NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027 • Hacker News Board

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#41

Post by miketery » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #36

miketery wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we can does not mean we should. Here's how this will pan out. - A number of "officials" (friends) will get cushy jobs for running this program. - It will lose millions of tax dollars - a small portion of the population will get cheaper produce for a photo op - Mamdani and friends will call it a success - But net, this will be net negative for the city (ie. tax dollars to crony jobs and subsidizing food f…

> The USSR has tried this. Lets not. The USSR tried lots of things we do successfully. This is actually something governments have a proven ability to do, at least in some contexts, without becoming a corrupt boondoggle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Commissary_Agency

Yeah it was so successful that people would line up around the block for bananas the one time a year. Or when boots came into the store you'd pick up whatever size you could, as you'd trade later.

(true stories)

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#42

Post by darth_avocado » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

miketery wrote: post #28

flats wrote: post #12

I was very skeptical of these plans at first—as a New Yorker, I don’t exactly have a lot of trust in our city’s government to run things well. But I’ve come around. Let’s try something new! Let’s show people that local governments in the United States really are capable of making a difference in their daily lives. If it fails, well, we tried & we’ll keep trying.

Just because we can does not mean we should. Here's how this will pan out. - A number of "officials" (friends) will get cushy jobs for running this program. - It will lose millions of tax dollars - a small portion of the population will get cheaper produce for a photo op - Mamdani and friends will call it a success - But net, this will be net negative for the city (ie. tax dollars to crony jobs and subsidizing food f…

> It will lose millions of tax dollars

As opposed to the millions that come out of your pocket on top of the taxes you pay? At least this brings some of the tax money back to the people. When you let grocery store price gouge you without competition, the money goes to executive pay and shareholder value.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#43

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #30

ceejayoz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_Valley_public_toilet Mamdani has clearly taken lessons like these to heart. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/nyregion/how-to-build-a-r... "The Transportation Department workers arrived at 9:15 p.m., right on time. Mr. Boyce and his crew were ready, having fitted the roof and rear wall panel 30 minutes before. By Monday, the structure was nearly complete. “This is all like synchro…

Your article doesn't say anything about cost, only that it got built fast. Every time the toilet example gets cited, the punchline is the cost, not how long it took, although that was appalling as well. From the wikipedia article: >The toilet's original proposed cost of $1.7 million inspired media coverage and criticism of the San Francisco government.

Sure... because it was a prefab and still took two years at that cost.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#44

Post by DetroitThrow » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

flats wrote: post #12

I was very skeptical of these plans at first—as a New Yorker, I don’t exactly have a lot of trust in our city’s government to run things well. But I’ve come around. Let’s try something new! Let’s show people that local governments in the United States really are capable of making a difference in their daily lives. If it fails, well, we tried & we’ll keep trying.

As an outsider, it will be interesting to see a pilot at minimum. I'd be hesitant for NYC if it rolled out massively expensive stores across the entire city without understanding if it succeeds at the small scale. I'm not sure why this succeeding or failing has to be viewed as a violation of a sacred value.

Governments should do more experiments, and this does seem to have been thought out enough to not be a total waste of money.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#45

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

miketery wrote: post #28

flats wrote: post #12

I was very skeptical of these plans at first—as a New Yorker, I don’t exactly have a lot of trust in our city’s government to run things well. But I’ve come around. Let’s try something new! Let’s show people that local governments in the United States really are capable of making a difference in their daily lives. If it fails, well, we tried & we’ll keep trying.

Just because we can does not mean we should. Here's how this will pan out. - A number of "officials" (friends) will get cushy jobs for running this program. - It will lose millions of tax dollars - a small portion of the population will get cheaper produce for a photo op - Mamdani and friends will call it a success - But net, this will be net negative for the city (ie. tax dollars to crony jobs and subsidizing food f…

NY Post wailing aside, it’s unclear that hizzoner has engaged in that much personal graft. There’s also no evidence presented that the staff of this program are being hired through a graft scheme.

You could be right about it losing millions of dollars, we’ll see. Millions isn’t very much on the scale of NYC’s civic infrastructure; it would be difficult to even call it a waste at that scale, since the results will themselves be valuable.

(This is in pointed contrast to our last mayor.)

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#46

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #31

WalterBright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Maybe they should look into why the closings occurred. Do you think there's no research on the causes of food deserts?

Store closings are nearly always the result of them not being profitable.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#47

Post by bastawhiz » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

miketery wrote: post #28

flats wrote: post #12

I was very skeptical of these plans at first—as a New Yorker, I don’t exactly have a lot of trust in our city’s government to run things well. But I’ve come around. Let’s try something new! Let’s show people that local governments in the United States really are capable of making a difference in their daily lives. If it fails, well, we tried & we’ll keep trying.

Just because we can does not mean we should. Here's how this will pan out. - A number of "officials" (friends) will get cushy jobs for running this program. - It will lose millions of tax dollars - a small portion of the population will get cheaper produce for a photo op - Mamdani and friends will call it a success - But net, this will be net negative for the city (ie. tax dollars to crony jobs and subsidizing food f…

> The USSR has tried this. Lets not.

The USSR fell before I spoke my first words. The world is a very different place, and the United States works very differently from the USSR.

At worst, some people will get some cheaper groceries out of this. If you want to get mad about government spending, maybe we shouldn't be building a ballroom attached to the White House.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#48

Post by ilaksh » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #5

halflife wrote: post #3

This sounds extremely non economically viable. The municipality which has monopoly on land taxes and costs will compete with stores that must pay taxes and rent? Won’t it just cause neighboring stores to close? Won’t a better option be subsidizing taxes for grocery stores, and let the discounts competitively pass unto the customers?

Major grocers are more inclined to form cartels on price than to engage in organic competitive action. These businesses are too large and incentives too perverse for free market dynamics to apply anymore.

I wonder if there is a way to improve pricing more systemically by combating some of this.

Or if there could be some kind of network and information protocol that could provide a decentralized alternative.

Maybe there could be an Internet protocol or NYC Internet protocol that food suppliers could list low price items with. Independent stores could order from here, shipped to their store, or maybe one or two city warehouses where they could pick up.

Maybe another system where suppliers could voluntarily detail cost disruptions, allowing government or other organizations insight and sometimes the possibility of helping alleviate those issues etc.

I mean the government already spends a lot to subsidize retail food purchases. Maybe another idea is just a very easily accessible new app for credits that is NYC only?

It's just that making a single store puts all of the logistical and other issues onto one government department and location, which has been shown in socialist countries to break down.

I am all for a few more socialist policies (I am lucky to have survived this long on outsourcing rates without a consistent healthcare plan), but it definitely needs to be a contemporary effort and not some centralized 1950s model.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#49

Post by philipallstar » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #20

KK7NIL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are pretty extraordinary claims with very little evidence. And, even if they are true, the obvious solution would be to enforce the already existing antitrust and competition laws, not to have the government directly engage in commerce.

Why is government directly engaging in commerce such a controversial topic. The government already does it in various forms: VA hospitals, Medicare price negotiations, government subsidies in agriculture, owning 10% of Intel etc.

I wouldn't argue that the US healthcare system is so good that no market distortion can be detected from its current structure.

Re: NYC to open municipal grocery store in 2027

#50

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

flats wrote: post #12

I was very skeptical of these plans at first—as a New Yorker, I don’t exactly have a lot of trust in our city’s government to run things well. But I’ve come around. Let’s try something new! Let’s show people that local governments in the United States really are capable of making a difference in their daily lives. If it fails, well, we tried & we’ll keep trying.

"Hey, let's try something new!" without a plan for success is just a recipe for failure.

I honestly don't understand the desire for municipal grocery stores at all. Grocery stores famously operate on super slim margins, so it's not like they're raking in the dough. Many of them are often run extremely well. In Texas, HEB is so beloved that a lot of people consider it far better at disaster recovery operations than the actual government.

I'm not against plans to better help people afford groceries, but somebody needs to at least explain how the plan is economically rationally viable, not just "let's try something new!"