Champagne problem for NYC Whole Foods as Studio 54-founder's venture causes headaches: suit
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's Supreme Court, alleges that lines of people waiting for access to The Roof – an exclusive rooftop bar at Public Hotel in the Lower East Side – are blocking delivery access for the store.
The suit, obtained by The Independent, requests that a judge order the hotel to reroute the queueing of their patrons 'in some other direction.' The suit also asks that The Roof be closed until the hotel addresses the problem, and that 'daily escalating fines' be issued if it doesn't.
Public Hotel is owned by Ian Schrager, an American entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, who gained fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54 – one of the city's most exclusive clubs in the 1970s.
Public was developed by Schrager and fellow real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, who currently serves as Donald Trump 's special envoy to the Middle East.
Whole Foods' lawsuit contains a number of pictures showing the chaos outside the hotel, noting that often there was 'simply a mass of people completely obstructing the sidewalk and driveway.'
'This obstructs not only Whole Foods from utilizing its driveway and hence having deliveries made to and from its loading dock, but also completely obstructs regular pedestrians who seek to walk on this sidewalk,' it states.
The suit describes the situation as 'an accident waiting to happen' due to the combination of large delivery trucks trying to access the area. The drivers are 'constantly complaining' to Whole Foods about the congestion, the suit claims.
There have also been several 'near misses [sic] accidents.'
It also notes that deliveries that used to take 30 minutes to complete, now takes two hours – risking perishable products.
Whole Foods workers who spoke to The New York Post also reported how club-goers often became aggressive towards them when drunk.
'They don't understand. Sometimes they start fights with us. They push us. They start cursing… They tell us: 'who the hell do you think you are?'' one worker told the outlet.
The lawsuit demands a payment of no less than $400,000 in damages.
However, in a letter to the court, attorneys for Public Hotel claimed that there were other reasons for large crowds, including food trucks, or customers picking up their Amazon packages from Whole Foods. They also argued that crowds are not waiting for The Roof, but for a different Public Hotel club called ARTSPACE.
The attorneys argue that shutting The Roof would cause its business 'devastating and irreparable harm' and cost the city $8 million in sales tax.
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Sky News
10 hours ago
- Sky News
Bread producers Hovis and Kingsmill close in on historic merger
The owners of Hovis and Kingsmill are closing in on a definitive agreement to merge two of Britain's most famous grocery brands following months of talks. Sky News has learnt Associated British Foods (ABF), the London-listed company which owns Kingsmill's immediate parent, Allied Bakeries, has proposed paying roughly £75m to acquire Hovis from its long-term private equity backers. Banking sources said a deal could be formally agreed to combine the businesses as early as the end of next week, although they cautioned the complexity of the transaction meant the timing could yet slip. Confirmation of a tie-up would come nearly three months after Sky News revealed ABF and Endless - Hovis's owner since 2020 - were in discussions. Industry sources have estimated that a combined group could benefit from up to £50m of annual cost savings from a merger. ABF has also been exploring options for the future of Allied Bakeries separate from its talks with Hovis in the event a deal could not be agreed or is prevented from completing by competition regulators. If it does go ahead, the merger will unite two historic bread producers under common ownership, with Allied Bakeries having been founded in 1935 by Willard Garfield Weston, part of the family which continues to control ABF. Hovis traces its history back even further, having been created in 1890 when Herbert Grime scooped a £25 prize for coming up with the name Hovis, which was derived from the Latin 'Hominis Vis' - meaning "strength of man". Persistent inflation, competition from speciality bread producers and shifting consumer habits towards lower-carb diets have combined to impair breadmakers' financial health in recent decades, however. In accounts filed at Companies House earlier this month, Hovis said it had "achieved positive financial progress despite continued tough trading conditions". The company reported sales of £439.6m in the 52 weeks to 28 September last year, down from £477.6m in the 53 weeks to 30 September 2023. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell from £20.9m to £18.7m, which Hovis said was the result of the revenue decline and higher distribution costs. "Overall bread share remained stable, despite significant price inflation and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, demonstrating the resilience of the Hovis brand and its iconic status as one of Britain's most loved food brands," the accounts said. This week, the trade publication The Grocer reported that Britain's big four supermarkets, including Asda and Sainsbury's, had delisted a number of Hovis-branded products. The publication quoted a Hovis spokeswoman as saying the company was "aware of some adjustments to Hovis product lines in certain stores". "We remain fully committed to working collaboratively with our retail partners to grow our mutual businesses." The overall UK bakery market is estimated to be worth about £5bn in annual sales, with the equivalent of 11m loaves being sold each day. Critical to the prospects of a merger of Allied Bakeries, which also owns the Sunblest and Allinson's bread brands, and Hovis taking place will be the view of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) at a time when economic regulators are under intense pressure from the government to support growth. Warburtons, the family-owned business which is the largest bakery group in Britain, is estimated to have a 34% share of the branded wrapped sliced bread sector, with Hovis on 24% and Allied on 17%, according to industry insiders. A merger of Hovis and Kingsmill would give the combined group the largest share of that segment of the market, although one source said Warburtons' overall turnover would remain higher because of the breadth of its product range. Responding to Sky News' report in May of the talks, ABF said: "Allied Bakeries continues to face a very challenging market. "We are evaluating strategic options for Allied Bakeries against this backdrop and we remain committed to increasing long-term shareholder value." In a separate presentation to analysts, ABF - which is also in the process of closing its Vivergo bioethanol plant in Hull after pleading for government support - described the losses at Allied, which also owns own-label bread manufacturer Speedibake, as unsustainable. The company does not disclose details of Allied Bakeries' financial performance. Prior to its ownership by Endless, Hovis was owned by Mr Kipling-maker Premier Foods and the Gores family. At the time of the most recent takeover, High Wycombe-based Hovis employed about 2,700 people and operated eight bakery sites, as well as its own flour mill. Hovis's current chief executive, Jon Jenkins, is a former boss of Allied Milling and Baking.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- The Guardian
As food prices rise, Mamdani wants public grocery stores in New York. Can it work?
When Zohran Mamdani sailed to a surprising but decisive victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary last month, he did so propelled by a platform laser-focused on making the country's largest city more affordable for working people. Among his proposed policies for achieving that vision – which include free childcare and a rent freeze for tenants – is the proposal to create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping food prices low rather than on making a profit. 'Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers,' Mamdani said on his website. 'They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing.' The proposal seems to be resonating. Two-thirds of New Yorkers polled said they support the creation of municipal grocery stores, according to an April 2025 report published by the Climate & Community Institute and Data for Progress. Another 85% said they were paying more for groceries this year than last, and 91% were concerned about how inflation is affecting food costs. (While inflation is one factor contributing to sticker shock at the cash register, US food companies' profits have soared as they have continued to raise prices faster than both inflation and wage increases.) 'From 2020 to 2024, the food consumer price index rose 23.6%, so we already know working-class families spend a much larger percentage of their household monthly income on food than middle- and upper-class families,' said Justin Myers, an associate professor at California State University, Fresno whose past research has investigated public grocery stores. Plus, he said, 'the average cost of groceries in New York City is 18% higher than the national average.' But could city-owned grocery stores really lower the cost of food? According to many experts, the idea isn't as out there as it might seem. While Mamdani's proposal might feel novel, there's plenty of precedent for state-supported food infrastructure. According to Anna Chworow, deputy director of the UK-based non-profit Nourish Scotland, the 20th century was full of these kinds of initiatives: wartime Britain had 'British restaurants', a chain of over 2,000 restaurants that served price-capped meals, and Poland had 'milk bars', subsidized cafeterias where meals cost two-thirds or half of what they might at a traditional restaurant. Similar establishments are starting to pop up today in India, Turkey, Indonesia, China, Mexico and Brazil, said Chworow, whose organization put out a recent report on the subject. These kinds of establishments have often been very well-received by the communities they serve. One operator of a milk bar in Warsaw told Chworow of a community that, upon hearing that their local milk bar would no longer be funded by the government, staged a protest by taking over the kitchen. 'There was a real sense of civic activism around keeping that place open,' Chworow said. Closer to home, 'public options have been part of the fabric of this nation since its founding, between the postal service, public libraries, and public parks,' said Margaret Mullins, director of public options and governance at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. In fact, NYC already has six grocery stores that enjoy government support in the form of steep rent discounts, including Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side, through the city's Economic Development Corporation. 'Sometimes in places where the private market won't step in, the public can and should,' Mullins said. Across the country, many municipalities have done the same. Big cities like Madison, Wisconsin, and Atlanta, Georgia, are currently exploring ways to use city support to address food deserts, while small towns in Kansas and Florida have turned to town-owned grocery stores after privately owned grocers have shut down or left. These initiatives often begin when a community has already been failed by the private sector. Atlanta councilmember Marci Overstreet knows firsthand what it's like when a community is left completely at the mercy of private grocery stores. As councilmember of a district with limited access to fresh food, Overstreet began doing everything she could to lure grocery developers to her area, attending trade shows in Vegas and setting up meetings with big-box grocers. Time and again, she watched as store representatives would punch in her zip code and disqualify her district on the spot for not being deemed a profitable enough area to be worth opening a store in. 'Finally, we had to say, 'You know what, no one's coming. Cavalry is not coming. We're going to have to take care of this ourselves,'' Overstreet said. Overstreet spent eight years trying to solve the grocery problem in her district, which included spearheading partnerships with public schools and local churches where people could pick up food. Today, she's proud to be bringing a new, full-size grocery store to her district with the backing of Invest Atlanta, the official economic development authority of the city, in partnership with Savi Provisions, a specialty private grocer. The resulting public-private partnership isn't an exact parallel for the municipally owned stores that Mamdani has proposed for New York, but it's a reminder that when the private market left to its own devices is failing a community, government officials can find creative ways to step in. As much as New York might learn from looking to other cities, some experts say there's even better proof that government-owned grocery stores can work to be found in a surprising place: the US military. Every branch of the military has its own public grocery system, sometimes referred to as an exchange or commissary, that allows military families to buy groceries on military bases at significantly lower prices than what civilians can get from traditional grocers. 'Military families buy groceries for 30 to 40% cheaper than what grocery stores in the area sell, simply because they're not taking a full wholesale and retail markup like a lot of stores are,' said Errol Schweitzer, a grocery store veteran and former VP at Whole Foods, who has written about the commissary model before. According to Bill Moore, the former director and CEO of the Defense Commissary Agency, the commissary system saved military families approximately $1.58bn in 2023. Passing along similar benefits to civilians is quite possible, according to Schweitzer. 'It's not a radical proposal,' he said. 'There already is heavy government intervention in the food system every day.' So what would it take practically to make Mamdani's proposal work in NYC? According to Overstreet, the councilmember from Atlanta, community buy-in is key. In her district, Overstreet sought feedback about what kinds of products community members wanted access to, down to the preferred variety of apple. Overstreet and her team did this through roundtables, pop-up meetings, and both paper and online questionnaires to try to reach the widest array of people. Chworow, who researched public food infrastructure over the last century, said that creating a universally useful resource – not one that just serves targeted groups, like low-income families – is also crucial. 'As soon as you start to target the interventions, there's a level of stigma that comes around it, and people are reluctant to use them because they don't want to be associated with the stigmatized group,' Chworow said. 'Promoting it as a universal service removes those barriers, and it also oftentimes makes the economic model better.' Some of how military commissaries – and grocers like Walmart, for that matter – deliver low prices is through economies of scale, using their size and buying power as a network to negotiate lower prices with wholesalers. That could pose a problem to Mamdani's plan, as he's proposed opening just five municipal grocery stores total, one for each borough. But Schweitzer pointed out that the city already buys extraordinary amounts of food for public schools, hospitals and community colleges; by linking the grocery stores to those existing agreements, he noted, they might likewise take advantage of economies of scale that would otherwise be out of reach. Schweitzer, who has written extensively about how to make a public grocery sector work, also recommends looking to successful grocery store chains for cues. Operating like Aldi (which is to say, opening lots of smaller stores with a limited assortment) or Costco (which is to say, operating as a warehouse store; 'literally a distributor that sells to the public'), he said, could help make municipal grocery stores a success. Lastly, noted Caruso, it was worth reminding community members that such an initiative will take time to realize. Overstreet noted that it took her eight years of work to get the new grocery store in her district under way. The historical precedent, efforts in other cities, and parallels with the US commissary system of course don't prove that New York's attempts will be successful. Municipal grocery stores will have to battle many of the same problems that have sunk hundreds of private grocery stores in the city in recent years. But these examples do provide ample evidence that government-run food infrastructure can work, given the right support and proper management. 'It's not to say that anything is easy, but of course it can be done,' said Mullins. 'Just look at these other public options – the post office, public libraries, public schools. These are great things that have been critical parts of communities for a very long time.'
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- The Guardian
From 60 Minutes to Colbert, it's been a dark time for CBS. But there's a ray of hope
The past few weeks have brought a torrent of bad news for those who care about CBS News – the home of the legendary Walter Cronkite and a great deal of investigative journalism over many decades. Most notably, the network's parent company, Paramount Global, capitulated to the Trump administration, unnecessarily – and wimpily – settling a lawsuit by paying $16m, purportedly for a future presidential library. Trump had sued over a story on 60 Minutes, the network's flagship program, claiming it was deceptively edited to favor his then-rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. After the settlement was announced, Trump crowed that the network had 'defrauded the American people' and was desperate to settle; he also claimed that another $20m in advertising and programming was also coming his way. Days later, another troubling sign. The network decided to dump The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the top-rated show on late-night television, whose host has been relentlessly critical of Trump. Network bosses claimed the move was financial, since the show was losing money. But it wasn't hard to connect the dots and see this as part of an all-out effort to appease the president. The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren called for answers in a Variety op-ed, asking: 'Are we sure that this wasn't part of a wink-wink deal between the president and a giant corporation that needed something from his administration?' That 'something' is federal clearance for an $8bn merger between Paramount and another giant media corporation, Skydance. (The latter company is doing its kowtowing part, promising to 'evaluate any complaints of bias' at CBS News, appoint an ombudsman to keep watch, and ensure there are no diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Paramount. The proposed merger got approval on Thursday from the FCC, which means that it's essentially a done deal.) Colbert's on-air commentary on the settlement was brutal: 'This kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's 'big, fat bribe'.' Could it be a complete coincidence that The Late Show was canceled three days later? Amid all this, one positive development this week shone through like a wan blade of light. A new executive producer for 60 Minutes – the top editorial role – got the nod. To the relief of many there, Tanya Simon is no outsider who might have been tapped to make the show more Trump-friendly. Simon has deep roots at the revered program – a 25-year veteran of 60 Minutes, she is also the daughter of the late CBS correspondent Bob Simon. She has been the acting executive producer since the previous executive producer, Bill Owens, resigned under pressure, saying he felt he no longer had the full editorial independence he had always enjoyed. Her appointment, of course, doesn't mean no political pressure will be exerted from corporate bosses above her, who seem to be under Trump's sway. 'There is great fear about what comes next,' one CBS News staffer told CNN earlier this month. Simon's appointment offers at least a modest measure of reassurance. She 'understands what makes '60 minutes' tick,' said the news division's president, Tom Cibrowski, in a memo to staff. She's also the first woman, in the show's nearly six-decade history, to be at the helm. If the choice had been a right-leaning newcomer, it's a good bet that top quality talent like Scott Pelley – a former chief White House correspondent and a former anchor of the CBS Evening News – would have quickly headed for the door. As for the future of CBS, once admired enough to be dubbed the Tiffany Network, the outlook is mixed. 'I know that the C in CBS stands for Columbia, but … it ought to be called the Contradiction Broadcasting Network,' wrote Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch. That's always been true, he argued, given the bright journalistic legacy of Cronkite and Edward R Murrow along with some ugly chapters in the distant past. That includes the time when – under fire from the FBI director J Edgar Hoover in the late 1940s – the network demanded that all its employees sign a loyalty oath to the US government. When it comes to integrity, that history of contradiction is bad enough. Capitulation, though, is far worse. And given recent events, it's easy to make the case that CBS – or, more accurately, its parent company – deserves that acronym even more. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
