{"id":239945,"date":"2026-05-21T23:22:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T23:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239945\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T23:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T23:22:42","slug":"what-we-know-about-mamdanis-first-planned-city-owned-grocery-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239945\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Know About Mamdani\u2019s First Planned City-Owned Grocery Stores"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">City officials have pointed to both rising costs and persistent food insecurity in East Harlem site as reasons why the site was selected.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pushback against Mamdani\u2019s plans<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">As Mamdani has moved forward with enacting his promise to build city-owned grocery stores, critics of the plan have begun mobilizing to oppose it.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">One organization, the Multicultural Business Coalition, is raising funds to support public opposition efforts and legal challenges aimed at blocking or delaying the city-owned stores and signaled that it may initiate such legal action itself.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">\u201cThis is a waste of our tax dollars,\u201d Frank Garcia, the group\u2019s chairman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/18\/nyregion\/mamdani-grocery-store-bronx-hunts-point.html\" title=\"undefined\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told<\/a> the Times, arguing that the city should instead pursue subsidies or other mechanisms to reduce prices rather than launching stores that he contended would compete directly with private grocers in already competitive, low-profit retail markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Bodega owners, many of whom operate on thin profit margins, have similarly voiced concern that city-run sites could undercut neighborhood businesses that have long served as informal food anchors in working-class communities, warning of potential job losses and store closures if the model expands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City officials have pointed to both rising costs and persistent food insecurity in East Harlem site as reasons&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,5296,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-239945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news-desk","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239945","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=239945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}