, saying it was an assault on the sovereignty of the tribe and an attempt by a private corporation to “do the political bidding of the attorney general and interfere with lawful trade of the Unkechaug Nation.”

He added: “They think we are the weak link in the chain, and they are going to be surprised. With ever fiber of my being, I will fight this lawsuit.”

While the state stands to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the cigarette duties, Indian tribes have long opposed taxation efforts as a violation of their sovereign status. In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state could tax sales of cigarettes to non-Indians, a distinction Mr. Wallace said was impractical. “That’s charging people based on ethnic identity, and I refuse to do that,” he said.

Mr. Wallace said the Unkechaug Nation has been in ongoing talks with the governor’s office about creating specific pricing systems to settle the dispute.