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 changing neighborhood.
Now, she fears New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s grocery experiment could become the final blow to the family business.
Aguirre is among the neighborhood grocers suing Mamdani over his plan to open city-backed grocery stores across all five boroughs. The mayor says the stores will offer prices roughly 30% lower than comparable retailers. Local business owners argue the taxpayer-backed competition could force family-run stores to close.
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“When we heard Mamdani was opening a grocery store where people are gonna save 30%, it scares us because we don’t have the money to compete,” Aguirre said. “We’re not scared of competition, we never have been. But when you have a grocery store coming in like this, it could take us out of business.”
One of the proposed stores is slated to open next year at La Marqueta, a public market just two blocks from Little Mexico, the grocery Aguirre’s parents opened in 1997. The city is expected to spend roughly $30 million to build the location, putting a taxpayer-backed competitor virtually on Aguirre’s doorstep.
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For generations, neighborhood grocery stores have competed against one another, along with supermarket chains and big-box retailers. Aguirre said this fight is different because the city would be subsidizing a competitor that independent businesses cannot match.
“If I’m selling a whole chicken for [$10], and he’s giving it for $7, they’re gonna buy the $7 chicken,” Aguirre said. “Who doesn’t want a 30% discount?”
For Aguirre, the stakes extend well beyond losing customers.
“I pay my mortgage from here. I pay for my kid’s tuition. This is what I’ve been doing for over 30 years. Do I need to start over in a new career?”
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Aguirre’s 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 grocery stores they argue private businesses cannot realistically compete against.
Mamdani has committed $70 million to opening five municipal grocery stores, one in each borough, saying the model will lower grocery bills for New Yorkers struggling with the rising cost of food. The stores would operate on city-owned property without paying rent or property taxes, savings Mamdani says would allow them to charge lower prices.
Independent grocers argue those same taxpayer-funded advantages would leave businesses like Little Mexico competing on an uneven playing field.
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Mamdani’s grocery push is also an early test of his broader socialist vision for New York, putting government-run stores in direct competition with private businesses in a city synonymous with capitalism.
For Aguirre, the fight is personal.
“This is what my parents left us,” she said. “It’ll be sad to see us leave.”
But she has no intention of walking away from the business her family spent nearly three decades building.
“So what will happen next? The next thing would be closing our business, and we don’t want to close. We’ve been here for years,” she said.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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