static01.nyt.com
static01.nyt.com is blocked
This page has been blocked by an extension
- Try disabling your extensions.
ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT
Reload
This page has been blocked by an extension
Advertisement
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has promised that city-owned grocery stores will bring down prices for shoppers. On Monday, he will announce the exact discount: 30 percent for some basic groceries, including vegetables, meat, bread and milk.
The city is moving to select private operators to run five city-owned stores, one in each borough. The city will build the stores and waive rent and property taxes. It is also expected to provide an operating subsidy to help pay for the discounts.
The discount will cover a “core basket” of healthy groceries, including produce, meat, seafood, pasta, bread, yogurt, butter, nuts, rice and beans. The stores will sell other products at regular market prices.
Image
“A trip to the grocery store shouldn’t spell dread for New Yorkers,” Mr. Mamdani has said.Credit...Elias Williams for The New York Times
The discount could save shoppers about $90 per month or roughly $1,000 per year, according to an analysis by the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
Mr. Mamdani said in a statement that New Yorkers “deserve stability.”
“Every week, New Yorkers walk into a grocery store hoping the prices haven’t gone up again,” he said. “A trip to the grocery store shouldn’t spell dread for New Yorkers.”
Mr. Mamdani has pledged to create the five stores by the end of his first term. They were one of his major campaign promises aimed at addressing the city’s affordability crisis.
But some small business owners and economists have raised concerns, arguing that the stores could hurt smaller supermarkets and questioning whether they are the best way to reduce grocery prices.
Frank Garcia, chairman of the Multicultural Business Coalition, a group that opposes the stores, said that the city’s discounts would “put our businesses out of business.”
“How are you going to compete with that?” he said.
Others have praised the stores, including groups that work to address food insecurity and two City Council members who represent neighborhoods where the stores will be located. More than a quarter of New Yorkers live in poverty, and lines outside food pantries have become a common sight.
Mr. Mamdani will announce detailed plans for the grocery stores at a news conference in Brooklyn on Monday. The city will also issue a 44-page request for proposals to find operators to run the stores.
The first city-owned grocery store is expected to open in the Bronx next year. Another location in East Harlem is expected to open by 2029. The city is still considering sites for Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
Mr. Mamdani’s budget deal with the City Council in June included $70 million in capital funding to build the stores.
The operators will handle the daily operations. They will be required to provide “family sustaining wages and benefits” and agree to a “labor peace agreement” so that workers can organize without interference, the city said.
Each month, the stores will apply the 30 percent discount to some essentials based on market-rate average prices across the city. The stores will not sell hot food to avoid competing with local bodegas that sell prepared food.
Mr. Mamdani recently named two people to lead the Economic Development Corporation, which is overseeing city-owned grocery stores. Anthony E. Shorris, a veteran of city government, will serve as president; Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, will serve as the board chairwoman.
Mr. Shorris said that the stores would be a priority because they were a campaign pledge.
“Commitments that mayors make to the people are some of the highest priorities of anything the government does,” Mr. Shorris said when his role was announced.
Mr. Garcia, the leader of the Multicultural Business Coalition, said he was prepared to file a lawsuit in hopes of preventing the stores from moving forward. He said that store owners were offended by recent comments on Fox News by Gustavo Gordillo, a chair of New York City’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and an ally of Mr. Mamdani.
“If one publicly owned grocery store that brings prices down in the neighborhood is enough to put someone out of business, then maybe they shouldn’t have been in that business in the first place,” Mr. Gordillo said.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is a public policy correspondent for The Times, covering New York City.
Read 104 comments
-
Share full article
-
104
Related Content
Advertisement
The New York Times
Read Original at The New York Times →