A holiday, a favorite hangout and a draft beer don't necessarily make everybody happy.

Allegheny County's 10 percent tax on alcoholic drinks took effect yesterday, giving customers of bars and restaurants plenty to complain about on the first day of the year.

"It's a raw deal for the average person in town," said Bill Fleming, of Clairton, who was drinking a cold one at Smokin' Joe's Saloon on the South Side.

Mr. Fleming, 57, is a divorcee with grown children and few financial obligations. He said the new tax will not stop him from patronizing his favorite taverns on East Carson Street, but he considers it fundamentally unfair.

He said he would have preferred an alternate plan to charge everybody a little more, instead of siphoning money from the restaurant-bar sector with a double-digit tax.

County politicians established the drink tax, plus a $2-a-day tax on car rentals, to create a regular stream of money to help pay for mass transit. They hope the drink tax will generate most of the $30 million the county spends annually to subsidize buses and the light-rail system.

Megan Matalka, a server at Smokin' Joe's, said the new tax probably will mean less money in her pocket. Ms. Matalka also works at Starbucks. When the cost of a cup of coffee rose from $1.77 to $1.87, she said, customers simply threw less change in the tip jar.

Similarly, she suspects that tavern patrons forced to pay a new tax will have less left for the people who wait on them.

Joe Dawso, an owner of Smokin' Joe's, said one of his managers spent the morning trying to reprogram store registers so they would properly compute the tax.

"There are a lot of headaches involved with this. The fact that it started in the busy holiday season didn't help," said Mr. Dawso, 39, who has operated his saloon for 12 years.

With 60 beers on tap and the Penguins-Sabres game on television, Mr. Dawso's saloon was mostly full by early afternoon. Still, the tax darkened his day and his outlook on the new year.

"There's only so much money out there. You can't keep asking people for more," he said.

Anna Marie Kulha, 53, who was having a drink with Mr. Fleming, said the tax may be hefty enough to stop her from patronizing taverns.

"I still smoke," she said, never having kicked the habit despite higher tobacco taxes. "But I'm a clerk in a pharmacy, so I don't have extra money for this."

A collection of restaurant and bar owners tried but failed to get a court injunction against the tax. That group, calling itself Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation, said it may continue legal challenges.

Mr. Dawso, though, seemed resigned to coping with the tax.

"You can't fight city hall, can you? The law's the law, and you have to comply with it, even if you don't like it."