Mamdanis $30M, NYC-run grocery store would compete with nearby supermarkets that are ALREADY affordable

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan for a city-owned grocery market in East Harlem’s La Marqueta has a deeper problem than the absurdity of spending $30 million to launch a mere 9,000-square-foot store that won’t open until 2029.His claim that the neighborhood lacks cheaper food than the citywide average — the whole basis for dipping into tax revenue at everyone else’s expense — is 100% baloney.If he took time off from grinning at gullible journalists, he’d find the blocks around the  planned grocery site under the MetroNorth Park Avenue trestle at East 116th Street are already chock-full of bodegas and larger stores where prices for basics such as eggs, milk and soda are not only lower than at  Gristedes, Morton Williams and Trader Joe’s – they’re far below.Mamdani, who declined to say how much a cucumber at his brainstorm might cost, claimed at a press conference, “When New Yorkers come to city-run grocery stores, they will see a clear price differential” for staples such as bread and eggs.But the “clear price differential” already exists in the proposed market’s front- and backyards.Despite woke claims that merchants gouge lower-income residents, prices at the spacious, 24-hour, well-stocked City Fresh Market at 125 E.116th St.

— a half-block from Mamdani’s site,  one of 15 in the chain in the city and New Jersey — were comfortably below what we found in more prosperous neighborhoods.Milk cost $1.99 a quart, compared with $2.29 at Gristedes.A 48-oz.

jug of Trop Lite orange beverage was $5.29, compared with $5.49 at Morton Williams and $7.99  at Gristedes.City Fresh Market sells 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola, Sprite and other popular brands at two bottles for $6; they were more than $4 each at just about every other supermarket we checked.And those eggs Mamdani mentioned? Grade-A Sunshine Farms medium eggs were available for just $5 for two dozen at City Fresh Market, versus nearly as much for a single dozen elsewhere.Like other n...