Government-Run Grocery Stores? These New Yorkers are Skeptical

Zohran Mamdani claims his city-run supermarket proposal would lower prices, but small-business owners and their customers see it as a dubious and costly proposition.

Zohran Mamdani, who could win New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, believes that creating a network of city-run grocery stores is a good idea. It is proposals like this—bold and headline-grabbing, yet with a certain touch of what The Atlantic has called “magical realism”—that first put him on the public’s radar. But not everyone is impressed, including the business owners and customers I recently spoke with on behalf of City Journal.

Hamza, a business owner who runs Appleton’s Marketplace on West End Avenue, told me he understood the reasoning behind the proposal. “The cost of living is only getting higher,” he said. “If these stores were limited to those on lower incomes, then I’m not necessarily opposed.”

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