FACT fights for patrons’ beer money

After countless members of the citizenry have complained about Allegheny County’s drink… After countless members of the citizenry have complained about Allegheny County’s drink tax amid happy-hour hullabaloo and clinking wine glasses at their favorite bars and restaurants, the Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation group’s largest campaign to date is aiming to drown the drink tax for good.

Imposed last January by the Allegheny County Council, the drink tax places a 10 percent levy on all poured drinks served in the county’s bars and restaurants. The $30 million that the council hopes to raise from the tax will be used to fund the Port Authority.

Even before its onset, the drink tax faced stark opposition from citizens who believed it to be unfair and unjust.

“[The bartenders and waiters] are feeling the effects of this tax both in the form of lowered gratuities and also because they’re not working as many hours,” said FACT’s chief secretary John Graf. “It’s not just the owners and operators that are being hurt by this.”

FACT has long been a key opponent of the drink tax. Composed of a group of Allegheny County restaurateurs, FACT’s members are contesting the tax on the grounds that it is levied almost solely against their industry. In addition to the drink tax, the county also imposed a $2-a-day rental car tax to supplement the Port Authority fund.

In June, FACT began issuing petitions to collect signatures from Allegheny County voters who oppose the drink tax. With these signatures, FACT hopes to place a referendum question on the ballot in November, which will ask voters if they wish to reduce the drink tax to 0.5 percent. The group titled their quest the “Whiskey Rebellion II.”

Only 23,006 signatures were needed to qualify for a referendum, but FACT managed to collect 45,000, said Graf. The group enlisted the help of bartenders and restaurant managers to circulate petitions in their facilities. Graf said he was delighted with the number of signatures received.

On Aug. 5, FACT dispatched an assembly of bartenders, waiters and waitresses to deliver the signatures to the county board of elections.

Only a week before FACT’s delivery of petition signatures, County Council launched a referendum question of its own. Should the drink tax be lessened to 0.5 percent, County Council said that property taxes need to be raised in order to compensate for the lost income. They issued the following question for voters on the November ballot: “Shall the county enact an ordinance to increase real estate taxes in order to repeal the alcoholic drink tax?”

Graf took issue not only with the creation of a counter-question, but also with its wording.

“[County Council is] creating a referendum for the sole purpose of confusing people and trying to get them to vote ‘no’ on theirs and ‘no’ on ours,” said Graf. “Our feeling is that people see right through this, and that of the two referendums they’ll vote ‘yes’ to ours and ‘no’ to theirs.”

Even members of County Council had trouble accepting their referendum question. District 7 Allegheny County council member Nicholas Futules said he dislikes the wording of County Council’s question.

“I feel it was a mistake the way it was written, not necessarily the question itself,” he said. “If you’re going to put a referendum question on the ballot, it should’ve been a ‘yes’ answer, not a ‘no.”

Futules said he thinks the question should’ve been written to ask voters if they would prefer a drink tax to raising their property taxes. But voters need not fret if they are unsure how they will cast their ballots because either question could be eliminated from the ballot altogether.

County Council insists that FACT’s referendum is illegal because it would fail to balance the county budget.

“It would definitely not come up with at least that $30 million as far as balancing the budget,” said Futules, referring to the amount of money that would be raised from FACT’s amended drink tax.

However, Graf said he believes the drink tax is far from the only option County Council has to raise money.

“In reality, there’s a multitude of things they can do from cutting back their spending to raising fees on certain county services,” said Graf. “There’s no looking into that whatsoever.”

He added that every department of the county should slash its budget by 3 percent.

FACT’s referendum was also assessed as a violation of Allegheny County code, which prohibits the fixing or repealing of certain taxes by referendum. But Graf said that the drink tax is not banned by the code and that FACT’s referendum seeks only to lessen, not repeal, the tax.

“We’re not fixing the subject of taxation, we are reducing an existing tax,” said Graf. Since the beginning of August, the drink tax and rental car tax brought in $21.5 million, Graf said, and County Council is expected to exceed its goal for a total of $45 million by the end of the year. But Graf thinks the drink tax will not be repealed after the goal is met, and County Council will use the additional money for anything transportation related, not just the Port Authority.

Port Authority has long been a sort of scapegoat in the controversy surrounding the drink tax, said Futules, but it is not to be blamed for the shortage of money.

“This is a $30 million-plus deficit in our county’s budget that had absolutely nothing to ever do with the Port Authority,”said Futules. “[Port Authority] got singled out and blamed for this drink tax and car rental tax, and that was very unfair.”