An immigrant-led business group is gearing up to sue New York City over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial plan to open five taxpayer-funded supermarkets — claiming the $70 million project will create unfair competition for nearby stores, The Post has learned.
As the far-left mayor announced new details of his plan this week — including a 30% discount on basic items like produce, meat, milk, cheese and bread – the Multicultural Business Coalition’s board voted to file a lawsuit in the coming weeks to block the pricey initiative, the group’s chairman Frank Garcia told The Post.
“The mayor doesn’t seem to want to sit down with us,” Garcia said, adding that Mamdani “won’t be able to bully these lawyers we are going to bring in.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MBC — formed earlier this year to create a unified front against Mamdani’s grocery policy — includes 50 chambers of commerce representing Asian, African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Jewish-owned businesses in New York.
The nonprofit MBC plans to raise $1 million to fight some of the mayor’s initiatives, Garcia said, adding that the suit “should be a non-partisan initiative.” The group plans to send a letter in the coming days notifying Mamdani’s office of its plans to take legal action.
The funds will go toward the lawsuit and efforts to raise awareness about the plight of its mom-and-pop shop members, many of whom struggle to secure capital, fend off shoplifters and keep up with rising costs including rent and taxes.
Garcia declined to go into detail about the specific allegations in the forthcoming suit.
Several groups and prominent individuals, including conservative think tanks and politicians – whom Garcia declined to identify – oppose the mayor’s socialist agenda and have offered funding and assistance to MBC.
MBC and other groups representing thousands of grocery stores and bodegas including the National Supermarket Association gripe that the city is pursuing the government-run supermarkets regardless of whether they hurt existing stores in lower-income areas that are already feeling major financial pressures.
In particular, they have pointed to five bodegas within just a few blocks of the city-run stored planned for East Harlem, in the space known as La Marqueta.
Some of those Harlem store owners fear they will be put out of business when customers discover the cheaper prices at Mamdani’s stores – which will not pay rent because they will be built on municipal property, according to the mayor’s office.
“Having items that sell for 30% less than our prices, means nobody will go to our stores,” Radhames Rodriguez, president of the United Bodegas of America told The Post.
Since Mamdani announced his grocery-store plan earlier this year, city officials have met in private with small business leaders. But the confabs — in which businessmen were asked for details about their best-selling items — only heightened the grocers’ concerns, as The Post previously reported.
The mayor says shoppers won’t be able to find hot food or other common bodega staples like alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets at the city-run stores.
“We are not looking to compete with bodegas or grocery stores when it comes to their ability to survive,” he said at a Monday press conference touting his shops, the first of which is scheduled to open next year in the Bronx.
