City-owned grocery stores were one of the proposals on the affordability platform that helped Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani win New York City\u2019s recent mayoral election. <\/p>\n
Prices at the stores would be lower, the thinking goes<\/a>, because they\u2019d operate in city-owned spaces, so they wouldn\u2019t have to pay rent or property taxes. Other cities have tried using public funds to open grocery stores, to mixed results.<\/p>\n If you take rent, property taxes, and the need to earn profits out of the equation, Nevin Cohen of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute said that supermarkets can cut costs for consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cSome estimates are that a public supermarket could shave 5% to 10% off the retail price,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cohen noted that the commissaries the Department of Defense runs operate along similar lines and offer groceries for 15% to 25% less than commercial supermarkets.<\/p>\n But there could be a long-term cost to the city, argued Stephen Zagor at Columbia Business School: \u201cA government-owned supermarket is a mission-driven business. At best, maybe they’ll break even, but it’s probably not likely. So there would be an ongoing subsidy \u2014\u00a0just like that mail system is subsidized<\/a>, just like Amtrak is subsidized<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea has a mixed record. A city-backed grocery store in Kansas City, Missouri, closed its doors earlier this year<\/a> after almost 10 years of municipal investment. Customer traffic at the store had reportedly collapsed due to crime in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n