> New York supermarkets sue over Mamdani’s municipal grocery stores

Fuq you, price gouging scumbags.  Time to compete.  I thought private ownership was better and public ownership would never work????

Once the Orange man is gone, let's do this nationwide!!  Then repeat it for housing too!

A group of grocers in New York City filed two separate lawsuits on Monday against Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration following the proposal of municipal grocery stores across the Big Apple.

Plaintiffs united under the Multicultural Business Coalition sued Mamdani in state court, alleging their civil rights will be violated if city-run grocery stores are opened.

The second lawsuit alleges Mamdani’s administration didn’t engage in a proper analysis of the impact municipal grocery stores with reduced prices will have on current grocers.

“Plaintiffs have been denied equal protection where the Plaintiffs, predominately immigrant and minority owned grocery stores, are unable to offer similarly discounted products of the NYC-GP, and therefore, the former are being unduly denied the equal protection of the subsidized municipal grocery stores (i.e., NYC-GP), where the Defendants have failed to take corrective action, namely meaningfully study and analysis to avoid furthering historic discriminatory exclusion, and exclusion generally,” the first lawsuit, obtained by Fox Business Network, states.

“Therefore, the Plaintiffs are suffering undue harm,” attorneys for the plaintiffs add.

Grocers, represented by Mark Jaffe, the president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, said the municipal stores offered to “sell food items 30 percent below the market-rate, a rate that rivals or exceeds Walmart discounts,” the second filing obtained by the New York Post states.

For years, grocers within the boundaries of New York City have fought to keep large retailers like Walmart outside the city’s market, afraid an “untold amount of opportunity for minority businesses and small business at large” would be eliminated, the lawsuit states.

Plaintiffs argue the five planned city-run grocery stores set to open next year with $70 million supported by taxpayers would have the same chilling effect.

Once a month the municipal grocery stores will evaluate prices and set the cost for food at 30 percent below retailers.

Mamdani has said he believes the measure will help crush inflation, cut overhead costs and stabilize prices across the city while giving residents more affordable grocery options.

The city will own the land and cover overhead costs like rent and construction while a private operator, selected through a request for proposals, will manage daily operations under a contract, according to Mamdani’s office.

“We are talking about a reflection of a cost-of-living crisis that has seen grocery prices increase by about 30 percent over the last few years, and we’re also talking about delivering five city-run grocery stores in a city of 8.5 million people that has more than a thousand grocery stores,” Mamdani said Monday at a press conference.

“And we’ve seen, in fact, with Essex Street Market in Manhattan, as well as Moore Street Market in Brooklyn, a model where the city has subsidized groceries and it has not had a negative effect on bodegas around them or on grocery stores around them,” he added.

His office and Jaffe did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc … /?tbref=hp