{"id":63559,"date":"2026-04-16T17:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=63559"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:27:00","slug":"the-staggering-cost-of-free-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=63559","title":{"rendered":"The Staggering Cost Of Free Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, The New York Post<\/a> posted an article about New York City’s first city-owned grocery store.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Zo\u2019s cheap groceries will cost taxpayers a pretty penny.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0first-unveiled city-owned grocery store<\/a>\u00a0will cost\u00a0a staggering\u00a0$30 million to build from the ground up at East Harlem\u2019s longstanding La Marqueta, officials confirmed\u00a0\u2013 as local grocers worried it\u2019d gobble up their business.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new grocery at the\u00a0 longstanding city-owned La Marqueta marketplace will run with a yet-to-be-picked operator reaping the benefits of a rent- and tax-free deal, City Hall officials told The Post on Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mamdani envisions that the low-cost deal \u2014 which he anounced during a Sunday celebration of his first 100 days in office -\u2013 will allow the grocery\u2019s operator to pass on savings to hardscrabble New Yorkers reeling from foodstuff sticker shock, but neighboring grocer Abdul Shaher had doubts about its efficiency based on the exorbitant $30 million upfront cost.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow can they manage something like that? A small supermarket?\u201d said Shaher, who owns and manages Healthy Choice near La Marqueta, laughing with disbelief.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article notes:<\/p>\n

Opening five city-owned grocery stores in each borough was one of Mamdani\u2019s marquee affordability promises during his successful run for mayor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His proposal drew\u00a0dire warnings of \u201cSoviet\u201d-style markets<\/a>\u00a0forcing private businesses to shutter, with billionaire owner\u00a0John Catsimatidis threatening to close or sell<\/a>\u00a0his Gristedes chain if Mamdani was elected.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other critics argued that municipal markets in other places \u2013 notably a\u00a0barren city-owned grocery<\/a>\u00a0in Kansas City, Missouri \u2013 had struggled and\u00a0closed<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An undaunted Mamdani pointed to toward several successful government-owned groceries, such as\u00a0one in St. Paul, Kansas<\/a>, a community of roughly 600 people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

New York City arguably has a similar effort already in effect:\u00a0six public retail markets<\/a>, including La Marqueta.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the privately-owned grocery stores and markets leave New York City because they can’t compete with the city-owned grocery, that will be one more section of the tax base that New York City loses. At one point all businesses will leave the city due to the cost of doing business. How long will it take for the voters to wake up? Will they wake up before the city fails?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, The New York Post posted an article about New York City’s first city-owned grocery store. The article reports: Zo\u2019s cheap groceries will cost taxpayers a pretty penny. Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0first-unveiled city-owned grocery store\u00a0will cost\u00a0a staggering\u00a0$30 million to build … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19374,18962,8321],"class_list":["post-63559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-city-owned-grocery-store","tag-new-york-city-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-the-new-york-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63560,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63559\/revisions\/63560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}