Zohran Mamdani’s “city-run groceries” gambit was always mostly symbolic — even he doesn’t pretend one-store-per-borough will be more than proof of concept — but it’s fast becoming a symbol and sign of how hollow his whole mayoralty could prove.
Last week he at long last unveiled the plan for the first store: He says it will cost $30 million and take nearly three years to build.
That’s 40% of what the mayor had said five groceries would cost — and many times what the private sector spends to build a grocery store in just a few months.
Luiz Rampelotto/ZUMA / SplashNew
As Anthony Pena, president of the National Supermarket Association, told The Post: “Even a high end, gourmet store in the middle of Manhattan wouldn’t cost that much to build.”
(It’ll get worse, too: New York public projects never cost less or finish faster than the initial estimate — they’re almost always over-budget and long-delayed: Don’t bet the store opens before Mamdani’s running for re-election in 2029.)
Worse yet, Mamdani’s already tossed the main point of the exercise — offering food at affordable prices — into the dumpster: Only a core basket of goods will be particularly cheap.
Actually, two main points: Rather than boost food access in under-served areas, this stores going up in a ’hood with at least five others.
A “Potemkin village” is a fake-front display slapped over a grim reality; the grocery debacle suggests Mamdani is offering his fans Potemkin socialism.
That is: “Achievements” posed for TikTok or Instagram so the mayor can wow his affluent, transplant-heavy voter base — while completely failing to make good on his inaugural-speech vow to deliver “safety, affordability, and abundance.”
It’s already a pattern:
- His tax-the-rich vows of income- and corporate-tax hikes have dwindled down to a surtax on pieds-a-terre — a loser for the city overall, but also not the mass-redistribution of a proper socialist.
- His Department of Community Safety will no longer displace the NYPD on many calls; it’s just handing high-paying jobs to a couple of comrades.
- Even his rent freeze will disappoint his base, since it covers only rent-stabilized units — and will likely push up market-rate rents.
- He’s dropped his push to decommission the NYPD gang database and switched sides on expanding “free housing” vouchers.
He’s even cut public-library funding as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations.
Yes, we’re pleased by some of this, especially his retreats from undermining public safety — but Mamdani didn’t run for mayor to make the New York Post happy.
