An Allegheny County lawmaker wants to take the fizz out of any effort by other Pennsylvania communities to follow Philadelphia's lead and impose a tax on soda and other sweetened beverages.

While he is at it, he also wants to kill that tax in the City of Brotherly Love.

Rep. Mark Mustio, a Republican, introduced a bill on Monday to preempt and invalidate any local taxation on beverages, food or containers. The bill has attracted bi-partisan support.

"Working families across Pennsylvania deserve to know that their grocery bills won't rise on the whim of elected officials," Mustio said. "Pennsylvania businesses deserve to be protected from revenue grabs that threaten our economic competitiveness and cost jobs."

Mustio said he is surprised at some of the groups who support the tax given its impact on poor families. He said there is nothing stopping municipalities from imposing a tax on the package meat comes in or on certain products people buy that are exempt from the state's 6 percent sales tax.

"It's basically your hard-working families that it's impacting and we want to prevent this from moving elsewhere in the state," Mustio said.

Philadelphia implemented a tax on distributors of sweetened beverages sold in the city's stores or restaurants for 16 months ago and it continues to be as controversial now as it was when it was first proposed.

In fact, along with Mustio's legislative effort to eradicate it in Pennsylvania, there also is a court battle being waged that has made its way to the state Supreme Court questioning the legality of the tax.

The 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on all sugary or artificially sweetened beverages, including diet drinks, is seen by proponents as a fair way to fund free preschool for more of Philadelphia's children and expand its community school programs with the side benefits of enhancing the city's fiscal and public health conditions.

The American Heart Association, for one, sees it as a way to get consumers to change their sweetened beverage drinking habits and build healthier lives free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.

The heart association and others point to research done by Harvard University that projects that over a 10-year period, the tax will reduce consumption of sugary drinks enough to prevent nearly 20,000 cases of type 2 diabetes and reduce the incidence of heart disease, stroke, and obesity.

"The beverage industry has spent millions trying to interfere with a positive public health policy, enacted by a wide majority of municipal representatives", Dr. Kenneth Margulies, immediate past president of the American Heart Association, Southeastern PA Board of Directors, said in a guest editorial for PennLive. "We are deeply disappointed that preemption legislation is being introduced in Harrisburg and worry about the impact this may have on the children and families of Philadelphia."

A spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor's Office said they had not reviewed the legislation but "it is clear that the bill's sponsors are catering to the whims of the multi-billion dollar beverage industry, which has spent millions fighting the tax in court and with a relentless PR campaign."

A poll commissioned by the American Heart Association conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research found that voters express very strong, and very negative, opinions on the state taking away local control, which is what they say Mustio's bill will do. Specifically, 71 percent of likely voters agree with the belief advanced by the Founding Fathers that "government closest to the people governs best."

There's no doubt Philadelphia's sweetened beverage tax is a money generator for the city. which frequently complains to the state about its fiscal challenges. But there are downsides as well, the Coalition to Stop Local Food and Beverage Taxes points out.

While the tax has generated tens of millions of new dollars for the city, its collections last year fell $14 million short of the $92 million that the city's Mayor Jim Kenney projected it would raise last year.

That resulted in less money than anticipated for the programs it benefits but the mayor's spokesman Mike Dunn said it was enough to send 2,700 kids to pre-K, to create 250 living wage jobs in early education and to support 11 community schools that have connected residents with food, clothing, and job opportunities and training. "If this tax goes away, all of that progress will go away too," Dunn said. "With the tremendous deficit the school district is facing, and the state's own fiscal challenges, there is no other way to fund these programs."

While the city controller said only about a quarter of the money raised by the tax is going to fund the programs it was intended to fund programs with the bulk going into the general fund, Dunn said that is by design. All of the money from the beverage tax eventually will be spent on expanding access to pre-K and community school programs, he said.

Further, Dunn said a study still in progress by researchers at Penn, Harvard and Johns Hopkins will analyze the tax's impact on Philadelphia stores and he takes issue with the sample size and methodology of a study by St. Joseph's University that the anti-tax coalition highlights. The St. Joseph's study suggests the tax is hurting business for Philadelphia stores that sell beverages, driving some consumers to do their shopping outside the city, and not having any impact on consumption of sweetened beverages.

But Jeffrey Brown, the chief executive of Brown's Super Stores Inc., a chain of 13 ShopRite and Fresh Grocer supermarkets, doesn't need a study to tell him that people are taking their business outside the city. He sees it when he looks at his stores' financials.

Sales in his two stores right outside of northwest Philadelphia are up 40 percent with beverage sales alone going through the roof. But in his six food desert stores - stores located in low-income sections of Philadelphia where there previously was limited access to fresh affordable foods - that have been opened for more than a year, he lost $41 million in 2017 sales compared to the prior year.

What that tells him is the tax is not changing people's buying habits - just the shopping habits of those who have the means to travel outside the city, he said. Meanwhile, those with no access to transportation are still buying sweetened beverages but because of the tax, have less money to buy the rest of their groceries.

"This is one of the most regressive taxes you can invent because it is literally taking food out of the poorest people's mouths," Brown said.

At his stores, he has had to cut hours of his employees. The anti-tax coalition spokesman Anthony Campisi said it has cost nearly 1,200 supermarket and other retail jobs in Philadelphia. Some corner stores in the city have had to close, said Alex Baloga, president and CEO of the Wormleysburg-based Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association.

"We operate on a 1 percent profit margin. Our members can't absorb something like this," he said. "And you really can't raise prices at all because people will shop elsewhere. The tax on a 99-cent two-liter bottle of soda is almost the cost of the product. It's devastating."

Polling that the anti-tax coalition commissioned in March conducted by Public Opinion Strategies shows 54 percent of voters favor prohibiting taxes and fees from being imposed on food and beverages while 32 percent oppose and 13 percent have no strong feelings about it. The poll shows 51 percent favor repealing the tax in Philly while 26 percent are opposed and 21 percent have no strong feelings either way.

With the fiscal challenges facing cities across Pennsylvania, anti-tax proponents believe it's only a matter of time before other places look to copy Philadelphia's sweetened beverage tax, which is why they are behind Mustio's bill.

This revenue idea might work if it were imposed on a statewide or nationwide basis, Brown said. But having a patchwork of places that have the tax while others don't is proving to have a devastating impact on the people who can't least afford it.

He said, "I think this state would be doing a service to mankind to get Philadelphia out of this and help them solve their problem in a more productive way that doesn't have such harmful side effects."

*This story has been updated to include information from a spokesman for the Philadelphia Mayor's office.