Fossil Free Berkeley got Measure GG on the November ballot with over 4,500 signatures - it proposes a $2.96 tax for every 100 cubic feet of gas consumed in buildings 15,000 square feet or larger starting January, 1, 2025.
Environmentalists say the measure is urgently needed to address climate change.
However, grocery stores, restaurants and nonprofits say it doesn't give them time to electrify.
Berkeley Bowl said in a statement: "We support the intent of Measure GG but we find the execution is untenable."
MORE: California announces power bill credit
Berkeley Bowl says it prepares 3,000 meals a day and it's impossible to electrify all its refrigerators and kitchens by Jan. 1.
But the organizers of the measure say there needs to be urgency in imposing the tax on natural gas as it impacts climate change and everything from health to insurance costs.
"The damages from this pollution are happening today," said Daniel Tahara, one of the organizers of Fossil Free Berkeley. "We don't get to say, hey let's pause and pretend no one has to deal with these consequences. It's happening right now. The polluters have to pay their fair share."
But the owner of Revival Bar and Kitchen on Shattuck says she can't afford it.
"The measure simply says if you don't want to pay the tax electrify - for us with $300,000 already invested in our equipment and all the equipment we can buy now if you shop for restaurant equipment, it's all still mainly gas," said Amy Murray owner of Revival Bar and Kitchen. "We are still waiting for the industry to create the equipment so we would be forced to pay the tax."
MORE: Gas company leads elderly residents into unknowingly agreeing to pricey contracts, recordings show
She says she'd have to pass the price of the tax onto her customers in an already precarious restaurant environment.
Maria Schell Hassid with the David Brower Center says the measure will have "bad consequences" for local businesses and also places such like hospitals.
Berkeley's David Brower Center - home of the environmental movement, expects the tax to cost them $90,000 a year.
"It's an extremely expensive tax which is going to come in very suddenly with no time for us to prepare and transition off of gas," said Schell Hassid.
The City of Berkeley already tried to ban new natural gas infrastructure, but an appeals court ruled in January that the ban was unlawful.
Measure GG seeks to use taxation to wean city businesses off of natural gas. It requires only a simple majority to pass in November.