Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss Wednesday vetoed the city’s grocery tax ordinance, passed by the City Council on Monday. The ordinance would implement a local 1% grocery tax, filling the $2.5 million annual revenue gap that city staff estimated Evanston would face with the expiration of state-imposed grocery tax at the start of 2026. Biss instead suggested “distributing the tax burden responsibly and equitably.”He previously has suggested that a property tax increase would be less-regressive than a tax on groceries. “But that is no justification for selecting the single most regressive option available to us.”Supporters of the grocery tax have noted a study of traffic to supermarkets that indicates more than half of the grocery tax is paid by out-of-town residents. In comparison, Black said city staff calculated a household purchasing groceries in Evanston would pay about $66 per year with the grocery tax.