Mamdani’s Grocery Chief Made an Incredible Admission About Their Plans for the Grocers They Tried to Drive Under

Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised his government-run and taxpayer-funded grocery stores would sell food thirty percent cheaper than every private store in New York City.

Now the woman running the socialist scheme leading to barren shelves won't deny that they think they can put neighborhood grocers out of business.

Her fix to pay those businesses that Mamdani's stores undercut will leave taxpayers picking up the tab twice.

Economic Development Chief Says Grants for Private Grocers Are "on the Table"

Waverly Neer is the Senior Vice President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

She is the official Mamdani put in charge of building his city-owned grocery stores.

During an interview with Spectrum News NY1 reporter Dan Rivoli, Neer was asked point blank whether private grocers could lose business to the new government-run competition.

She did not deny it.

Instead, Neer said the city was already looking at "complementary policies and programs, grants, incentives" for the independent grocers her own stores are about to compete against.

Asked directly if that meant city grants for private stores, Neer said it was "something on the table."

Read that again.

The same administration subsidizing a grocery store to undercut private business is now drawing up a second subsidy to keep those same businesses from collapsing because of the first one.

New Yorkers are being asked to fund both sides of a fight the city started.

Erie, Kansas and Kansas City Already Ran This Experiment

Mamdani's team is not inventing something new here.

Erie, Kansas took over its local grocery store, Erie Market, in 2021.

The store has been in the red almost every month since, The Wall Street Journal reported, closing out 2022 with a $132,000 loss.

City officials there are not chasing profit anymore.

Their new goal, in the store manager's own words, is to "lose only $100,000 this year."

Kansas City tried the same thing on a bigger scale, pouring nearly $18 million in bonds, loans and subsidies into a government-backed Sun Fresh grocery store at 31st and Prospect Avenue over a decade.

That store closed without warning on August 12, 2025.

A Washington Post reporter walked through it days before the end and found the produce section down to a single tomato.

Kansas City Councilman Nathan Willett, who joined the council after the store was created, has since made the case that the free bus routes built to bring shoppers in ended up bringing crime in right along with them, according to Heartlander News.

New York is rerunning a failure other cities already paid for.

Economists Warned This Was the Whole Problem

Economist Tom Wilson laid out the mechanism at the Mises Institute months before Neer's comments went public.

"Private grocery stores survive only if they serve consumers efficiently enough to remain profitable," Wilson wrote.

"Government-run stores survive through political support and public funding. Those are not the same incentive structures."

Wilson also flagged the construction math behind Mamdani's flagship store, pointing out the city-planned location was projected at roughly $30 million to build.

Private developers build comparable grocery stores for $2 million to $4 million.

That gap does not vanish. Taxpayers absorb it.

Grocers in Your Neighborhood Are Paying for Their Own Funeral

This is the part that should make every New Yorker furious.

City Hall builds a store with your tax dollars, prices it below what any private grocer can survive on, and then turns around and offers your local grocer a grant funded by the same tax dollars just to stay open a little longer.

That is not competition. That is a taxpayer-funded pincer movement against the very small businesses Mamdani claims to be protecting.

Kansas City spent nearly $18 million finding out government can't run a grocery store.

Erie, Kansas is still losing money on purpose and calling it a win.

Mamdani's own economic development chief just confirmed New York is next.

City Hall isn't changing course. It's drafting the bailout for the bailout.

Sources:

• Mike LaChance, "Mamdani's City Grocery Store Official Explains How Their Plan to Keep Privately Owned Stores in Business Will Make Things Even Worse," The Gateway Pundit, August 21, 2026.
• "Mamdani Grocery Official Says Grants May Cushion Stores City Competes Against," Steadfast and Loyal, August 2026.
• Tom Wilson, "The Economic Problem Behind Zohran Mamdani's Government Grocery Plan," Mises Institute, May 20, 2026.
• "America Has Plenty of Experience With Government-Run Stores, and It Isn't Pretty," Reason, June 27, 2025.
• "A Government-Run Grocery Store in Kansas Is Predictably Losing Money," Reason, October 23, 2023.
• "KC's City-Funded Grocery Store, Metaphor for Government Bungling in Free Enterprise, Closes," The Heartlander, August 15, 2025.
• "Mayor Mamdani Unveils 30% Discount – Including All Produce, All Meat and Key Pantry Staples – at New Municipal Grocery Stores," NYC Mayor's Office, July 2026.