OAKLAND (BCN) — Three Oakland City Councilwomen plan to file an ethics complaint and a false advertising complaint with the Federal Communication Commission over what they say is false advertising by soda tax opponents who say the tax is a tax on groceries.

Vice mayor Annie Campbell Washington, Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan and Councilwoman Desley Brooks announced their plans at a news conference Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m. at City Hall.

“This is not a tax on groceries,” Campbell Washington said. The advertisements have been sent by mail to Oakland voters and broadcast on TV.

“They need to stop telling blatant lies,” Brooks said. Opponents of the soda tax issued a statement saying that the soda tax is a tax on groceries.

The measure will tax distributors of sugary beverages, who can pass the increased cost to retailers, who can raise prices on sugary beverages or any other item.

More than 280 storeowners, who call themselves the No Oakland Grocery Tax Campaign, have joined opponents.

Spokesman for the storeowners Joe Arrelano said the councilmembers’ claim is blatantly false.

He said sugary beverage retailers could also absorb the cost of the tax, thereby defeating the incentive to reduce consumption of the beverages.

He said that’s what has happened in Berkeley where the cost of some sugary beverages is the same as in Concord, which does not have a tax. “Taxes don’t make people healthier, Arellano said.

“Taxes don’t make people healthier, Arellano said. “Diets and exercise do.”

Arellano’s group is funded in part by the American Beverage Association, based in Washington, D.C.

Campbell Washington was unsure when they will file the FCC complaint but they will ask FCC officials to take immediate action.

The councilwomen will also be asking the Oakland Ethics Commission to respond as quickly as possible to the ethics complaint.

The Oakland City Council voted unanimously to place a 1-cent per ounce excise tax on distributors who sell sugary beverages in Oakland on the November ballot.

A the councilmembers argue that, based on research and statements by policy-makers, over-consumption of sugar is one of the main contributors to the rise in Type 2 diabetes.

Sugary beverages make up more than 50 percent of the added sugar in people’s diets, according to the statement.

American Heart Association government relations director Brittni Chicuata said science shows that sugary beverages are linked to diabetes and diabetes can lead to heart disease.

She said the beverage community is now targeting healthy food retailers with misinformation.

Health advocate, grandmother and great-grandmother Beatrice Cardenas Duncan said the alleged misinformation is offensive to her.

She said opponents and some others have said the tax is regressive and would hurt low-income residents the most as low-income residents spend a greater percentage of their income on groceries.

But she said what is really regressive are the medical bills for diseases linked to sugary beverages.