{"id":154302,"date":"2026-03-05T18:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/154302\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T18:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:26:07","slug":"nyc-mayors-70m-request-for-city-run-grocery-is-a-wasted-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/154302\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC mayor\u2019s $70M request for city-run grocery is a wasted effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he needed $70 million to launch his city-run grocery store program, even as the city faces a $5.4 billion budget gap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Mamdani has not provided details on how the city would operate the five grocery stores\u2014one in each borough\u2014other than saying the city would offer subsidies to private businesses. The stores would not pay property taxes or rent to help keep prices down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">We posed the question on LinkedIn: Do you think Mamdani will get his $70 million for city-run grocery stores? An overwhelming majority\u201486%\u2014said no, and many comments pointed to the fact that city-run grocery stores simply do not work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">\u201cThe grocery business has crazy low margins when you know what you\u2019re doing. I can\u2019t imagine the losses when you don\u2019t,\u201d said John C. \u201cYou\u2019re better off taking the money and giving it to people who live in a food desert for free delivery from outside the area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-component=\"related-article\" class=\"RelatedArticle\">Related:<a class=\"RelatedArticle-RelatedContent\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supermarketnews.com\/grocery-trends-data\/the-retail-daily-podcast\" target=\"_self\" data-discover=\"true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Retail Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">\u201cOh, he\u2019ll probably get the money \u2026 but it won\u2019t work,\u201d said Craig B. \u201cLike others have said, it\u2019s a low-margin business that requires very large-scale operations to survive. Or charge 20% more for everything. And if food deserts are the problem \u2026 help deter retail theft \u2026 you may find stores will gladly stay in the area, along with lower property tax rates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">\u201cJust imagine how much better that money would be used by a private grocery firm,\u201d wrote David F. \u201cThe economic illiteracy coming out of the country\u2019s financial capital is astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">\u201cAsk Chicago about city-run grocery stores,\u201d said Larry E. \u201cThey\u2019ll burn through that $70 million and come back asking for a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he needed $70 million to launch his city-run grocery&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-154302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}