A group of restaurateurs and bar owners yesterday filed a amendment to their lawsuit trying to overturn Allegheny County's 10 percent drink tax, calling it the "first step" in a campaign to end the levy this year.

Steps two and three will be efforts to force a new vote in County Council on the tax, and then a November referendum.

Cris Hoel, attorney for Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation, said that the lobbying group, which opposed the drink tax since it was proposed last year, filed the amended lawsuit on behalf of every liquor license holder in the county.

The group will seek to have the case certified by the court as a class action.

"We tried to prevent this tax [from being implemented], and then we tried to compromise through a political solution, and now we want to enforce the will of county residents because we have exhausted our patience," Mr. Hoel said.

It is the second time that FACT, representing several county restaurants and bars, has gone to court over the levy. It is joined by the Harris Grill, The Carlton restaurant and Church Brew Works.

In December, a Common Pleas judge rejected the group's bid to stop the tax from taking effect in January.

The levy was implemented along with a $2-a-day tax on car rentals to raise money for the county's $30 million subsidy of the Port Authority.

Citing county Treasurer John Weinstein's Tuesday report that the county could collect up to $10 million more than it had anticipated from the two levies, Mr. Hoel said the local hospitality industry hopes to end the drink tax this year.

Beyond the lawsuit, FACT will launch an Allegheny County Council agenda initiative within two weeks. The goal is to collect more than 500 signatures to put proposed ordinances on the agenda to force a County Council vote on repealing the drink tax.

"Let them do it," said county Council President Rich Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill. "We already voted on a plan to repeal the drink tax in December and it failed. They can bring it again and again, but I don't think anything will change because they don't have the votes."

The third attack on the drink tax will start June 17, with what Mr. Hoel said will be called the "Whiskey Rebellion II."

The goal will be to collect more than 50,000 signatures on a petition to put the drink tax to a referendum in the November election.

FACT's efforts to pressure Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato into adjusting or repealing the tax may not work.

Kevin Evanto, Mr. Onorato's spokesman, yesterday called it "nothing more than an effort to raise property taxes and the county executive is not going to do that."