Shortly after Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor in June, Radhamés Rodriguez, the president of an association of bodega owners, said his group could not back the candidate and cited a plan for city-run grocery stores that Mr. Rodriguez said would put his members out of business.
So it was quite a turn when, on Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Rodriguez clasped their hands together around Mr. Mamdani’s breakfast order — a foil-wrapped egg-and-cheese sandwich, with jalapeños — and raised them in the air to celebrate Mr. Mamdani’s endorsement by Mr. Rodriguez’s group.
Mr. Mamdani’s plan calls for the creation of five city-owned supermarkets, one in each borough, that he says would address inflation and the rising cost of groceries, particularly for working-class families. The city would most likely cover the stores’ rent and property taxes, allowing them to buy and sell goods at wholesale prices and use centralized warehouses. He has said that if the program were successful, he would consider expanding it.
The concept is popular with some voters, according to polls. But it has drawn criticism from budget experts worried about the estimated $60 million cost and from grocery store owners anxious about more competition. Mr. Mamdani’s political rivals have likened the plan to communism and called it unrealistic, pointing in part to a similar experiment in Kansas City, Mo., where a publicly supported supermarket run by a nonprofit recently closed.
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Mr. Mamdani’s closest rival in the mayoral race, has proposed to address high grocery prices by providing an estimated $250 million in food subsidies to families with incomes slightly too high to qualify for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The program’s cutoff is typically 130 percent of the federal poverty level.
A Cuomo spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, said that Mr. Mamdani’s “harebrained proposal to bring Soviet-style grocery stores to New York City has been a miserable waste of taxpayer money and a failure everywhere it has been attempted.” He added that the plan would most likely put small businesses like bodegas “out of business.”
Mr. Rodriguez’s group, United Bodegas of America, was among the critics of Mr. Mamdani’s proposal. At a news conference in June, he said that his members — more than 14,000 bodegas, according to the group — would not be able to compete with city-owned stores.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Rodriguez explained his association’s endorsement of Mr. Mamdani by saying that learning more about the candidate’s proposals had led to the conclusion that he was most likely to provide bodega owners with a path to success.
He added that the group’s members were largely immigrants like Mr. Mamdani, suggesting that was a factor in the decision.
Standing with members of the association and local elected officials, Mr. Mamdani told reporters that he did not believe his plan for city-owned grocery stores would harm bodega owners. He said that the stores would still play a critical role in feeding New York City, and that he would streamline regulations to support bodegas if elected.
He also said that bodega owners had told him that “some of the highest points of revenue” were cigarettes and lottery tickets, which the proposed city-owned stores would not sell.
“These are not the things that the city is interested in making it easier for New Yorkers to purchase,” he said. “We are speaking about groceries at a very small scale that will be done alongside supporting these bodegas.”
After the event, Mr. Mamdani unwrapped his egg, cheese and jalapeño sandwich and started eating as he walked to his car, stopping to pose for two selfies with supporters as he was trailed by reporters and photographers.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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