All you have to do is walk down Forbes Avenue and into South Oakland to know the public’s… All you have to do is walk down Forbes Avenue and into South Oakland to know the public’s opinion of the 10 percent poured drink tax that’s now included in the proposed 2008 Allegheny County budget.

Restaurants and bars including Mad Mex, Joe Mama’s, Fuel and Fuddle, Peter’s Pub and Gene’s Place have signed a petition against the tax and are displaying Stop Drink Tax signs in their windows.

Brandon Smith, general manager at Fuel and Fuddle on Oakland Avenue, said the restaurant has been collaborating with others in Oakland and across the county to try to stop the poured drink tax.

“We already pay a tax twice on alcohol before we can even sell it,” Smith said, referring to the liquor store tax as well as tax owed to the individual company that produces the alcohol.

“We just want to be able to sell our customers reasonably priced drinks,” he said.

Last week, Allegheny County chief executive Dan Onorato proposed a balanced annual budget which will be voted on in December. Included in the proposal are the drink tax and a $2 increase in car rental fees designed to help the Port Authority.

“Shifting Port Authority funding to a drink tax and rental car fee will provide adequate local matching revenues for mass transit and enable the county to cover our growing costs without raising property taxes,” Onorato said in a press release.

“As much as we’re hearing on the negative side we’re also hearing from a lot of people on the positive side,” Kevin Evanto, communications director in Onorato’s office, said.

“That’s something you probably don’t see as much in the public,” Evanto said. “You go to a bar and you see the fliers and such but we’re hearing from a number of people in favor of the drink tax. They’d rather see that instead of a property tax.

“We’re also hearing from a lot of people who use Port Authority buses and trains and want to make sure they have a stable source for funding.”

However, Onorato said the Port Authority won’t see any of that money until it makes cuts.

“Back in March of this year the county executive worked with the CEO of the Port Authority and the Port Authority Board of Directors to restructure a lot of the benefits that the Port Authority management receives,” Evanto said.

“We actually laid off about 56 management employees and just made some changes to the outrageous benefits that have been costing the Port Authority a great deal of money, so what the county executive would like to do is sit down with the labor unions of the Port Authority and restructure some things with them.”

Not everyone feels that this is the best way to go about reviving the Port Authority.

People like Sean Casey and Kevin Joyce, owners of The Church Brew Works and The Carlton Restaurant, respectively, have joined with other restaurant and brewery owners to form Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation, which has been fighting the county council on this from the beginning.

The Stop Drink Tax campaign claims on its website that 30,000 signatures were responsible for stopping former Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy from passing this “taxation on relaxation” years ago. It also states that Pennsylvanians pay 81 percent in wine and spirits taxes, which is the highest percentage in the nation.

The $728 million county budget, which is 1.5 percent higher than the pending 2007 amended budget, made provisions to maintain the property tax – this at the expense of the alcohol tax – and will also save the county $700,000 by the end of 2008 by consolidating county offices.

In addition, the budget will reduce the county payroll by 200 employees which will save $10 million annually.

The budget will also help city parks. A start-up cost of $1 million will be given to assist the Allegheny County Parks Foundation board, which was set up as a non-profit organization to raise private funds for the parks. Onorato also made a provision for $10 million in capital funding that will match all funds raised by the new foundation.