Mamdani’s Food Fight With Corner Store Owners Begins in Spanish Harlem

Minority and immigrant-owned businesses in Manhattan are suing Mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing that his plan to open a city-owned grocery store in East Harlem could put neighborhood grocers and bodegas out of business.

The Multicultural Business Coalition (MBC), a coalition representing hundreds of supermarkets, bodegas and other grocery businesses, filed a class-action lawsuit Aug. 24 in New York County Supreme Court seeking to halt Mamdani’s city-owned grocery initiative.

The MBC contends the proposed store would give the city an unfair advantage over businesses operating in the private market, while Mamdani has pitched the initiative as a way to help New Yorkers save money on groceries.

Mark Jaffe, the coalition’s general counsel and president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, told CNN that independent grocers cannot compete with a supermarket whose expenses are supported by the city.

“You cannot expect hard-working small business owners to compete with a supermarket that isn’t going to pay rent, won’t have to pay an electric bill and won’t have to buy their products at full price,” Jaffe told CNN. “They cannot possibly compete because no one will be subsidizing them.”

Under Mamdani’s plan, a core basket of everyday groceries would be offered at prices 30 percent below average market rates.

His administration estimates the program could reduce New Yorkers’ average grocery bills by about 15 percent, or roughly $90 a month.

The city would own the properties and cover certain costs, while private operators would run the stores, according to CNN.

The first Manhattan location is planned for La Marqueta at 1590 Park Avenue in East Harlem.

La Marqueta currently supports more than 20 small businesses and about 120 workers, according to the NYC Economic Development Corporation.

The neighborhood remains predominantly Hispanic and Black, with 44.8 percent of residents identifying as Hispanic and 30.1 percent identifying as Black in 2024, according to the NYU Furman Center.

More than a quarter of East Harlem residents, 26.8 percent, were foreign-born, while 32.2 percent lived below the poverty line — nearly twice the citywide rate of 18 percent.

Elvis Arias, owner of American Deli Mini Market in East Harlem, is one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed location near his bodega.

Speaking through a translator, Arias told Fox News that he feared the proposed supermarket could force him out of business.

“If [Mamdani opens this store] in front of [my] business, [I’m] going to go out of business,” Arias told Fox News.

Arias has asked the mayor to move the proposed supermarket farther north toward 125th Street. He also told the New York Post he might need a tobacco license to compete with the city store, while pointing to another product he believes could keep customers coming to his bodega.

“I’m lucky I have the beer!” Arias told the Post. “They won’t have beer over there.”

Domingo Fernandez, who has operated Midtown Fish & Meat Market near Park Avenue and East 116th Street since 2012, told the New York Post that a city supermarket near his business could take a bite out of his bottom line.

“My store is doing well enough to pay my bills,” Fernandez told the Post. “But if that store goes in there, I’m afraid I’ll lose business.”

The fight over Mamdani’s grocery plan has also expanded into accusations of increased sanitation enforcement against some immigrant-owned businesses involved in the opposition.

Diana Larrazabal, owner of Aroma D’ Angel flower and gift shop on East 116th Street, told the Post that her business received three sanitation fines this year, including a $350 fine in May.

She said some citations involved garbage that did not belong to her business.

“It’s definitely more frequent,” Larrazabal told the Post.

Fernandez has not recently received a sanitation fine, according to the Post.

Frank Garcia, chairman of the MBC, said sanitation citations increased after coalition members began going door-to-door seeking support for the lawsuit.

“When we started going door to door two weeks ago, that’s when the fines started,” Garcia told the Post.

Garcia said some business owners had received penalties as high as $1,000 and noted that some of the owners do not speak English.

The New York City Department of Sanitation denied the retaliation allegations.

A department spokesperson told the Post that “DSNY issues cleanliness violations in all corners of the city,” adding that the city had issued 223 commercial summonses in Harlem since March 1.

“Our only goal in issuing violations is to give all New Yorkers the clean streets they deserve,” the spokesperson said.

Mamdani has defended both the legality and purpose of his grocery initiative, arguing that city-run stores would represent only a small portion of New York City’s overall grocery market.

“We’re talking about delivering five city-run grocery stores in a city of eight and a half million people that has more than 1,000 grocery stores,” Mamdani said, according to CNN.

Mamdani also said he was “fully confident in both the legality and the importance of our initiative,” according to Fox News.

The mayor has pointed to existing city-supported markets in Manhattan and Brooklyn as examples of a similar model that he says has not negatively affected surrounding bodegas. CNN reported that those markets operate through the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which leases city-owned properties to private vendors at below-market rates and covers certain operational costs.

The MBC argues that the city should find another way to help struggling New Yorkers without creating a subsidized competitor to neighborhood businesses.

Jaffe told CNN that the coalition believes there is an alternative to the proposed stores, saying, “There is a better way to feed the struggling people of New York City,” Jaffe told CNN. “We have seen no business plan, this is just a marquee store that will allow the mayor to say he kept a campaign promise, so we are asking the judge to stop this.”

The lawsuit alleges the city failed to adequately study how the proposed grocery stores could affect existing businesses and neighborhood needs.

La Marqueta could be one of the initiative’s most ambitious pieces, but it won’t serve East Harlem shoppers anytime soon.

The 9,000-square-foot grocery store planned for La Marqueta will be built from the ground up and is not expected to open until 2029, according to the NYCEDC.

The project will receive $30 million of the city’s $70 million capital budget for the five-store initiative.

NYCEDC is accepting proposed sites in those boroughs through an online portal, with potential locations required to meet minimum requirements for retail space, accessibility and a timeline that allows a grocery store to open by Dec. 31, 2029.

NYCEDC says the locations are being selected based on the need to reach New Yorkers consistently, sustain operations and deliver real affordability over time.