New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to spend $70 million building government-run grocery stores — five of them, one in each borough — selling staple items at 30% below retail. He also wants shoppers to show identification to use them.
This is the same Zohran Mamdani whose political party calls voter ID "Jim Crow 2.0."
The ID requirement surfaced when a city official described plans for a "library card-esque" system to, in Mamdani's own words, "make sure that we target New Yorkers" and "manage who's buying." That's a direct quote from the mayor. He wants to verify identities and control access to a taxpayer-funded program. Reasonable enough — until you remember that requiring the same thing at a polling place is, according to Democrats, a racist assault on democracy.
Watch the mayor and his official try to explain how shopper's will need to show ID to buy groceries from his stores
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The stores won't sell cigarettes, alcohol, or lottery tickets. The earliest any location opens is the end of 2027. The price tag is $70 million upfront with ongoing subsidies required indefinitely, because grocery profit margins are already razor-thin without the government trying to undercut them.
GOP City Councilwoman Joann Ariola of Queens did the math: "At this point it would be cheaper to just buy a million Costco memberships."
She's not wrong. A million Costco memberships would run about $65 million — less than Mamdani's plan — and the stores already exist. They have parking. They don't need ongoing taxpayer subsidies. And nobody has to show a government-issued card to buy produce.
Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler flagged the $70 million price tag as just the construction cost, noting nothing about the perpetual operating losses the city would eat. Manhattan Institute policy analyst Adam Lehodey pointed out that the promised 30% savings is an "illusion" — the discount isn't savings, it's a subsidy. Taxpayers pay the difference whether they shop there or not.
But the ID question is where the whole thing falls apart logically. Democrats have spent years arguing that requiring identification to vote is discriminatory because it disproportionately burdens minority communities. Chuck Schumer himself called voter ID laws "Jim Crow 2.0." The argument has always been that obtaining an ID is too difficult, too expensive, or too inaccessible for certain populations.
So who exactly does Mamdani think shops at government-subsidized grocery stores in the five boroughs? The same communities Democrats say can't get IDs to vote. He's building stores specifically for low-income New Yorkers, then requiring the one thing his party says low-income people can't obtain.
When the contradiction went viral, Mamdani's office scrambled. A spokesperson called it an "apples-to-oranges" comparison and claimed the official was merely describing a "loyalty-card program" — not a real ID requirement. Anyone can shop, they insisted, regardless of residency or income, without presenting an ID.
Which is interesting, because Mamdani himself said the system exists to "target New Yorkers" and "manage who's buying." That's not a loyalty card. That's access control. Loyalty cards give you points on dish soap. They don't verify whether you're a New Yorker.
The grocery stores are a sideshow. Government-run retail has been tried before — Chicago blew $14 million trying to keep subsidized grocery stores open before they shut down anyway. The real story is simpler.
A Democratic Socialist mayor just demonstrated that ID verification is a perfectly reasonable tool for managing a government program. Every argument his party has made against voter ID now has a five-borough, $70 million rebuttal sitting in the city budget.
He built it himself.