Members of an immigrant business group that has spoken out against Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plans for government-owned supermarkets lately have been getting slapped with fines from the city’s Sanitation Department — and some say it looks like a case of retaliation.
Diana Larrazabal, who owns flower and gift shop Aroma D’ Angel at 304 E. 116th St., said shops including hers in recent months have received a slew of citations from the New York City Department of Sanitation for garbage that isn’t even theirs.
Her flower and gift shop was dinged with fines three times this year — most recently for $350 in May. Many of her Spanish-speaking neighbors who are not bilingual lean on her to help them navigate the city’s red tape, she said, adding that they also are forking over hundreds of dollars in fines.
“It’s definitely more frequent,” Larrazabal said at a Wednesday press conference held by the Multicultural Business Coalition – which sued the mayor and the city on Monday over the city-owned supermarket strategy over fears it will pose unfair competition to their stores.
The coalition’s chairman, Frank Garcia, says the fines ramped up about two weeks ago when the group began pounding the pavement to speak with local business owners to get support for its suit.
“When we started going door to door two weeks ago, that’s when the fines started,” Garcia told The Post, saying some have been served with penalties as stiff as $1,000. “The owners don’t speak English.”
“DSNY issues cleanliness violations in all corners of the city,” a spokesperson for the Sanitation Department said, adding that the city has issued 223 commercial summonses in Harlem since March 1. “Our only goal in issuing violations is to give all New Yorkers the clean streets they deserve.”
Asked about retaliation allegations on Wednesday, Mamdani spokesperson Cassio Mendoza referred to Mamdani’s public comments on Monday, in which he said he is “confident in both the legality of this — that it will stand up in court – and the importance of delivering it.”
MBC held its Wednesday press conference in front of American Deli Mini Mart at East 117th Street and Park Avenue, just two blocks away from La Marqueta at East 115th Street where Mamdani is planning his supermarket.
The store’s owner Elvis Arias pleaded with the mayor on Wednesday to open the city-owned grocery store further north on 125th Street.
“We don’t want the same thing to happen to the community as when Costco opened here and [shops] went out of business,” said Larrazabal, who says she has been advocating for her neighbors for the past six years.
Costco opened a store in East Harlem at East 117th Street and FDR Drive in 2010.
The coalition has been vetting business owners in Harlem and in Hunts Point in the Bronx – where another subsidized grocery store was announced by the mayor – to be named plaintiffs in its lawsuit.
A class-action complaint was filed in New York Supreme Court on Monday with MBC as the lead plaintiff but the nonprofit plans to add more.
Domingo Fernandez, who owns Midtown Fish & Meat Market on Park Avenue and East 116th Street spoke briefly in Spanish at the press conference asking Mamdani to sit down and speak with the local businesses.
He’s owned the market since 2012 and works seven days a week, including 12 hour days during the week.
“My store is doing well enough to pay my bills,” he told The Post. “But if that store goes in there, I’m afraid I’ll lose business.”
Fernandez said he has not recently been fined by the Sanitation Department.
Arias, for his part, told The Post last week that he would likely need a license to sell tobacco in order to compete with the city-owned grocery store.
“I’m lucky I have the beer!” he told The Post. “They won’t have beer over there.”