Zohran Mamdani's NYC grocery stores scheme draws fresh scrutiny as video of empty, city-owned Missouri market goes viral
A viral video showing a desolate publicly-funded grocery store in Missouri has drawn fresh scrutiny on socialist mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani's signature proposal to bring city-owned markets to the Big Apple.
The eerie footage showed virtually bare shelves inside the Kansas City, Miss. store, with local outlet KSHB 41 reporting this week that a rancid odor also wafted inside the shop.
Advertisement
6 A viral video shows the poor conditions inside the city-owned Sun Fresh Market grocery store in Kansas City.
KSHB
6 Empty shelves seen inside Sun Fresh Market.
KSHB
The lack of produce and other goods came despite the store being in a city-owned building and receiving millions of taxpayer dollars since opening in 2018, the report said.
Advertisement
'I can tell you today right now it's damn near dead,' one outraged local told the outlet.
Many viewed the video as prophetic for New York City, with one X user posting, 'Watch this, Mamdani supporters.'
Mamdani helped clinch the Democratic mayoral nomination by running a campaign focused on affordability, including a promise to create a network of city-owned grocery stores to the Big Apple.
'It's like a public option for produce,' he said in one of his slick TikTok videos. 'We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores whose mission is to lower prices, not price gouging.
Advertisement
'These stores will operate without a profit motive, or having to pay property taxes or rent, and will pass on those savings to you. They'll partner with small businesses and nearby farms and sell at wholesale prices.'
6 Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed opening city-owned grocery stores.
Zohran Mamdani / TikTok
The proposal inspired an explosion of handwringing among some New Yorkers, with some warning of Soviet-style groceries and billionaire John Catsimatidis threatening to close his Gristedes grocery chain.
'We can't compete with Mamdani opening city-run supermarkets for free,' Catsimatidis has told The Post.
Advertisement
But Mamdani's plan is largely vague on details, such as whether the city itself will actually run the stores or hand off operations to a private or nonprofit partner.
He has interchangeably used the terms 'city-owned' and 'city-run' to describe the stores during his campaign.
6 A local TV station also reported a rancid smell in the Kansas City store.
KSHB
Mamdani said he envisions the initiative as a pilot program that's more of an experiment.
'That would be one store in each borough – five stores across New York City,' he said on 'The Bulwark' podcast.
'It would cost $65 million,' he said before the podcast host Tim Miller interrupted to jokingly call them 'five communist stores.'
'It might be an interesting test case to see how poorly it does compared to its neighbors,' Miller said.
6 Sun Fresh Market has recieved millions of dollars in taxpayer funds since opening in 2018, according to the report.
KSHB
Advertisement
Mamdani contended that he was more interested in testing a potential practical policy than pushing an ideological agenda.
'No matter how you think about the idea, I do think that there should be room for reasonable policy experimentation in our cities and in our country, where we actually test out our ideas,' he said.
'And if they work, they work. And if they don't work, c'est la vie, then the idea was wrong.'
The Queens assemblyman has pointed toward the government-owned grocery store in St. Paul, Kansas, a community of roughly 600 people, as a success story.
Advertisement
Brittain Ladd, a supply chain logistics and retail consultant, said government-run grocery stores in New York City could break even, but they could only offer a limited number of basic products and would need to be operated by grocery 'experts.'
6 The report noted a lack of fresh produce available in the city-owned grocery store.
KSHB
'The program will fail if people who don't have expertise set it up,' Ladd said.
'These would be very specialized grocery stores. This would not look like a grocery store. It would be a very bare bones operation,' Ladd said.
Advertisement
'It would be to really just provide the things that people need the most.'
Nevin Cohen, director for the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, said Mamdani's proposal isn't so far-fetched, noting the city has six public retail markets, such as Jamaica Market, with a history going back to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s.
'They still operate in neighborhoods all across the city, and there, the Economic Development Corporation of New York City owns and manages the building and sets the rents so that there is a mix of neighborhood-serving vendors with rents that are affordable so they can provide low cost food,' Cohen said.
Advertisement
Cohen envisioned a public-private model would prevail if Mamdani wins in November and moves forward with the experiment, adding he didn't think city-owned grocery stores would impact existing businesses.
'In New York City, with 1,000 supermarkets, I don't think it's likely that the five public markets that Mamdani has been talking about would in any way undermine existing food retailers,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Vice President JD Vance is on the road again to sell the Republicans' big new tax law
In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, Vance told attendees at an industrial machine shop that they should be able to keep more of their pay in their pockets, highlighting the law's new tax deductions on overtime. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Vance also discussed a new children's savings program called Trump Accounts and how the new law promotes energy extraction, while decrying Democrats for opposing the bill that keeps the current tax rates, which would have otherwise expired later this year. Advertisement The legislation cleared the GOP-controlled Congress by the narrowest of margins, with Vance breaking a tie vote in the Senate for the package that also sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars for Trump's immigration agenda while slashing Medicaid and food stamps. The vice president is also stepping up his public relations blitz on the bill as the White House tries to deflect attention away from the growing controversy over Jeffrey Epstein. Advertisement The disgraced financier killed himself, authorities say, in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and his top allies stoked conspiracy theories about Epstein's death before Trump returned to the White House and are now reckoning with the consequences of a Justice Department announcement earlier this month that Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that no further documents about the case would be released. Questions about the case continued to dog Trump in Scotland, where he on Sunday announced a framework trade deal with the European Union. Asked about the timing of the trade announcement and the Epstein case and whether it was correlated, Trump responded: 'You got to be kidding with that.' 'No, had nothing to do with it,' Trump told the reporter. 'Only you would think that.' The White House sees the new law as a clear political boon, sending Vance to promote it in swing congressional districts that will determine whether Republicans retain their House majority next year. The northeastern Pennsylvania stop is in the district represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a first-term lawmaker who knocked off a six-time Democratic incumbent last fall. On Monday, Vance will be in the district of Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, who is a top target for the National Republican Congressional Committee this cycle. Polls before the bill's passage showed that it largely remained unpopular, although the public approves of some individual provisions such as increasing the child tax credit and allowing workers to deduct more of their tips on taxes.
Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Vice President JD Vance is on the road again to sell the Republicans' big new tax law
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Vice President JD Vance is hitting his home state on Monday to continue promoting the GOP's sweeping tax-and-border bill. He will be in Canton, Ohio, to talk about the bill's 'benefits for hardworking American families and businesses,' according to his office. Aides offered little detail in advance about the visit, but NBC News reported that his remarks will take place at a steel plant in Canton, located about 60 miles south of Cleveland. The visit marks Vance's second trip this month to sell the package, filled with a hodgepodge of conservative priorities that Republicans have dubbed the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' as the vice president becomes its chief promoter on the road. In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, Vance told attendees at an industrial machine shop that they should be able to keep more of their pay in their pockets, highlighting the law's new tax deductions on overtime. Vance also discussed a new children's savings program called Trump Accounts and how the new law promotes energy extraction, while decrying Democrats for opposing the bill that keeps the current tax rates, which would have otherwise expired later this year. The legislation cleared the GOP-controlled Congress by the narrowest of margins, with Vance breaking a tie vote in the Senate for the package that also sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars for Trump's immigration agenda while slashing Medicaid and food stamps. The vice president is also stepping up his public relations blitz on the bill as the White House tries to deflect attention away from the growing controversy over Jeffrey Epstein . The disgraced financier killed himself, authorities say, in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and his top allies stoked conspiracy theories about Epstein's death before Trump returned to the White House and are now reckoning with the consequences of a Justice Department announcement earlier this month that Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that no further documents about the case would be released. Questions about the case continued to dog Trump in Scotland, where he on Sunday announced a framework trade deal with the European Union. Asked about the timing of the trade announcement and the Epstein case and whether it was correlated, Trump responded: 'You got to be kidding with that.' 'No, had nothing to do with it,' Trump told the reporter. 'Only you would think that.' The White House sees the new law as a clear political boon, sending Vance to promote it in swing congressional districts that will determine whether Republicans retain their House majority next year. The northeastern Pennsylvania stop is in the district represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a first-term lawmaker who knocked off a six-time Democratic incumbent last fall. On Monday, Vance will be in the district of Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, who is a top target for the National Republican Congressional Committee this cycle. Polls before the bill's passage showed that it largely remained unpopular, although the public approves of some individual provisions such as increasing the child tax credit and allowing workers to deduct more of their tips on taxes. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
The great Northeast exodus — how high taxes are driving away billions
New York and New Jersey lost $140 billion in income in just one decade. Call it moving van economics — and New York and New Jersey are the losers. A new analysis from my organization, Unleash Prosperity, of the latest census and income tax data finds these two states have lost more residents over the past decade than any other state not named California. Advertisement From 2015-2024, New York has lost 2 million residents. 3 Zohran Mamdani wants to raise taxes by 2 percent on wealthy New Yorkers. Getty Images These are giant population losses from two of America's leading industrial and financial centers throughout the 20th century. State tax havens These New York and New Jersey refugees have mostly relocated to the new powerhouse states like Florida, Texas and Tennessee. These moving vans explains why the Southeast is now, for the first time ever, the economically dominant region in the country. Advertisement Even more problematic for New York and New Jersey is that the movers are taking a lot of personal income and purchasing power with them. From 2012 to 2022, New York has lost $111 billion in income while Jersey is down by more than $31 billion. Because the income is lost forever — except for the rare cases when the exiles move back — these income losses accumulate year after year. 3 Unleash Prosperity Why are so many people leaving the Northeast? Advertisement A myriad of reasons — crime, cost of living, better job opportunities, warmer weather and, yes, to save money on taxes. New York, New Jersey and California are the three biggest losers in the interstate migration sweepstakes, and they just happen to be the states with the highest state-local income tax add-ons. The big winner states like Florida and Texas have no income tax at all. 3 Unleash Prosperity Coincidence? Doubtful. Advertisement There's a warning sign that should be flashing. The place in America with the highest income tax is New York City. Now one of the leading candidates for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, wants to raise the tax on the rich by another 2 percentage points. When will voters realize that you can't tax the New York millionaire after they move to Florida — and choose to pay no income tax at all? Stephen Moore is a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity and a former senior Trump economic adviser.
