New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used one of former President Ronald Reagan’s most well-known quotes to announce another Big Apple-run grocery store.
“He famously said, ’The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ It’s a good quote, but I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually, ’I worked all day and can’t feed my family,’” Mr. Mamdani said Monday.
While Reagan was cautioning about the dangers of big government, Mr. Mamdani was presenting his promise to open the city’s first government-run grocery stores as Americans face increasing costs for everyday goods. He championed such projects as a “grand experiment” to fight soaring food prices during his campaign.
“When government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind time and again, it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today,” Mr. Mamdani said. “It’s not just that government can help, it’s that government must help, and our government will help.”
Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said Mr. Mamdani “flipped Ronald Reagan’s warning upside down [and] his answer is government-run grocery stores that will use taxpayer advantages to undercut private competition.”
The mayor said Monday that the city’s first municipal grocery store, a 20,000-square-foot project, will open sometime in 2027 in a massive affordable housing development in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx. He said last month that a 9,000-square-foot store at the La Marqueta marketplace in East Harlem is anticipated to open in 2029.
Those are two of his five promised stores. Mr. Mamdani has allocated $70 million to develop one in each borough, launching an online portal for potential grocery store sites in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, all of which must be up and running by 2029.
Even though the mayor said the stores “will serve as physical proof of our conviction that government can be a force for good, that government can drive change that improves people’s lives” and the projects have loyal supporters, others disagree.
A spokesman for the United Bodegas of America said it will hurt small businesses rather than offer a solution.
“You can’t serve eight million people with five locations. You can serve eight million people if you work out a deal with the existing businesses,” the spokesman, Fernando Mateo, said in a statement to CBS News.
He added that the projects are “going to hurt us more than what they’re gonna help,” defending bodega owners who “work on pennies on the dollar. What we need is help from you, mayor. Not competition.”
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.