NYC bodega owners worry Zohran Mamdani will put them out of business with his city-run grocery store plan: ‘I don’t want to lose my job’

Bodega owners and workers on Monday sounded the alarm over Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan to launch city-owned grocery stores – claiming it’ll put them out of business.

“Competing with the city having business is not going to be something that we can support,” Radhames Rodriguez, president of United Bodegas of America, said during a press conference outside a Gristedes supermarket in Midtown.

Rodriguez, 62, who owns four bodegas in the Bronx, said his stores and others won’t be able to compete with prices at the city-run stores – which would be exempt from paying rent or property taxes under Mamdani’s plan.

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