“NO MORE SUPERMARKETS”… 52 Stores VANISH as Mamdani’s LOOTERS FLOOD NYC

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]They're going out of business. They have glass all over the place. You want toothpaste, you have to open up. You have to get a a clerk to open up the thing and they open and they hand it toothpaste. And in the meantime, other people are waiting to steal it. So, it is no secret that New York has a shoplifting problem that is cleaning out stores and skyrocketing unaffordability.

[00:00:21]But things are about to get even worse as Mayor Mom Donnie goes full speed ahead with his plan to annihilate private stores with his communistr run alternatives which won't have to worry about theft or making money because their money comes from everyone else until like all communist experiments it runs out.

[00:00:43]>> Want aspirin? The cashier has to unlock the glass case. Thieves are also targeting ice cream and meat. Who could forget the guy allegedly stealing all those stakes at a Trader Joe's in Manhattan?

[00:00:55]>> You know, especially for owners behind grocery stores like this one who say they're not going to be able to operate and stay open once these cityrun stores are operational.

[00:01:04]>> Do you think $60 million is too much to spend for five grocery stores?

[00:01:08]>> Yes.

[00:01:08]>> I don't think he should open no grocery stores. He should talk about the community and how people is out here living on the street.

[00:01:15]>> No way. There's no way we can uh be open. If I lose 30%, I'm in trouble. I won't be able to pay the rent. I won't be able to pay the the workers.

[00:01:24]>> And he noticed when he was in it, the people were with duffel bags. They're putting crap in a duffel bag. And if the clerk does anything at all, they arrest the clerk. How screwed up is our country.

[00:01:41]So, it's important to understand our new mayor wants to spend more money on everything that New York City spends money on, no matter what it is, except for the two things New Yorkers really need if they want to have an affordable city. And those would be jails and jumpsuits. And President Trump's right.

[00:01:59]When you go to a store in this city, you're going to see that all the products are in jail because all of the criminals aren't. Instead, they're wandering the streets doing their thing.

[00:02:08]and no one can stop them, creating a rampant lawlessness tax on business owners because their inventory is now leaving the shelves at a pace so fast these stores just can't keep up. And the problem with this tax is that in ORDER TO PAY IT, WHAT DO BUSINESSES DO? WELL, IF half the stuff on the shelf gets stolen, you got to charge twice as MUCH FOR THE OTHER HALF. AND WHO PAYS FOR THAT? The law-abiding. The people that don't steal are paying for the cost of lawlessness every single day here. But don't worry, the mayor's got a plan. If the stuff in the store is too expensive, he's going to tax everyone to open a cheaper store that everyone pays more for if they've got a job, that is. And this plan is supposed to help people buy zerocost groceries that don't turn a profit, which means your orange might cost a couple of cents less, WHICH IS THE MAYOR'S solution to $5,000 apartment rents nobody can afford. That's right.

[00:03:02]Saving a couple of cents. that's supposed to fix all of our problems, but it won't. And that brings us to the real reason life here in New York City is about to get even more expensive than crazy rents and crazy prices at the grocery store. We're doing absolutely nothing to discourage lawlessness. And if you're going to have a lawless city, nobody's going to be able to afford to live there because it's the law abiding that are the ones paying for this. But perhaps the worst payment of all is going to be made by small businesses, some of which were started by legal immigrants who came to New York to achieve the American dream while benefiting our entire city. But that dream is now a nightmare as their fees for opening their doors are now going to go through the roof while they subsidize their own destruction at the hands of a communist grocery store. Yeah, David, it is, you know, especially for owners behind grocery stores like this one who say they're not going to be able to operate and stay open once these cityrun stores are operational. So, Ruben Luna, who is the owner of this location, moved to the US when he was 14. His first job that he got that year, was in a grocery store. Now, he owns 18 supermarkets, the American dream. Three of them are here in Harlem, all very close to La Marita.

[00:04:19]That is the first location that Mayor Mandani announced. Luna says that once it opens, he anticipates losing 30 to 40% of his customers BECAUSE >> WOW. So once the cityrun stores open near this guy's businesses that he came to America and ended up starting after bagging groceries in a supermarket himself, these places are going to get wiped OUT. AND WHAT'S WILD IS NEW YORK IS SUPPOSED TO BE a city that loves and protects immigrants. Well, here we have someone who's a hardworking legal immigrant who's achieved the American dream and it's ABOUT TO BE STOLEN FROM HIM AND he's the one that's going to have to pay for it. Why? Cuz he owns the grocery store. Because millionaires are the bad guy. Because anybody that succeeds and does anything, they're the problem in the world. What a weird screwed up way to run your city. At the same time, we're talking about affordability here. Well, what are the examples for that? Eggs and milk. Eggs are really inexpensive right now. I bought some eggs the other day. It was three bucks. And you know what else? If I could buy these things, but I didn't have to get them in this color or in this uh expensive packaging. If I could get the white ones in the styrofoam, they'd be even cheaper. But we're supposed to believe that a guy who plays by all the rules, does the right thing, creates jobs, is the enemy of this city, and needs to be taken down a notch, and that he's ripping people off, and that's why we need a free grocery store. He cannot compete with a nationalized grocery store which doesn't have to pay property taxes or utilities and has access to his hard-earned.

[00:05:51]>> That's the worst part about this.

[00:05:54]>> No way. There's no way we can uh be open. If if if if I lose 30% I'm in trouble. I won't be able to pay the rent. I won't be able to pay the the workers.

[00:06:05]>> And I don't want to lose the whole thing. whatever it's cost me 45 years working all my life to lose it because you know I'm going to be fighting against someone who was spending our own money that's the thing he's got to pay more money the fees on his business is going to go up his personal taxes are going to go up and that money is going to get funneled right into his competitor that would be a totally illegal arrangement if we were talking about private businesses here but since you got the government coming into the market coming in with their zerocost grocery store that it's not going to turn a profit and is therefore going to be cheaper. It's going to have to steal from everyone else, WHICH IS GOING TO JACK up the prices at the legitimate grocery stores. It's going to make them more expensive while the crime keeps going up. While the taxes on homes that people like this own are going to go up.

[00:06:52]It's crazy. But the good news is is that the hardworking grocery store owner, he'll still be able to afford to live here, which is the mayor's goal. He just won't be able to afford to run his business and he'll have to get all of his groceries from the free food mart down the street after it shuts him down.

[00:07:09]Talk about an unfair advantage.

[00:07:12]>> And the mayor is asking for a lot of money. He's proposing $70 million for five grocery stores. The one here in Harlem has a price tag of 30 million.

[00:07:22]And a group of minority owned grocery store owners have been trying to meet with the mayor but have had no luck.

[00:07:27]>> Oh, really? That will change next week during a hearing in front of the city council.

[00:07:31]>> WOW. SO, THE business owners that run the legitimate supermarkets that want to MEET WITH THE MAYOR, THEY CAN'T GET A MEETING WITH HIM for some reason. That's weird. They have to schedule a hearing with the city council to meet with the guy who's going to put them out of business. Now, WHY DO YOU THINK that is?

[00:07:48]Well, obviously they're the boogeyman because when you go to the grocery store, which is run by hardworking people that make our country great, make our city great, they're the enemy. You need an enemy if you're going to have communism because the communism has to defeat something. And if it doesn't have a boogeyman, if the guy over here creating the jobs, if he's actually a hero, if he's who we should all aspire to be like because he worked his way up in an age where we're told nobody can get ahead. If he's the symbol of the American dream, oh man, you got to get rid of him. There needs to be nobody like that in New York if you're going to have the communist cityrun stores. And that's the goal of these stores is to get rid of people who were perceived as the problem. the beneficiaries of capitalism. Can't have that if you're going to have socialism because socialism is the opposite of capitalism.

[00:08:33]Again, great to see you. Thank you so much, Droy. This is it infuriates me because this guy, it's a rags to riches story and Marxists like mom Donnie hate rags to riches story because under his Marxist ideology, it's not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to be able to make money in a private market system unless you're oppressing people. instead he's been employing people. He's been serving the community. And of course, he's been growing an American business in a in a very positive way. This could kill that business.

[00:09:04]>> Uh it could. And you're right about Madam not liking this sort of thing.

[00:09:08]This violates the narrative. You know, this is an oppressive guy and he's robbing from people and he's ripping people off. Here's a guy, as we saw earlier in the package introducing this story, uh came in, got his first job in a grocery store, now owns 18 of them.

[00:09:21]This is magnificent. This guy should be getting the keys to the city. But here's the thing you got to understand about socialism and our new mayor who firmly believes in it. He's articulate, but he is as articulate as he is wrong.

[00:09:33]Socialism does not work. And in order for it to be a believable system, people that create jobs, they're the oppressors. Every single worker at that guy's company is being exploited in the view of these people who are very articulate, but also very wrong at the exact same time. They firmly believe that the American dream is a capitalist myth, that it is fake. And they preach to populations like the people in New York that there's absolutely no way to get ahead in this country, that the entire game is rigged, that it is not possible to start out bagging groceries and ever own a grocery store and that you're never going to get ahead. BUT EVERY SINGLE person that breaks the mold, every single person that learns skills and takes risks in a country that allows you to have a business and take risks, unlike a place like Cuba, which is falling apart and succeeds, is a real problem for a socialist system. And here's the real issue with socialism.

[00:10:23]You have to have the government in charge of everything. You got to have one source of sustenance for the people.

[00:10:30]Topdown economics. That's what we're talking about here. And if you have businesses all over the place that are providing jobs for people, helping those people get ahead, giving them private capital that they can use to build their own wealth, ALL OF THAT CONFLICTS WITH THIS. THIS HAS TO BE THE ONLY THING. YOU GOT TO get rid of the private industry because to the socialists and the communists, it is inherently evil. It is the cause of all the problems in the world. That's why they want to have their system even though it's NEVER WORKED. BUT WHY HAS IT NEVER worked when they have so many unfair advantages?

[00:11:00]>> Petition pop up. You know, I think Madami could be helpful if he said, "Listen, if you want to start a grocery store, uh take over a piece of property that's empty and uh we you don't have to pay don't have to pay any property tax for the first three, four years, something like that." You'd see private entrepre entrepreneurs step up. Uh these grocery stores would open, there'd be more options and people who were in places that don't have a lot of fresh food, would have that would be productive versus what he's trying to do, which I think would be very destructive. And Caroline, we know that these experiments in a free market economy like first of all, of course, they don't succeed in socialist economies and communist economies, but they don't have a choice. They have to do it. They're surfs of of a slave nation. That's why those things even there you have these long lines. But here it hasn't worked at all as well. So it has a zero positive track record.

[00:11:48]>> Yeah. It was attempted in a place called Baldwin, Florida, and it shut down quickly after launching because it failed to break even.

[00:11:56]>> Like that's what's so crazy about this is the concept of breaking even doesn't matter to a socialist who thinks that the wealth they need to run their programs was wrong to be obtained in the first place. That's why socialism doesn't have any problem with running out of other people's money. Other people aren't supposed to have any money because it's wrong. So running out of it is the goal. And that's the thing that's so funny ABOUT THIS. EVERYBODY GETS OUT THERE AND they say, "Well, socialism always fails because it runs out OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY." BUT THAT'S WHAT IT'S intending to do. That is its purpose. You having money in your pocket, you running a business, running a grocery store and doing well for yourself. Well, THAT'S BAD NEWS. THAT'S WHY WE excuse shoplifting in New York City, by the way, because all these grocery stores, the people who want to excuse the criminals, they say, "Well, these grocery stores are evil, man.

[00:12:42]They're making money. They're charging prices people can't afford." And that's wrong. Why are the prices where they are in a grocery store in New York? Does it have anything to do with the taxes? Of course. Does it have anything to do with the rampant lawlessness? It steals half the products. It jacks up the prices on the other half. Absolutely. But if you're a socialist and you're articulate and you're wrong, none of that's going to matter. You're fully set in your thinking, which is incorrect >> that. But David, this whole government >> even with all the subsidies, we got to say, because it's totally subsidized by taxpayers >> 100%. But this whole idea, governmentr run grocery stores was predicated on the other idea that groceries are unaffordable in New York City. But Mayor Mom Donnie, he started this with pretty reckless rhetoric, very incorrect, making grocery stores that are private the boogeyman, saying, "Oh, they're robbing customers blind and they're getting away with theft." They have an on on average a 3% profit margin. They are not stealing from people. They're barely making it as it is. And that's why we are excusing shoplifterss in this city. They're stealing from the grocery store. But to the people running this place, the grocery store is stealing from me and you when we go in there to pay. So what's the big deal if a criminal robs from them? It's just Robin Hood stealing from the rich to feed the poor who are all we're always told are the actual people stealing. Even though some of these scammers that steal, dress well, and have plenty of money because they have a zerocost business that they can run. And then what exactly are we supposed to get out of a free grocery store? A zerocost store that has its existence tied to the fact that it's not earning 3%. I mean, we're talking about pennies on $10 worth of items. These grocery stores are not earning a lot of money and we're supposed to take that away and everyone's life is going to be magically better because an orange was 3% cheaper. Like, this is ludicrous.

[00:14:31]This isn't going to help people afford a $5,000 apartment. But it's a great excuse because people go to the grocery store in New York and they can't afford the stuff that they're buying. And it's a very easy argument to make to people who don't understand that it's the theft that of these businesses that is jacking up the prices that is making their lives unaffordable. And at the same time, these cityrun stores, they're not going to do a thing to help you live in a $5,000 box apartment.

[00:14:52]>> How to bring prices down. You really want to bring them down. You introduce competition and you increase supply. You do not dump taxpayer dollars on a government-run grocery store that will inevitably be plagued with inefficiency, lines around the corner, crowding out small businesses. I have an idea. Peggy backing off of Doy, let Walmart operate in the five burrows.

[00:15:15]>> Uh, no. Can't do that because Walmart's the enemy. If Walmart comes in and people's lives get more affordable, that system, that privately run system that creates wealth for people who aren't the government conflicts with the government and you can't have that. that's not allowed to exist because wealth is evil.

[00:15:31]So all the stuff that they're mentioning to bring down prices, to do this, to to do that, if it creates wealth, if it makes somebody a millionaire at the end of the day, even if they help billions of people, it's a bad idea. It can't be allowed, which is why we don't want to pursue these types of solutions.

[00:15:46]>> That way they will be cheap.

[00:15:48]>> Walmart is Walmart is the enemy as well.

[00:15:50]And but the the the point is 40 years this guy took up the building business and it could be destroyed within the next couple of years as a result of this.

[00:15:58]>> So you got a guy who came here, lived the American dream, worked his way up, but he's the problem because he got rich doing something that helps other people.

[00:16:06]And people look at that person and they say, "Oh, you earned all this money. You must have stolen it. You must have done something wrong." No, that's not what happened. He didn't steal anything. If he was stealing, he would be in jail.

[00:16:16]Unless he was a shoplifter, then they would let him go free. If he became a millionaire by stealing, you better believe in this city he's going to have to pay for it. But speaking of paying for things, all of these programs like the zerocost grocery store, at most it's going to bring prices down 3% while costs at other stores continue to go up cuz they got to pay for these stores. So at most it does nothing. That's the best case scenario for the free store while it puts everybody else out of business, which admittedly is a huge problem. But it's not the only thing that the city wants to rob its citizens to pay for, which isn't actually going to work. And this next one might even be a bigger disaster than the free stores.

[00:16:54]>> Everybody, welcome to Pixon Politics. I am Dan Manorino. So, let's get into it.

[00:16:57]Governor Kathy Hokll and Mayor Zoran Mdani announcing a big one for this week. More 3K seats, hoping to bring more seats closer to families who need them. Cutting down on travel distance, for example. But even though the city has committed to greatly expanding childhood education access, the numbers don't appear to be there for applicants to fill those very seats. Meanwhile, THE STATE HAS >> WOW. SO, we're spending billions in child care, but nobody wants the child care. That's weird. The mayor just went on a whole campaign for free daycarees all over the place, and we don't have anybody who even wants them, and we're going to spend billions ON IT. WE HAVE programs that are just a drain on the resources of every single New Yorker.

[00:17:41]Nobody's asking for an orange to be 3% cheaper. Nobody's asking for all this prek. Nobody wants any of this stuff.

[00:17:48]Yet, we're all going to get taxed through the nose to pay for it. This is ridiculous. And this is a huge problem.

[00:17:53]And wait till you hear why it is the experts think we don't have enough kids.

[00:17:59]Last year and that number the year before that was 103,000. So, what do you attribute the decline in the numbers to?

[00:18:06]>> I think there's a couple different factors we have to look at. Um, so first are just the overall demographics. You know, we've seen shifts in New York City over the last couple years. The birth rate has gone down. Um, so there are >> fewer kids who were born in 2023 than the years prior, um, which is the cohort eligible for 3K this year. We also see immigration down and among immigrant families who are here, a just increased fear about engaging with government services. Yeah.

[00:18:31]>> Oh, well, she can't possibly be talking about legal immigrants that would come here and get an ID and get all the paperwork needed to start their own grocery store after bagging groceries and receiving pay for doing that. She must be talking about something else.

[00:18:45]So, New York has less people coming here. New York has less people who are here having children. All of that means we don't have the children to fill all of the slots everybody was just told they needed to pay for so that everyone can live here. Do you see what a problem this is? And you know something, the way that socialist governments work is they never roll back taxes. They never say, okay, well, we tried a program and it didn't work. No. What they say instead is that, well, we have to keep doing it.

[00:19:11]Well, we have to keep these programs going. If the free grocery stores fail, if they fall apart, here's what the reasons will be. It won't be that they were poorly run. No, it'll be that, well, people walked in and it wasn't exactly like Whole Foods. They didn't have all the same stuff we have at Whole Foods. So, what we really need to do for the free grocery stores is we need to pour even more money into them to pump up their product offerings. You need to be able to buy your vegetables. You need to be able to buy your head and shoulders shampoo. You need to be able to buy your Crest toothpaste. You got to be able to buy ALL THE STUFF YOU FIND AT A CVS or at a Walgreens. So, now those stores, they're not just going to be competing with produce. They're going to be competing with Target. THEY'RE GOING TO BE SHUTTING DOWN EVERY SINGLE business out there because the reason they didn't work is cuz people walked in and they didn't see the same things that they're used to seeing. and that's why nobody came or that's why we didn't have enough sales or that's why they didn't break even. And then it's the same thing with these child care programs. They're going to keep these things going because they're going to say, "Well, you know what? We had a whole bunch of people leave the city and now we got to convince them ALL TO COME BACK. AND HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THAT IF WE SHUT DOWN ALL THE CHILD CARE FAMILIES NEED TIME TO know and realize how great New York is and to decide to come back and IT'S GOING TO TAKE DECADES OF PROVIDING empty child care programs to lure everyone back so that we can tax them and hit them again. What do you think about all that?" I will see you in the next