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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial plan to open city-owned grocery stores is set for an explosive City Council hearing – as a new, immigrant-led business group has built a $1 million-plus war chest to oppose it, The Post has learned.
Tentatively slated for May 29 – the hearing will be held by the City Council’s Economic Development Committee and is the first administrative step to vet the $70 million plan to build five stores, which would also hand out perpetual free rent and real estate tax breaks, sources tell The Post.
The hearing, whose details haven’t yet been posted on the official calendar, could determine “what the council is willing to allocate if anything,” according to a city official who asked not to be identified.
“There are questions we have about bodega owners and the location,” the official said. “All of these questions will be fair game.”
Among those speaking out against the public stores will be the Multicultural Business Coalition, a month-old nonprofit comprised of more than 50 chambers of commerce representing Asian, African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Jewish-owned businesses in New York.
Registered as a so-called 501(c)(4) nonprofit, MBC has already secured a $1 million commitment from a single, unidentified supporter, according to Frank Garcia, the new group’s chairman. The group also raised nearly $100,000 in a week from individual donors and small and mid-size businesses for a lobbying and ad blitz, he said.
“We will be at the hearing in force,” Garcia told The Post. “We don’t want to hurt the mayor but we are not going to let him hurt us.”
If the coalition, which also opposes Mamdani’s $30-an-hour minimum-wage proposal, is given the brush off, it “will go after the mayor and his candidates and make sure he is a one-time mayor,” Garcia said.
It’s the first time so many disparate immigrant groups have come together under one umbrella – and politicos are taking notice, according to Duvi Honig, secretary of the coalition and founder of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce.
An event MBO hosted last week, drew New York Senate Majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Congressman George Latimer as well City Council staffers, including Speaker Julie Menin’s chief of staff, Miguelina Camilo.
The MBC’s president is Ken Roldan, a former lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s civil rights bureau. He said the group is weighing possible legal action against the city over the public supermarkets, although he said he wasn’t yet ready to discuss specifics.
“We wouldn’t shy away from a lawsuit by any means,” Roldan said.
The mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the coalition.
The administration hasn’t yet briefed the City Council on details of its plan, but some industry leaders have met with officials from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is spearheading it, sources told The Post.
The mayor’s first planned store is aimed for an East Harlem location next to the La Marqueta food kiosks at East 116th Street and Park Ave. – which would cost $30 million to build from the ground up and open in 2029.
About a week ago, five East Harlem grocers and their trade group, the National Supermarket Association met with EDC officials for two hours about the store, according to Nelson Eusebio, director of government relations for the National Supermarket Association.
“I believe they wanted to prepare themselves for the hearing,” Eusebio told The Post. “We told them they are spending too much money [on the Harlem store] and asked them why they aren’t investing funds into existing supermarkets.”
A spokesperson for the NYC EDC said it “has not been notified about testifying” at the hearing but confirmed that the agency has been meeting with “relevant stakeholders” including supermarket owners.
City Fresh Market at 125 E. 116th St. is one of more than a dozen stores within five blocks of La Marqueta, as The Post reported. A city-owned store “will definitely affect our business for sure,” manager Jerry Nunez told The Post. “They won’t pay rent and taxes which would put them a step ahead of us.”
Last month, City Council Speaker Julie Menin gave what some insiders saw as a notably noncommittal statement on Mamdani’s grocery idea.
“As our city confronts ongoing fiscal and affordability crises, the City Council is identifying responsible solutions to lower costs and address food insecurity,” her office said. The “City Council Speaker looks forward to receiving details on the mayor’s proposal and assessing its potential impacts on consumers and local small businesses, including bodegas.”
Another organization led by former mayoral candidate Jim Walden also has raised $1 million to launch a group called NYC Common Sense that also opposes many of the mayor’s initiatives. The two groups are in discussions on how they can help each other, Garcia said.
While five city-owned stores would impact neighboring grocers, an added concern is that the Big Apple could expand the model, sources say.
“The worst case scenario is if they get funding to build 100 stores around the city,” Eusebio told The Post. “You can’t compete with a store that’s not paying rent and getting breaks from the city.”
Garcia, who told The Post last year that he rebuffed a Mamdani-linked PAC offered him a job in the administration if he could raise up to $1 million for the mayor’s campaign, is planning to raise funds for an MBO PAC, he said.
Garcia turned down the offer from Irfan Verjee, who sits on the business advisory council for OneNYC, a super PAC that raised $508,100 to buy ads backing Mamdani’s mayoral bid.
At the time, the future mayor’s spokesperson for his transition team said he was “not affiliated with or represented by anyone named Irfan Verjee — and any suggestion otherwise is completely false.”
Verjee, the CEO of Shomax Energy, could not immediately be reached for comment. His LinkedIn profile does not mention his stint at OneNYC.
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