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How much will NYC’s city-owned grocery stores cost to run? Is this a better use of taxpayer dollars than fixing schools and fighting fentanyl?



Photo above - The Big Promiski, Hey dude, you're in luck - Future NYC Mayor Mamdani plans to open government run supermarkets, to solve the affordable grocery crisis.

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani thinks the city should build a bunch of supermarkets and staff them with city employees (see link below.) Because city employees like teachers and police have absolutely nailed their duties, and the city is ready to conquer strange new worlds like coffee, and beef inflation.

City owned grocery stores will undoubtedly feature higher wages, lower prices, and no coca cola (giant soft drinks are already banned at city movie theaters.) This campaign promise isn’t about prices and wages though. There are “food deserts” in NYC – places where legitimate supermarket chains fear to tread. Mamdani has promised to rush in and fix all that.

The problem – according to greedy corporations – is rampant shoplifting, drug dealing night and day at the corner, and homeless encampments on sidewalks blocking the entrance. Of course, Mamdani has discovered some clever hack to solve all this, right? Stand by for details.

Nobody knows how many city owned grocery stores are planned. What the prices will be, and how much all those new municipal workers there will be paid. I expect their pay will include healthcare from day one, a city pension plan, and the “can’t get fired unless you’re convicted of a felony” clause– the same deal most teachers have, In any case, the eventual taxpayer cost of "Gotham Groceries.gov" is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside of an enigma. We need to trust the government on this one. Whatever this ends up costing, it will be paid for by higher taxes on corporations, millionaires, and landlords. I’m sure they have no plans to move away.

Candidate Mamdani - sincerely - deserves credit here. He's trotting out a tried and true, very sophisticated political playbook. Step one - Identify the most important things to single issue voters. Step two - promise to fix them, Step 3 - announce details will follow later.

Mamdani will also freeze all rents (hurrah!) make all buses free, offer free municipal child care, in addition to opening all those new grocery stores. If – as a new yorker – you don’t feel rent and childcare is outrageously expensive, then you must already be a millionaire.

We know this sort of campaign chicanery works, because voters always buy into it, year after year. Things like building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. Cancelling all student loan debt. A health program that cuts your cost in half, and solves the national debt problem at the same time. Bring high paying factory jobs back to America by imposing a 100% tariff on whichever nation gets hit next on the dart board. Solve global warming with Tesla subsidies.

If you believed any of those promises, you’re not evil - just a typical American. You should migrate to New York City, vote for Mamdani, and enjoy your free childcare, affordable housing and clean, crime-free paradise. Somebody else will pay for it. You only need to have faith.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



Breaking down Zohran Mamdani's proposals by the numbers: What has he planned and how much will it cost
SusanInFlorida
31-35, F
43 replies 52 views 2 days ago2 d
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justanothername · 51-55, M
@jshm2 Well said.
FTR grocery stores of any size have very small profit margins on their products. They would be lucky to make 5% margin on individual sales. As a general rule they would make it up on volume sales aka you go to your local grocery store and fill up your grocery cart with multiple grocery items on each visit. In order to be profitable grocery stores need to be open long hours and every day of the week and have consistent high volume traffic . Fortunately groceries are a necessity of life.
I hear you say..but but but my grocery bill is still expensive! That’s because the wholesale cost of those products keeps rising because of government tariffs.

@susaninflorida
Fun fact. Blue states provide 100% of federal funds for the government. California provides 80% of government funds.
Red states take federal handouts from the government in order to survive.

If it wasn’t for blue states red states would go broke.
+ 3 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d · Edited: 1 day ago
SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F
@justanothername a municipal grocery store - once it's opened - won't exist to make profits. it will primarily be a re-election stunt for whoever is present at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

public schools, police departments, fire engines, and snowplows don't generate a profit either. municipal grocery stores could become an expensive entitlement.
+ 2 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
justanothername · 51-55, M
@SusanInFlorida All grocery stores exist to provide a living for their owner operators, but, as I previously stated their profit margins are very low. Some make 1-2% on each item which means they don’t always survive for long especially if they get hit with rent increases.

Please provide proof of a municipal store that you know off that was only set up as a publicity stunt.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40
If you believe that nonsense for one second you should be ineligible to draw a cross on a piece of paper.
To make your prices affordable you need one thing to start and that is pure buying power. Where you can negotiate what you are willing to pay the manufacturer/producer of the food and goods you are selling.
The second is if you control the supply chain yourself all the way from farm or factory yourself in different entities to the entity that owns the stores selling the goods. That way you can control your prices you pay along the supply chain and relocate your profits in the process. If you are clever you even supply your competitors shops of course at a higher price so they are less competitive price wise.
How to steal the foot fall keep your basic commodities like bread, milk, eggs, vegetables and so on low as a whole where you make a small profit but sell a whole lot of it.
Have a lucky customer incentive where one of your customers will walk out with their shopping for free that day.
Look at your demographics and what luxuries they buy and target for specials according to the time of year.

Keep management structure both outside (head office) and in the stores themselves to a small but effective and efficient structure and put the staffing where it needs to be for the customer on the sales floor on the tills, replenishing the shelves etc.
Structure your stock in the store to suit what you sell on that area.

Oh and incentivize the staff with the opportunity of promotion within the company as well as occasional well done bonus unexpectedly in their pay packet for making that store function and make it profitable (make them feel like they are partners with you and that together you benefit from it).

Would I open stores in problematic areas yes but I am going to stomp all over those that think they are going to be a nuisance. Try sleeping in my doorway and you get a rude awakening with a bucket full of ice cold water it's policy to clean the door way prior to opening. Try shoplifting and you will find out it is stupid to do it here. Get the public on your side with a nice but basic store and believe it or not they soon get used to having the convenience of it and they don't want a few low life to spoil that especially if it is nicely priced.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d · Edited: 1 day ago
Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40
@joe438 I already operate some stores in another location non US with a business partner with that format very successfully.
I am not throwing water we are cleaning the door way so it is nice and clean for the customers.
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
joe438 · 61-69, M
@Avectoijesuismoi we have plenty of rude homeless in Boston who would block and foul up entrances, and plenty of considerate ones who try not to be a nuisance. Rude/polite people come in all socioeconomic groups. I do like the idea of using water to discourage camping out.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 15 hrs ago15 h
Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40
@joe438 They actually learn very quickly it is better to go sleep someplace else. Having said that in the stores that business partner and I have if we have cooked food and other stuff that can be safely used it is used to feed homeless and less fortunate people and not put in the dustbin but it is done in an organised way.
It actually builds relationships with the community and you get loyalty, homeless people see an awful lot that goes on some of them actually can given the chance become very valued employees. We employed a young woman in one place that is actually now our "homeless internal investigator", she has caught many a internal thief"
I go outside the box very frequently.

As far as rude part I fully agree and include myself in it, I don't think there is one single person on that planet that has not been rude at some point in life, and unfortunately there is even sometimes a requirement to do it to get things done.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 10 hrs ago10 h · Edited: 9 hrs ago
PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M
A couple of things. Fentanyl is a distraction. Particularly for the Trump gang. An excuse to get away with literally anything. And trying a failed strategy that has failed for 50 years is not going to change that. A war on drugs is about as useful as setting money on fire with about the same results.


Greedy corporations will be forced to pay people good wages and lower prices to compete. And the US has a national food desert issue. You can literally starve to death in most American suburbs if you don't have access to a car.


The shoplifting is and always has been connected to increases in poverty and food insecurity. Nobody steals a loaf of bread for kicks.

And I see you are still going with the cliche that unions only protect lazy workers.

And if the rich get taxed good. They have been coddled for far too long. The US is not a monarchy. Act accordingly.


Tariffs are a whole separate unrelated issue that have nothing to do with municipal government.

And Mamdani is a actual socialist so these are not just lines.

Crime free doesn't exist and never has. But if the number of cops had anything to do with it 25 000 NYPD cops are dead weight already if correlation equalled causation based on those assumptions.

The GTA has roughly the same population, 5000 cops and lower crime.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
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SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F
@jshm2 i look forward to your link authenticating which "western countries" have already instituted government run grocery stores.

the last i read about one of those, it was in the soviet union.
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
exchrist · 36-40
Actually nyc funds its schools and infrastructure fairly well but just before funds are committed the fed rescinds its commitments and projects get stalled. That’s a national phenomena. Additionally fentanyl is not a new problem and again is the result of empty federal promises and misappropriation of funding. Mostly
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 23 hrs ago23 h
joe438 · 61-69, M
You summed that up perfectly. The millionaires will leave the city limits so the money for this utopia come from the working middle class who won't be able to pay it. The high shoplifting rates that drove the stores out of the city in the first place ought to be troubling to Mamdani but as you suggested, he has some magic trick to turn the thieves beck into honest citizens.
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
exchrist · 36-40
Idk. it is wishful thinking; at best. State run grocery stores is a global strategy with limits but some success in other parts of the world. Community gardens is one strategy increases in renewable energy production. Water conservation. Efficiency and scaling back is the road to success and prosperity. Whereas perpetual growth as the only goal is what has gotten us here! Run for the hills. But pray washington dc sinks!
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d · Edited: 23 hrs ago
meJess · F
If the power of the state is used to leverage purchase costs maybe this has some merit. Not easy to forecast, but people need to eat to be able to learn in class.
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 18 hrs ago18 h
Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40
@meJess a state with a few stores doesn't have buying power of big grocery chains, but yes I agree children need to eat to be able to learn and maybe a better angle with that is to provide breakfast at the school for those children
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 18 hrs ago18 h
idontcareok · 70-79, M
in any business, money seems lost, but if the government runs stores in NYC, you can be well assured that money will be stolen, lost, all by the government, like all things run by the state, will be lots of problems ,regarting lost money, at least if run by the company, it is stolen by them, not the buyers
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 16 hrs ago16 h
exchrist · 36-40
Certainly the fed cannot be counted on to provide relief or even remember to help Americans or New Yorkers survive. Instead more military funding the 600 million farm deficit paid for with 3 us military aircraft
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d · Edited: 1 day ago
exchrist · 36-40
@Avectoijesuismoi idk I’ve never run a grocery store. I’m referring to food sale there isn’t much profit from farm to store presumably bc store to consumer doesn’t allow much of a margin?
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 19 hrs ago19 h
Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40
@exchrist there is plenty of profit all the way through a food chain, of there isn't there is mismanagement and or unnecessary overheads.
The idea of grocery retail is to cut your waste down by selling the stuff especially fresh produce before it spoils.
It is better to make a smaller profit and sell all of it than to try and make a big profit and have to throw 30 or more % away because it has gone bad
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 19 hrs ago19 h
exchrist · 36-40
@Avectoijesuismoi to me that seems high risk such that profit is highly uncertain. Idk I want to grow food at some point but it’s a number of years away from even possible
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 17 hrs ago17 h
UnderLockDown · M
Everything run by the government ends in disaster...
+ 1 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
exchrist · 36-40
@UnderLockDown everything run by capitalist government and federal ambitions goes beyond its limits (overextends) then collapses. Agree?
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 21 hrs ago21 h · Edited: 21 hrs ago
wildbill83 · 41-45, M
I guarantee they'll looks like Venezuela's stores...


mostly empty, with a few cheap shit, out of date items that no one wants/buys to begin with...
+ 0 · Reply · Translate · 1 day ago1 d
 
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