Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced this week that one of his five proposed city-owned grocery stores will open in East Harlem by 2029.

“We’re expecting that New Yorkers will save $90 a month… about $1,000 per year,” he proclaimed. He boasts that food at the Mamdani stores will be 30% cheaper. A horn of plenty.

Why should it take THREE years to open a grocery store??

The city already owns the building in Harlem.  Mamdani has allocated $30 million for the store. That will eat up nearly half of the $70 million he proposed for the five-store program back in February.

The country best-known for government-run grocery stores was the Soviet Union. The Russian citizens waited on long lines to get into the stores only to find empty shelves. We will bet a dime to a dollar that Mamdani’s experiment will have similar unhappy results.

Russians Wait in Line for Food