Local restaurant owners are chewing over the pros and cons of a food and beverage tax, with almost all opposed to anything that could take a bite out of already skinny profit margins.

"People are watching every penny now," said Jim Gerodemos, whose family owns 10 restaurants in the area. "Everyone is looking for deals. This tax will not help us one bit."

The Lake County Council is considering passage of a 1 percent food and beverage tax to help fund the creation of a regional bus system. The tax has proven controversial, and the council has put off any vote until it holds an as-yet unscheduled public hearing.

Gerodemos and others argue the recession has affected the restaurant industry just like others. The National Restaurant Association is forecasting a 1 percent inflation-adjusted decline in industry revenues for 2009.

For that reason alone, it is the wrong time to put such a tax in place, said John Barney, owner of a number of Wendy's restaurants in the area.

But mainly, local restaurant owners are wondering why only their industry is being asked to pay the freight for a regional bus service.

"Why not tax Macy's? Why not tax Sears? Why not tax everyone a quarter percent across the board?" Barney said.

Grocery stores are the most direct competitor to the restaurant industry, and those businesses wouldn't be taxed for buses, Barney and several others pointed out. The tax would give people one more reason not to eat out, restaurant opponents of the tax said.

In recent weeks, the public debate regarding the tax has raged mainly between the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority and the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority.

Authority CEO Speros Batistatos has said the industry he represents shouldn't be forced to pay for something that doesn't benefit it. Regional Bus Authority President Dennis Rittenmeyer has argued there are inevitably some restaurant employees riding buses to work.

For his part, Batistatos has proposed someday using the food and beverage tax to pay for construction of a convention center, but he is adamant he isn't proposing the tax be put in place now.

Many restaurant owners don't think much of either group's argument for the tax.

"I am 110 percent against using it for a convention center," said Peter Kaiafas, who with his father owns Avalon Manor in Hobart. "I don't want to pay a tax to build my competition."

Kaiafas and about a dozen other restaurant owners went to see Batistatos more than a year ago in an attempt to persuade him that a convention center is a bad idea. They feel a convention center would siphon off their customers.

Owners of popular eateries say they feel they already are doing their part for local government and then some.

Kaiafas said his facility pays more than $90,000 in property taxes each year and collects more than that in sales tax for the state. And restaurants pay sales taxes on business purchases as well as income taxes.

That leaves the restaurant owners feeling mystified as to why they are being called to go above and beyond other industries with a possible food and beverage tax, Barney said.

"I understand the convention and visitors bureau wants the tax," Barney said. "I understand the RBA wants it. But we don't want the tax at all. We don't see why they should put it all on us."