Below is an expanded version of my column in the New York Post on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s press conference this week on his planned state-run grocery stores. The plan is a multimillion-dollar version of the $5 gold watch grift. The chumps are New York taxpayers who believe that Mamdani can sell them produce at a discount of 30 percent below the market rate and not lose money. Indeed, this could end up the most expensive produce in the Big Apple.
Here is the column:
Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s short stint as a faux president ended with an embarrassing acknowledgment that he could not, as promised during his campaign, arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
So, this week, Mamdani the Grocer made a reappearance, with details on the five city-run grocery stores that he will open.
But rather than deliver discount groceries, Mamdani is selling New Yorkers a bill of goods that will cost them millions.
What Mamdani described was a discount food bank dressed up as a grocery. Standing in front of blackboards saying “REDUCED 30%,” Mamdani sounded like a bodega hawker: “Once a month, our five city-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks”
Here’s the most delicious part: the presser was a gimmick from beginning to end.
The mayor promised that “The savings will last for the entire month. That means no weekly fluctuations or sticker shock at the checkout line — not for our seniors living on fixed incomes, nor for the parents who rely on a regular supply of apple slices to keep toddler tantrums at bay.”
The Mamdani markets are new variations of an old New York grift: selling gold watches for $5. The dupes want to believe that somehow this street vendor, surreptitiously displaying watches inside his overcoat, actually found a way to sell “solid gold watches” for just a few bucks.
The math simply does not add up for Mamdani. Most groceries have an average profit margin between 1% and 3%, one of the smallest margins of any industry.
To promise a 30% discount below market rate that cannot be adjusted due to monthly market fluctuations is economically absurd.
It is not a description of a competitive grocery but a public charity. It is a quasi-food bank where taxpayers subsidize the cost.
As usual, Mamdani turns this into a class war, demonizing business owners. He suggests that real grocery stores are simply price gougers hoarding windfall profits from consumers. He ignores that they must pay rent, upkeep and fees — all things the city-run stores may simply write off.
He proclaimed, “May the most affordable grocery store win.”
Of course, the test is not which grocery is the most affordable, but which is the most sustainable. If you are willing to take a bath on sales, you can always offer the most affordable prices for as long as your excess cash holds out.
In Mamdani’s case, he has the credit of New York City to draw on to compete against Mom-and-Pop bodegas.
The subsidy, however, is only part of the costs. The average bodega owner must cover the fixed costs of renting a space, building the store, and complying with inspectors. Those are the fixed costs that must be internalized into the cost of produce to break even.
Real stores are competing in one of the tightest markets in the world and are grappling with a 33% nationwide increase in costs since 2019. Mamdani wants to use the stores to prove that socialism works as part of his effort to introduce New York to the “warmth of socialism.” We may never know the real costs of the Mamdani markets.
According to the New York Post, the city plans to open an East Harlem location as its first store, at a reported cost of $30 million.
However, that is not the full cost. The Post also reported that the city had already appropriated $25 million to improve the first site. The city will lose millions that could have been acquired through a sale of the land or through rents to private companies. Those costs are left on other ledgers and not likely counted in the true costs of the Mamdani markets.
The first store will not even open until 2027 despite the props behind Mamdani. The second Manhattan store will not open until 2029. That is three years and tens of millions of dollars for just the first two stores.
That is how Mamdani is promising New Yorkers savings of “$90 a month, or roughly $1,000 a year.” He is using the city to subsidize food under the guise of selling at low, but still profitable prices. Ironically, those who can take advantage of the subsidy at the first two stores in Manhattan will be anyone, including the privileged, wealthy New Yorkers whom Mamdani denounces for not paying their fair share. After all, everyone wants below-market-priced slices in the Big Apple.
The first city-run grocery, in East Harlem, will cost $30 million to build — and perhaps more. It will never need to pay this money back nor factor it into its prices. The “warmth of socialism” will cover it; that is, you.
In reality, Mamdani will be selling apples at a far greater cost than any competitor, but those true costs will be buried in the city budget and paid for by the taxpayers.
Indeed, the Mamdani markets are likely to prove the most expensive groceries in the city.
Mamdani, however, has never sweated the math or the means. He knows that the focus will be on the cash register price and not the true cost.
Of course, there is a big difference between the gold watch grift and the Mamdani grift: buying a knockoff watch only costs chumps a few bucks. The Mamdani con will cost New Yorkers millions, and most will thank him for it.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Excellent article. people should remember the hidden costs when discussing how “affordable” socialized healthcare is. the cost that the government “pays” is never the cost.
you’re leaving out an important component here. this scheme will be a huge target for fraud. the Somalis are already lining up. they will drain the stores of inventory every day and truck it over to Fort Lee to make a 20% profit and still undercut the Fort Lee groceries by 10%. What’s left of the mob probably has their own schemes. What fraction of this government spending will actually make it to the people it is intended to help? typical progressive stupidity.
One cannot expect the mouth-breathing MAGA acolytes that suck on Turley’s teat to understand, but one would like to think that Turley himself would understand that socialism does not equal communism, and that he would therefore stop illustrating his tedious click-bait nonsense with Soviet era communist posters. You Yanks have no understanding of either socialism or communism; I dislike socialism, but would have fought and died against communism. A little history lesson for you: in 1946, long before the USA woke up to the post-WW2 threat posed by Stalin, it was the democratic socialist government of Clement Attlee in Britain that realised communism needed to be fought, and that Stalin regarded democratic socialists such as the British Labour party as the most dangerous threat, precisely because they were living proof that socialist principles could be pursued without forsaking democracy or embracing authoritarianism. The difference between someone like Attlee and Stalin was as great as between true Republicans like Reagan, the Bushes, or McCain, and RINOs like Trump.
As we all know, this is just another play on the same old plot, another scheme, another opportunity, for Democrats to divert funds and enrich themselves. We all know, absolutely, this will happen. The goods themselves? Inner city folks will rob them blind, emptying shelves faster than any city worker can restock them. And they will not be prosecuted, nor should they be, since the goods already belong to Joe Public.
I honestly don’t see how this can pass constiutional muster.
Mamdani’s grocery store idea has merit. Because it is modeled after a successful one in Kansas. It’s odd how many are criticizing it before it is even in operation. It means many are more afraid of succeeding and therefore attack it before it gets a chance to prove it works.
I don’t think the Mamdani grocery stores will ever happen at all. Think this through.
What is Mamdani’s real goal? Obviously higher office, since mayors normally don’t talk about foreign policy. He will challenge Chucko in 2028, before the NY voters get sick of him. Mamdani is smart enough to know that city owned grocery stores will be a disaster. There will be delays in this first store, Mamdani will accuse some boogeyman of impeding his plans and run against that. He will run on his clever pied a terre tax which will be successful in smoking out hundreds of thousands of wealthy NYC tax evaders (Most so-called “non-residents” who own NYC property are actually living in the property, but claim residency elsewhere to evade onerous NY City income tax and other city taxes. This is the real purpose of pied a terre, and why it is so clever. NYC property owners are caught in a catch 22 – either prove residency and be liable for back income tax, or pay the new tax.). When he challenges Chucko for the Senate in 2028, he will win easily.
Oh yes. One more thing. Gigi forgot again: Laken Riley’s blood calls out for you, to you, as you feign concern for your fellow Americans. And the wind cries Laken.
I’m selling mansions for one buck. No tricks. No gimmicks. No need. You will pay Uncle Sam all the money necessary so I can afford to offer the less fortunate mansions for a dollar.
I’M A GENIUS!
Where, in the condemned areas of Detroit?
Hmm the equal protection of laws could apply to the items sold for 30% discount by a government. Are they gonna play favorites with their cheaper food? Gatekeep by income, location, etc? I want my government-supplied discounted food too! Doesn’t EVERYBODY? This is not gonna work.
No, the equal protection clause would not apply in any way.
No, they’re not going to play favorites, but if they did the equal protection clause would not prevent it. Such a store could have a policy restricting customers to those below a certain income, or who live in certain zip codes. It won’t, at least for now, but no law would prevent it, and certainly the 14A would not.
That’s because it would be a business, not a law enforcement agency. Everyone is entitled to the equal protection of the law, not to equal treatment by government-owned businesses.