CHAMPAIGN — A plan to tack a 4 percent tax onto package liquor sales failed in a city council straw poll Tuesday night after business owners spent weeks publicly expressing their dissatisfaction with the proposed surcharge.

Six city council members’ minds changed — last month, the council voted 6-3 to begin talks on the new liquor tax only seconds before they voted to restore three jobs at the police department’s front desk. But that vote turned into a unanimous decision against the proposal on Tuesday.

The vote puts an end to discussion about the new tax for now, but the council will still need to find a way to pay for those three front desk jobs. Council members will revisit that issue in July, when they could choose to eliminate the jobs or find a different funding source.

Karen Foster, who was the first council member to propose the 4 percent liquor tax in May, said it was the disapproval from business owners that changed her mind.

“From that time when it was first proposed to tonight (Tuesday), the troops rallied,” Foster said.

Foster said she “agonized” over where to find money for a tight city spending plan.

“It was only my intention to find a revenue source that would keep our front desk and our police department lobby open 24/7,” Foster said.

Mayor Don Gerard originally voted in favor of the 4 percent tax. He said that, at the time, it seemed like the lesser of a number of evils. Throughout his campaign this spring, he repeatedly said he would work to restore police front desk jobs, and he took office only weeks before he initiated the straw poll to do so.

“Two weeks into my administration, I was faced with keeping a campaign promise,” Gerard said.

He said he is still in favor of retaining the jobs at the police department’s front desk, but how the city will pay for it is now up in the air.

“My point is retaining services to the public,” Gerard said.

Before the vote, business owners took to the podium to express their disapproval as they had been doing in recent weeks. They have said the proposal to tax

package liquor is unfair because it applies to a very specific industry.

“You are going to put us at a very unadvantageous position,” said Jack Troxell, who owns the local chain of Piccadilly stores. “We’re not going to be competitive. You’re asking us to charge more tax. That raises the price.”

Some said the city needs to look to cut spending, not add revenues, even though city officials have cut millions in spending as the economic recession has taken hold within the past few years.

“You’re saying you had to make cuts,” Troxell said. “So has every businessman in this community.”