{"id":970184,"date":"2026-07-31T00:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/970184\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:55:16","slug":"the-distant-date-that-mamdani-has-chosen-for-his-city-owned-grocery-stores-should-raise-alarm-bells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/970184\/","title":{"rendered":"The distant date that Mamdani has chosen for his city-owned grocery stores should raise alarm bells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the dubious things about Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s government grocery stores, the one that should stand out is how far off in the future they are.<\/p>\n

City Hall doesn\u2019t even pretend that the first one, in Hunts Point, will open before late 2027 \u2014 and anyone familiar with government projects knows all too well that they always take far longer than initial estimates.<\/p>\n

(And cost more, too: Expect the final price tag to exceed not just the $40 million already earmarked<\/a> to build two markets, but the $70 million for five.)<\/p>\n

The second, at East Harlem\u2019s La Marqueta, is advertised as starting in 2029, his re-election year. <\/p>\n

In short, they won\u2019t have time to fail before voters must judge his success. <\/p>\n

Yet the mayor won\u2019t stop talking about them \u2014 this week, he made a big deal<\/a> about how they\u2019d cut prices 30% on a crucial basket of basic goods.<\/p>\n

Of course, having the taxpayers subsidize<\/a> those goods is unfair competition for real grocers, who operate on narrow profit margins and rightly fear Mamdani\u2019s stores could put them out of business.<\/p>\n

One immigrant-led grocer coalition is already suing<\/a> over this very issue.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the city\u2019s also talking about \u201ckeeping track\u201d of who\u2019s shopping at the Mamdani Marts, to avoid folks turning around and re-selling the goods for their personal profit, etc., and maybe to keep out-of-towners from benefiting.<\/p>\n

Does that mean you\u2019ll need to show ID? Or will they have surveillance cameras?<\/p>\n

Either way, it\u2019s getting pretty Big Brotherly.<\/p>\n

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But, again, we won\u2019t see those warts anytime soon \u2014 because it\u2019s all still just a happy dream.<\/p>\n

Look: Government-run groceries have failed everywhere they\u2019ve ever been tried, including recently in progressive cities.<\/p>\n

And New Yorkers with family experience of communist stores, like City Councilman Phil Wong<\/a>, know that what they most deliver is empty shelves \u2014 cheaper goods sell out too fast.<\/p>\n

Opening a store really isn\u2019t that hard; the private sector sure doesn\u2019t take two or three years to get it done.<\/p>\n

So why is Team Mamdani taking so long?<\/p>\n

Our prediction: By the time New Yorkers learn that he can\u2019t actually make this idea work, the 2029 election will already be over \u2014 and that\u2019s the plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the dubious things about Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s government grocery stores, the one that should stand out…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":970185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,13239,4691,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,10452,24590,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-970184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-city-hall","tag-editorial","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-socialism","tag-supermarkets","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117011868902314003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/970185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}