OAKLAND — Three Oakland council members supporting a “soda tax” measure criticized the beverage industry on Thursday, calling their campaign misleading and accusing the opposition of targeting the city’s black and Latino residents.

Council members Annie Campbell Washington, Desley Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan said they plan to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission and the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission over a TV ad and mailers sent to residents.

“What we have seen so far from the political arm of the beverage industry is that they are willing to put out lies,” Campbell Washington said. The council members objected to opponents calling the tax on sugary drinks a “grocery tax,” a term not used in earlier campaigns in Richmond and Berkeley.

The TV ad features a business owner of a Halal market warning people against voting for a grocery tax, and a black business owner doing the same in a campaign mailer by the group No Oakland Grocery Tax and funded by the American Beverage Association of California.

The coalition against the tax have also focused on East Oakland and West Oakland, areas with large black and Latino populations, the council members said. “The soda industry is targeting people of color and they have no shame when it comes to spreading falsehoods,” Brooks said. “Their ads should be pulled from TV. Just because they are rich doesn’t allow them to be dishonest.”

Joe Arellano, a spokesman for No Oakland Grocery Tax Campaign, defended their tactics.

“The backers of the grocery tax need to read their own measure. It is not a tax on beverages. It is a tax on distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages, which means any retailer who sells soda can decide to spread that new tax over any item in their stores,” said Arellano, who said the campaign is supported by more than 280 Oakland store owners.

The spokesman said spot checks of more than 20 major and independent retailers in Berkeley show soda prices have not increased since voters there passed a similar tax in 2014, suggesting store owners are absorbing the tax or applying it to other items.

“The facts are clear, this is a tax on distributors who can pass on the tax by increasing the cost of any grocery item,” Arellano said. The City Council voted unanimously to place the one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages on the November ballot.

David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.