Immigrants Sue Mamdani Over ‘Disastrous’ Government-Owned Grocery Store Plan

Immigrant grocery store owners are suing democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over his plan to open government-run supermarkets, arguing the mayor’s move will run them out of business.

The Multicultural Business Coalition (MBC), which is comprised of immigrant-run businesses, filed two lawsuits Monday, including one representing “hundreds” of grocers who are “members of groups historically discriminated against,” according to The New York Post. The city plans to open the first of five supermarkets next year.

MBC’s president Ken Roldan called the city’s plan “a direct assault on minority business by a mayor who claims to be a champion of disenfranchised poor and working-class New Yorkers.”

On Monday, Mamdani defended the proposal, saying he is “fully confident in both the legality and the importance of our initiative,” according to Fox Business.

The second lawsuit alleges that the taxpayer-funded stores raise similar concerns surrounding the previous plans to open Walmarts in the Big Apple, which never came to fruition, the outlet reported. Opponents of Walmart’s New York City expansion argued that the store would similarly put small storefronts out of business.

The immigrant grocers also alleged that the city “failed to study the discriminatory effects” of the planned stores on family-owned bodegas and supermarkets run by Hispanics, Arabs, and Asians, according to The New York Post. The lawsuit asks that the city be forced to conduct such a study.

“My grandfather opened up one of the first bodegas in the late 1960s when East Harlem was burning, and the A&Ps and Waldbaums were leaving,” MBC Chairman Frank Garcia said. “He established the first Latino Grocery Association to protect the rights of immigrant store owners. I am proud to be following up in his tradition because what Mayor Mamdani is doing is disgracing his memory.”

Jairo Guzman, president of the NY State Mexican Chamber of Commerce, called the immigrant-run bodegas “New York City’s great mosaic,” and said that “Mayor Mamdani needs to withdraw his disastrous plan and work with us to find different ways to bolster and sustain what so many (New York City) immigrants have created.”

“The Puerto Ricans were the bodega pioneers and they were followed by the Dominicans, the Arabs, the Koreans, the Chinese, and finally, my Mexican business members,” Guzman said.

Mamdani has pledged that the offerings at the government-run grocery stores will be marked 30% lower than private retailers. Economists have warned that the plan would lead to supply-chain breakdowns and bare shelves.

“This is LITERALLY how you destroy an economy,” venture capitalist Shaun Maguire recently warned, adding, “This is the story of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Now coming to NYC!”