The Post-Gazette, one of America’s Great, Most Spendiferous Newspapers, earlier this week ran an article detailing how some taverns have not lowered their drink prices (for simplicity, many bars include the tax in the price of the drink) despite the lowering of the Drink Tax from 10 to 7 percent.   http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09006/939857-85.stm

Putting aside the fact that this story comes right out of the Dictator Dan/ Rich Fitzgerald/ Kevin Evanto talking points, the story features a gaping hole in its reporting.  

The Sports and Exhibition Authority is a joint County-City authority.  The SEA owns PNC Park, Heinz Field, and Mellon Arena.  The SEA contracts with Aramark, a Philadelphia company, to sell concessions at those public arenas.  When the Drink Tax went into effect, Aramark rather notoriously raised its beer prices in excess of 10% in order to “round up” to the nearest quarter in order to keep its transactions simple.  Thus a beer that cost $6.50 pre-tax went up to $7.25 — an 11.5% increase (the price would have been $7.15 with the tax at 10%). 

 Now with the tax at 7%, Aramark could easily lower beer prices by a quarter and not feel any ill effects on its margins.  3% of $7.50 is 22 cents.  Since the beer price was raised by an extra dime in the first place, Aramark is still overcharging for the tax if the price was reduced to $7.25. 

But the P-G never asked that question.  And thus the County Diminutive has never answered, ”Why doesn’t the County instruct its authority to instruct Aramark to lower its prices?”  Why wasn’t the question asked?  Who knows?  Dan hasn’t answered it because he would rather have the press pick on Mom and Pop bar owners than corporate fat cats like Aramark who stand to make an extra $25,000 per Steeler game leaving their pricing in place.