Maybe that's true in Center City. But restaurants in the Roxborough/Andorra section are sitting empty. Even ones with great locations and parking.

You're right that some grocery profits haven't suffered, but I know people who work for Acme and ShopRite who have had their hours cut drastically because foot traffic into the stores is waaaay down. Some employees who used to be able to walk to work now have to drive out to Bucks and Chester County Acmes so that they could continue getting enough hours for a liveable income. Turns out, you can run the Frosty Mug on two employees. It's beer and wine sales (also increased sales at suburban locations where there is no soda tax) keeping Acme's profits up, but lack of foot traffic into the store itself has cut way back the number of employees needed in those locations while the store is open.

Finally, I don't know if you've noticed the number of boarded up gas stations that used to rely on the soda sales. I don't know for a fact those are casualties of the soda tax but I have second hand info that at least one not far from me is.

Statistics can lie. Real life people have been badly hurt by the soda tax. I'm not trying to argue with you as you've stated very plainly that you don't care if businesses that relied on soda are suffering. That's a fair point of view. I just don't want the last impression of the Philadelphia soda tax on this thread to be that there was no collateral damage.