Report: Locals Fear Socialist NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s City-Run Grocers Idea Spells Corruption

A Democratic socialist running for mayor of New York City wants to create city-run grocery stores, but his idea is not going over well with locals, according to a City Journal report published Tuesday.

Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani outlined his platform on his website saying people in his city are struggling with the cost of groceries.

The site then declared Mamdani “will create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit. Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers. They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing. With New York City already spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators (which are not even required to take SNAP/WIC!), we should redirect public money to a real ‘public option.’”

The Journal article by Adam Lehoday cited the owner of Appleton’s Marketplace on West End Avenue, Hamza, who said Mamdani might have good intentions but the idea could spiral into “corruption and money laundering, like we’ve seen in some of the other agencies.”

The report also said more problems could arise because opening such ventures would fail to address the crime and poverty that is shutting down grocery stores in some neighborhoods.

The Journal article continued:

Another argument for the city-owned stores is that they would be able to cut prices by minimizing profit margins. But private grocery chains aren’t exactly price gouging—net profits average a razor-thin 1 percent to 2 percent. One woman I spoke with, a member of a food cooperative in Lower Manhattan, said she wasn’t sure “how it could work given the prices at our own nonprofit aren’t any lower than regular grocery stores.”

Mamdani explained his idea in a video and appeared to accuse grocers in the area of price gouging.

He said, “We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores whose mission is to lower prices, not price gouging”:

Mamdani claimed the stores will “operate without a profit motive.”

Per the Journal article, Lehoday cited neighbors who feared corruption within Mamdani’s plan and one person said the city-run grocery stores had the potential of being “as well run as the U.S. Postal Service.”

The article also posed the question of what exactly Mamdani was trying to solve, noting it would be a good idea to assess the actual problems. The report claimed Mamdani assumes the issue lies with “corporate greed.”

However, “since grocery stores aren’t making large profits, his plan is unlikely to deliver meaningfully cheaper goods. What savings could be achieved by eliminating rental costs will likely be vastly outweighed by a lack of supply chains and scalability, and by theft and criminal damage. Only by pouring heavy subsidies into the operation could the city keep it running,” the article read.

Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is running against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and the election is being held on Tuesday, per USA Today.

It is important to note that Mamdani, a New York State Assemblyman, reportedly declined to sign two different measures, one of which recognized Israel and another that condemned the Holocaust, Breitbart News reported in May.

In addition, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) recently endorsed Mamdani in his run for mayor.