Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Truer words were never spoken. Democrats have always embraced the idea of more government creeping into every aspect of the lives of Americans. But the up-and-coming new generation of the Democrat Party is not just leftists or even socialists; they are full-on communists.
The latest example is New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. While Mamdani supports all the usual socialist goodies, he has added one more, city-run grocery stores. Is it as bad an idea as we think? Yes, yes, it is.
Kansas City opened KC Sun Fresh in 2018. The store was an attempt to address a "food desert," an area where residents might not have access to a store that sells meat, fresh produce, and other healthy options. The store, located in an area that has seen its share of crime, was actually profitable before the pandemic. But since then, customer traffic has dropped, and the store has lost around $900,000 since 2018.
READ MORE: Mamdani's Affordable Housing Plan Doomed to Fail
But does the concept of a "government-run," city or otherwise, grocery store really work? Fox Business Channel decided to send reporter Kelly Saberi to find out. What Saberi found is just what you might think. Many of the store's shelves were only partially stocked or not stocked at all. That includes the produce, meat, and dry goods with which the store was supposed to alleviate the need in the neighborhood. As far as prices go, one shopper said that the prices were better compared to other stores, but another stated the obvious: there is hardly anything on many of the store's shelves. She said,
"There's no meat. There's no vegetables. There's no nothing. Are you going to take care of the community that's surrounded around you? If not, sell the store to someone that can be more responsible."
Kansas City Mayor Quintin Lucas says that the city is trying to make things right with KC Sun Fresh, saying:
"While I hear and understand the crime issues and concerns, there's a grocery store right down the street — largely in the same kind of area, some of the same criminal numbers and statistics — that still is doing pretty darn well. So we do want to make sure that we can get those operations right and that's the work that we're collaboratively trying to do."
Translation: Don't like it, go down the street. KC Sun Fresh's problem is not only that it is city-run, but grocery stores in general only make a one to three percent profit margin, which makes financial stability difficult.
The other problem: KC Sun Fresh is owned by the nonprofit group Community Builders of Kansas City (CBKC). A quick look at the KC Sun Fresh portion of the website shows a beautiful store with fully stocked shelves. It also boasts of "new products, with an emphasis on locally grown, black-owned, woman-owned, and black-woman produced items." Anyone can get the idea of a store stocking the items that the customers who frequent that store buy the most. But what's that saying about going woke and going broke?
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If a city-run store in Kansas City, where the neighborhoods do not have nearly the population density of those in New York City, isn't working, the chance that a city-run store in New York is going to fare about as well, if not worse, is pretty good.
But if one group of socialists tries something and it fails, the next group of socialists always thinks they just didn't do it right. You can bet Zohran Mamdani just thinks Kansas City didn't do it right.
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