{"id":397395,"date":"2026-07-14T02:11:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T02:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397395\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T02:11:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T02:11:45","slug":"vacant-grocery-store-tax-polls-well-but-in-peril-says-mahmood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397395\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacant grocery store tax polls well but in peril, says Mahmood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood shared a poll with Mission Local today showing that his proposal to tax large companies that hold leases for vacant grocery stores or pharmacies<\/a> is a winner with San Franciscans: 61 percent approve.<\/p>\n

But those voters may not get a chance to weigh in on the legislation this November. Supervisor Connie Chan decided last week not to schedule a hearing on Mahmood\u2019s legislation. With the late-July deadline to make the ballot fast approaching, Mahmood\u2019s measure may not make it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chan shelved the legislation, she said, because she thought it needed more work before going up for a vote. Mahmood claimed that Chan pulled it after a conversation with Mayor Daniel Lurie, which their offices denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know this is popular, they know this is going to pass if it makes it to the ballot,\u201d Mahmood said about his proposed tax. \u201cI\u2019m disappointed that they would try political interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Lurie is working to bring grocery stories to San Francisco\u2019s communities. More taxes won\u2019t achieve that,\u201d spokesperson Charles Lutvak said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood also blamed lobbying from Amazon for Lurie and Chan\u2019s opposition, though both denied that Amazon lobbied them. Amazon holds a lease for a Whole Foods at 8th and Market that has been vacant since 2023. If the tax passes and Amazon cannot fill the storefront, they would have to pay about $200,000 under the proposed tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Mahmood, Amazon\u2019s lobbyist David Noyola asked him to either exempt that specific parcel or exempt a larger section of downtown, where the parcel lies, but he declined to do so. Noyola denied that he asked for a specific exemption, telling the San Francisco Standard<\/a> that the business community as a whole wants downtown to be written out.<\/p>\n

Several grocery stores across San Francisco have closed in recent years, and the measure is intended to tackle the resulting food deserts. The Fillmore and Tenderloin, two neighborhoods that Mahmood represents, both do not currently have full-service grocery stores, only small markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood particularly hopes that the tax will change the calculus for \u201czombie stores,\u201d where a company continues to hold a lease after closing a store.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is cheaper for those stores to remain vacant than it is to activate them,\u201d Mahmood said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Missing amendments or legislative ploy?<\/p>\n

Chan\u2019s office said that while the supervisor \u201cagrees with Supervisor Mahmood\u2019s intent for this measure,\u201d it was not ready because Mahmood had yet to send her his amendments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amendments are changes to proposed legislation that shore up inconsistencies in the legislation or address critiques.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood said he had drafts of his amendments ready as of early last week. Several supervisor offices confirmed that they had received them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But having amendments is not typically a pre-condition for a hearing to be scheduled, multiple city hall sources said. New amendments are often brought by supervisors to hearings day-of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood said that when he was speaking with Chan last Thursday about the hearing being canceled, she refused to listen to his amendments. Instead, she told him, \u201cshe agrees with the mayor that there\u2019s too many things on the ballot and there\u2019s too many other taxes.\u201d (There are currently 13 potential measures, five of which are taxes.) Chan\u2019s office denied that she made these remarks and insisted that her decision was because they had not received his amendments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others say that while Mahmood\u2019s measure is ready to be considered by the Board of Supervisors, Mahmood has not built a large enough coalition to back the measure and in fact, an opposition has built.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce thinks that the tax would just penalize companies and would not help fill grocery store vacancies. \u201cWe\u2019ve spoken to every major retailer that would be impacted and they\u2019ve emphasized that there are market conditions, street conditions, new economic realities that have led to stores closing,\u201d said David Harrison, the spokesperson for the Chamber of Commerce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will not keep grocery stores open by taxing them after they close,\u201d said Nate Rose, the vice president of communications for the California Grocers Association.<\/p>\n

Even the city\u2019s labor unions are lukewarm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Labor Council said they had not had in-depth conversations with Mahmood about the proposed measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are still in support of the legislation, it is clear there is not enough support and there is not the coalition necessary to pass an ambitious policy like this,\u201d said Jim Araby, the director of strategic campaigns for UFCW, a labor union that represents grocery store workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood, for his part, said that he has gained the support of food justice advocacy groups, neighborhood groups, and some labor unions and also worked with business advocates to address their concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is still a narrow path to the ballot. Mahmood must convince a subcommittee of the Board to vote in favor of holding a hearing in front of the entire Board of Supervisors. Then, he must win the approval of a majority (six) of his colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tax measure is one part of Mahmood\u2019s \u201cAffordable Groceries Act<\/a>.\u201d The other pieces include an ordinance that cuts taxes for new pharmacies, an ordinance that makes it quicker and easier to replace a shuttered pharmacy or grocery store, and a second November ballot measure to create a fund for programs that bring cheaper groceries to the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood\u2019s poll was carried out by David Binder Research, a reputable pollster, and surveyed 400 likely voters in San Francisco\u2019s November election. It has an error rate of 4 percent.<\/p>\n

Mahmood said his goal is for fresh produce and groceries to be available within walking distance for all San Franciscans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOftentimes walking more than 1 or 2 blocks is impossible\u201d for children and seniors, he said. \u201cEven taking a bus carrying a load of groceries is frankly not a situation we should expect any San Franciscan to have to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Supervisor Bilal Mahmood shared a poll with Mission Local today showing that his proposal to tax large companies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[49115,4752,8670,636,413,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-397395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bilal-mahmood","tag-city-hall","tag-connie-chan","tag-daniel-lurie","tag-food","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}