NYC Immigrant-Built Grocery Store Sues Mayor Mamdani Over Taxpayer-Funded Competitor Plan

Josefina Aguirre, a first-generation American who has run her family’s East Harlem grocery store for nearly three decades, warns that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s city-run grocery initiative could threaten her livelihood and ultimately force her family’s business out of operation.

For nearly 30 years, Josefina Aguirre has helped keep alive the East Harlem grocery store her immigrant parents built from scratch. The family business has survived soaring rents, inflation, the pandemic, and a shifting neighborhood landscape.

Now, however, Aguirre fears that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s municipal grocery experiment could deliver the final blow to her family’s legacy.

Aguirre is among a coalition of local neighborhood grocers suing Mayor Mamdani over his ambitious plan to open city-backed grocery stores across all five boroughs. While the mayor asserts that these stores will offer prices roughly 30% lower than comparable private retailers, local business owners argue that publicly funded competition could force family-run stores to shut their doors permanently.

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“When we heard Mamdani was opening a grocery store where people are going to save 30%, it scares us because we simply do not have the capital to compete,” Aguirre said. “We have never been afraid of fair competition, but when a taxpayer-backed grocery store enters the arena like this, it could easily take us out of business.”

One of the proposed municipal stores is slated to open next year at La Marqueta, a historic public market located just two blocks from Little Mexico, the grocery store that Aguirre’s parents opened in 1997. The city is expected to spend roughly $30 million to build the location, placing a heavily subsidized, taxpayer-backed competitor directly on Aguirre’s doorstep.

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A $30 million city-backed grocery store is opening two blocks from NYC grocer Josefina Aguirre’s family business. (Kendall Rodriguez/Newsday RM/Getty Images)

For generations, neighborhood grocery stores have competed against one another, as well as national supermarket chains and big-box retailers. Aguirre explained that this particular fight is fundamentally different because the city would be actively subsidizing a competitor that independent, privately owned businesses cannot hope to match.

“If I am selling a whole chicken for $10, and the city-backed store is offering it for $7, customers are naturally going to buy the $7 chicken,” Aguirre said. “Who doesn’t want a 30% discount?”

For Aguirre, the stakes of this policy extend far beyond simply losing customers.

“I pay my mortgage from this store. I pay for my child’s tuition. This is what I have dedicated my life to for over 30 years. Would I really need to start over in an entirely new career?”

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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made city-owned grocery stores a centerpiece of his affordability agenda, arguing the government-backed model can deliver lower prices to New Yorkers. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Aguirre’s personal concerns are at the heart of a lawsuit brought by a coalition of New York City grocers challenging Mamdani’s plan to use public funds to create municipal grocery stores. The plaintiffs argue that private businesses cannot realistically compete against government-subsidized operations.

Mamdani has committed $70 million to opening five municipal grocery stores, with plans for at least one location in each borough. The mayor argues that this innovative model will lower grocery bills for New Yorkers struggling with the rising cost of food. By operating on city-owned property without the burden of paying rent or property taxes, Mamdani claims these savings will allow the stores to charge significantly lower prices.

Independent grocers, however, argue that these same taxpayer-funded advantages will leave neighborhood businesses like Little Mexico competing on an inherently uneven playing field.

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Bodegas and small grocery stores have long been fixtures of New York City neighborhoods, serving generations of residents often just steps from their homes. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Mamdani’s grocery push represents an early test of his broader progressive vision for New York, putting government-run stores in direct competition with private businesses in a metropolis historically synonymous with capitalism.

For Aguirre, this fight is deeply personal.

“This is what my parents left us,” she said. “It would be incredibly sad to see us leave.”

But she has no intention of walking away from the business her family spent nearly three decades building and preserving.

“So what will happen next? The next step would be closing our business, and we absolutely do not want to close. We have been a part of this community for years,” she said.

Mamdani’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

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