Arias has asked<\/a> the mayor to move the proposed supermarket farther north toward 125th Street. He also told the New York Post he might need a tobacco license to compete with the city store, while pointing to another product he believes could keep customers coming to his bodega.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m lucky I have the beer!\u201d Arias told the Post. \u201cThey won\u2019t have beer over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Domingo Fernandez, who has operated Midtown Fish & Meat Market near Park Avenue and East 116th Street since 2012, told the New York Post that a city supermarket near his business could take a bite out of his bottom line.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy store is doing well enough to pay my bills,\u201d Fernandez told the Post. \u201cBut if that store goes in there, I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll lose business.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fight over Mamdani\u2019s grocery plan has also expanded into accusations of increased sanitation enforcement against some immigrant-owned businesses involved in the opposition.<\/p>\n
Diana Larrazabal, owner of Aroma D\u2019 Angel flower and gift shop on East 116th Street, told the Post that her business received three sanitation fines this year, including a $350 fine in May.<\/p>\n
She said some citations involved garbage that did not belong to her business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely more frequent,\u201d Larrazabal told the Post.<\/p>\n
Fernandez has not recently received a sanitation fine, according to the Post.<\/p>\n
Frank Garcia, chairman of the MBC, said sanitation citations increased after coalition members began going door-to-door seeking support for the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started going door to door two weeks ago, that\u2019s when the fines started,\u201d Garcia told the Post.<\/p>\n
Garcia said some business owners had received penalties as high as $1,000 and noted that some of the owners do not speak English.<\/p>\n
The New York City Department of Sanitation denied the retaliation allegations.<\/p>\n
A department spokesperson told the Post that \u201cDSNY issues cleanliness violations in all corners of the city,\u201d adding that the city had issued 223 commercial summonses in Harlem since March 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur only goal in issuing violations is to give all New Yorkers the clean streets they deserve,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Mamdani has defended both the legality and purpose of his grocery initiative, arguing that city-run stores would represent only a small portion of New York City\u2019s overall grocery market.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about delivering five city-run grocery stores in a city of eight and a half million people that has more than 1,000 grocery stores,\u201d Mamdani said, according to CNN.<\/p>\n
Mamdani also said he was \u201cfully confident in both the legality and the importance of our initiative,\u201d according to Fox News.<\/p>\n
The mayor has pointed to existing city-supported markets in Manhattan and Brooklyn as examples of a similar model that he says has not negatively affected surrounding bodegas. CNN reported that those markets operate through the city\u2019s Economic Development Corporation, which leases city-owned properties to private vendors at below-market rates and covers certain operational costs.<\/p>\n
The MBC argues that the city should find another way to help struggling New Yorkers without creating a subsidized competitor to neighborhood businesses.<\/p>\n
Jaffe told CNN that the coalition believes there is an alternative to the proposed stores, saying, \u201cThere is a better way to feed the struggling people of New York City,\u201d Jaffe told CNN. \u201cWe have seen no business plan, this is just a marquee store that will allow the mayor to say he kept a campaign promise, so we are asking the judge to stop this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges the city failed to adequately study how the proposed grocery stores could affect existing businesses and neighborhood needs.<\/p>\n
La Marqueta could be one of the initiative\u2019s most ambitious pieces, but it won\u2019t serve East Harlem shoppers anytime soon.<\/p>\n
The 9,000-square-foot grocery store planned for La Marqueta will be built from the ground up and is not expected to open until 2029, according to the NYCEDC.<\/p>\n
The project will receive $30 million of the city\u2019s $70 million capital budget for the five-store initiative.<\/p>\n
NYCEDC is accepting proposed sites in those boroughs through an online portal, with potential locations required to meet minimum requirements for retail space, accessibility and a timeline that allows a grocery store to open by Dec. 31, 2029.<\/p>\n
NYCEDC says the locations are being selected based on the need to reach New Yorkers consistently, sustain operations and deliver real affordability over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minority and immigrant-owned businesses in Manhattan are suing Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing that his plan to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,123691,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-345259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-grocers","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","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\/345259","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=345259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}