Immigrant grocers and bodegas sued Mayor Zohran Mamdani over his plan to open five government-owned supermarkets — likening his plans to the devastating competitive threat that would be posed by Walmart coming to New York City.
The Multicultural Business Coalition, which is comprised of 50 chambers of commerce representing ethnically diverse businesses, filed two lawsuits in New York state court on Monday — one of them a seven-page class-action on behalf of “hundreds” of store owners who are “members of groups historically discriminated against.”
The class-action alleges that the business owners’ civil rights will be violated if the municipal stores are allowed to open, according to court papers.
The second suit — a 13-page filing in New York state Supreme Court — claims that the government-owned stores would present problems similar to those posed by Walmart, which has attempted several times to enter the Big Apple without success.
For years, the Arkansas-based discounter has faced fierce opposition from New York politicians, with legislators and labor unions claiming small businesses would be decimated by the retail giant.
The municipal grocery stores “have pledged to sell food items 30% below the market-rate, a rate that rivals or exceeds Walmart discounts,” according to the second filing.
The suit likened the government-owned supermarket plan to “allowing Walmart to operate deep discount business, while bringing ‘affordability’” — claiming that the plan “would eliminate an untold amount of opportunity for minority businesses and small business at large.”
The suit likewise accuses the city and mayor of failing to perform a “proper review” before revealing its plans in July, including a land-use study to determine how the taxpayer-funded stores would affect existing stores nearby.
“There is no extant evidence that the respondents have undertaken any studies and or serious analysis before its current arbitrary site selection,” according to the second filing.
“It is beyond debate that the municipal grocery stores openly compete with the grocery stores at large,” MBC alleges.
MBC was formed earlier this year to oppose the mayor’s plan, which will cost taxpayers $70 million to build. The stores will offer a 30% discount on basic items like produce, meat, milk, cheese and bread. City Hall projects the markdown will save shoppers an average of $90 a month or $1,000 a year.
“My grandfather opened up one of the first bodegas in the late 1960s when East Harlem was burning and the A&Ps and Waldbaums were leaving,” said MBC Chairman Frank Garcia.
“He established the first Latino Grocery Association to protect the rights of immigrant store owners. I am proud to be following up in his tradition because what Mayor Mamdani is doing is disgracing his memory.”
The city “failed to study the discriminatory effects” of the municipal stores on the family-owned bodegas and grocery stores owned by Hispanics, Arabs and Asians, according to the second filing, which asks the court to force the city to perform an economic analysis.
“Make no mistake about this plan,” MBC’s president Ken Roldan said in a statement. “It is a direct assault on minority business by a mayor who claims to be a champion of disenfranchised poor and working-class New Yorkers.”
The lawsuits do not identify the specific businesses that are impacted by the first two announced city-owned stores in East Harlem at La Marqueta and in the Bronx at Hunts Point in the former Spofford Juvenile Detention center. The stores’ locations in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island have not been disclosed yet.
MBC expects to name the first plaintiffs in a press conference later this week and the filings will be amended to include them, Roldan told The Post.
Some of the mom and pop stores are concerned that the administration will retaliate against them by examining their permits and licenses to find ways to fine or threaten them, Roldan added.
“We will spotlight it if they are picked on,” Roldan said.
“The Puerto Ricans were the bodega pioneers and they were followed by the Dominicans, the Arabs, the Koreans, the Chinese and finally my Mexican business members,” said Jairo Guzman, president of the NY State Mexican Chamber of Commerce in a statement.
“Food retailing–from bodegas to supermarkets- is New York City’s great mosaic. Mayor Mamdani needs to withdraw his disastrous plan and work with us to find different ways to bolster and sustain what so many (New York City) immigrants have created.”
