Mayor Zohran Mamdani's $70 million city-owned grocery store program may now cost New York taxpayers even more, after a top official suggested the city could pay grants to the private grocers its own stores would displace.
Waverly Neer, the senior vice president of groceries at New York City's Economic Development Corporation, told NY1 in an interview Wednesday that taxpayer-funded grants to independent grocery businesses were "something on the table" as the city prepares to open five government-run supermarkets across the boroughs. The clip spread fast. By Thursday afternoon, it had drawn 1.6 million views on X, and a wave of public anger that sent City Hall scrambling to walk the comments back.
The exchange cut to the core problem critics have raised about Mamdani's grocery plan since he pitched it during his 2025 mayoral campaign: the city intends to spend at least $70 million in public money to build stores that will undercut private businesses on price, then, if Neer's remarks are any guide, spend still more public money to keep those same private businesses afloat. The EDC tried to contain the damage Thursday, but its cleanup left the door open to other forms of taxpayer support for grocers caught in the program's wake.
During the NY1 interview, a reporter asked Neer whether the city's plan to support grocery businesses extended to private outlets, the independent stores that would compete directly with government-run supermarkets selling staples at a 30 percent discount. Neer did not rule it out.
"We're exploring a lot of different options and opportunities."
She went further, telling NY1 that grants were on the table and framing the broader effort in bureaucratic language that did little to narrow the scope of what the city might do.
"I think there's a whole host of levers that the EDC is able to work within to make sure everyone has equitable and equal access to opportunities here."
By Thursday, the EDC issued a statement that contradicted Neer's on-camera remarks, but only partially. An EDC spokesperson said the agency is "not currently considering any grant programs for existing grocers." That word, "currently", did not go unnoticed.
And the rest of the statement opened new questions. The spokesperson added that the EDC is "looking at the potential for tax abatement, incentives, and zoning benefits through existing City programs to ensure that the City is doing everything in our power to alleviate cost pressures for small businesses across the city." In other words: no grants right now, but tax breaks, incentives, and regulatory favors remain in play, all to cushion the blow of a program the city itself is creating.
Mamdani campaigned on the grocery plan as an affordability measure. Once in office, he revealed the stores would sell a "core basket" of essential goods at a 30 percent discount, though city officials have not explained how that discount would be calculated or sustained. Five stores are planned across the five boroughs, with a target opening date by the end of 2029. Total projected cost: at least $70 million.
One store alone, planned for a vacant lot in East Harlem, carries a $30 million price tag just for construction. Many industry experts have questioned whether the publicly funded, privately operated model makes financial sense. No formal impact study on surrounding small businesses has been disclosed.
Now layer Neer's comments on top. If the city builds stores designed to undercut local grocers on price, then turns around and offers those grocers tax abatements, zoning benefits, or, as Neer floated, outright grants, the taxpayer is paying twice: once to create the competition, and again to soften the damage.
The backlash on X was immediate and sharp. One user, whose post circulated widely, put the logic plainly:
"Succinctly: the government spends tax dollars to create an insanely bad problem. Then, to solve the problem that THEY CREATED, the government spends more tax dollars. Utterly insane."
Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, posted his own assessment:
"Socialists always come up with more ways to steal your money to solve problems they created by giving away money they already stole from you."
Another X user raised the fiscal question directly, asking why the city would "drop $30,000,000 just on one store which will operate at a huge loss, then give additional handouts to local grocers who might be impacted." The user suggested the city could simply distribute vouchers for eggs and milk "and be done with it."
The EDC's Thursday statement deserves a closer read. Denying that grants are "currently" under consideration is not the same as ruling them out. And the alternatives the agency did acknowledge, tax abatements, incentives, zoning benefits, are themselves forms of taxpayer subsidy. A tax abatement means revenue the city forgoes. An incentive means money or favorable terms the city extends. Zoning benefits mean regulatory advantages granted by government action.
Each of those tools exists to address a problem. The problem, in this case, is one the Mamdani administration is building from scratch with public funds.
The EDC's grocery task force is reportedly evaluating "programs and policies" to support local grocers alongside the push to open five city-owned stores. But what those programs look like, how much they would cost, and how many private grocers stand to be affected remain unanswered. The city has not identified which neighborhoods, beyond East Harlem, will host the new stores, and no public accounting of the competitive impact on existing businesses has surfaced.
Mamdani sold voters on the grocery plan as a way to bring down food costs. The pitch was simple: city-owned stores, deep discounts, relief for working families. What has followed is a program that starts at $70 million, dedicates $30 million to a single location, and now, barely into the planning phase, has already produced a public discussion about subsidizing the private businesses it threatens to displace.
No one in City Hall has explained how stores selling goods at a 30 percent discount will sustain themselves financially. No one has released a study on what happens to the independent grocers already operating in these neighborhoods. And when a senior EDC official went on camera and acknowledged that grants to those grocers were "on the table," the administration's response was not to address the underlying contradiction, but to issue a carefully worded denial that left every other form of taxpayer support intact.
The 1.6 million people who watched that clip on X saw the contradiction clearly enough. The city wants to spend tens of millions to compete with private grocers, then spend more to keep those grocers from going under. The EDC's statement did not resolve that tension. It confirmed it.
When the government has to subsidize the damage caused by its own subsidies, the program is not solving a problem. It is the problem.
