Latest news with #JohnCatsimatidis
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cuomo quips ‘even I will move to Florida' if Mamdani wins NYC mayoral bid
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared to be joking Saturday when he said he would move to Florida if Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayor's race. Cuomo lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, but is planning to challenge him as an independent in the general election. The line, delivered at a Hamptons breakfast with political insiders, sparked laughter but also highlighted growing unease over the city's political direction. "It's all or nothing. We either win or even I will move to Florida. God forbid," Cuomo said, according to attendees at the remark came during a private gathering hosted by businessman John Catsimatidis at 75 Main in Southampton. Catsimatidis, a GOP donor and radio host, is also the owner of the Gristedes and D'Agostino supermarket chains, which could be directly affected by Mamdani's proposal to create government-run grocery guest list included RXR Realty Chairman Bruce Mosler, Ambassador George Tsunis, and former top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa. One attendee described the line as a "wow" moment. Multiple guests said it got the room's Says Cuomo's Got A 'Good Shot' Of Beating Mamdani In Nyc Mayor Election Cuomo's senior adviser, Rich Azzopardi, defended the comment to the New York Post. "Governor Cuomo would never give up on New York," he said. "The line underscored the stakes in this election and the risk of electing a dangerously inexperienced, hate-spewing 33-year-old socialist to lead the city." Cuomo repeatedly referred to Mamdani as "the kid" during the event. He called Mamdani's rent freeze proposal a "death sentence" for landlords and housing supply, and dismissed his platform as "unrealistic bumper sticker slogans." Read On The Fox News App Mamdani's campaign did not respond to a request for Cuomo Talks Rematch With Mamdani, Says Socialist's Policies Will Cause 'Death' Of Nyc Cuomo also took aim at Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent, saying, "We haven't had a competent mayor since Bloomberg." He accused Adams of being unable to focus, citing ongoing investigations and ethics concerns. Asked about the criticism by the New York Post, Adams responded, "If he's serious about moving to Florida, he should go ahead. He's already spent three weekends in the Hamptons." Cuomo's campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this article source: Cuomo quips 'even I will move to Florida' if Mamdani wins NYC mayoral bid Solve the daily Crossword
Wall Street Journal
14-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Don't Bet on NYC's Groceries
Regarding John Catsimatidis's op-ed 'Want Soviet Bread Lines? Vote for Zohran Mamdani' (July 1): If the voters want to let New York run the grocery stores, they shouldn't forget that the city also ran Off Track Betting Corp. into bankruptcy. New York couldn't even run a gambling operation with the odds stacked in its favor. Thomas Angelo
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nobody backing down in push to challenge Mamdani
NEW YORK (PIX11) — Some leaders across the city, including former Governor David Paterson, are calling for unity to defeat Democratic nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Paterson held a press conference Monday with grocery store CEO and radio station owner John Catsimatidis, among others. They said Mamdani is too inexperienced and has said too many offensive things, especially as it relates to the Jewish community, to run the city. More Local News Paterson and others also expressed concerns that Mamdani's policies, like freezing rent-controlled apartments, publicly owned grocery stores, and alternative policing strategies, would be a disaster for New York City. The former Governor is calling on all those running for mayor as independents, including former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Eric Adams, Lawyer Jim Walden, and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, to put egos aside and come together around one man to challenge Mamdani. However, Paterson did not endorse anyone, and did not lay out a plan for how to get to one unified challenge, only vaguely saying business and civic leaders should financially back one person. 'This is the beginning of a process, and it is publicizing our wish to try and find the right candidate for the people of the City of New York,' Paterson said. As for the candidates, only one is openly floating a similar idea. Walden has proposed that all non-Mamdani candidates agree that the winner of a poll in October will effectively be the only candidate. However, Republican Curtis Sliwa has said he would not back down. Cuomo's campaign released a statement saying they would consider what Paterson is saying, but said Mayor Adams is not a viable choice: 'Mayor Adams did not run in the Democratic primary because he knew he was anathema to Democrats and unelectable. Nothing has changed. We do not see any path to victory for Mayor Adams.' Adams said Cuomo made a huge mistake by creating an independent line for himself, and everyone should rally around him. The Mayor also revealed that during a recent conversation, Cuomo asked him to drop out of the race. 'He spent 25-30 million to put his message out, voters heard it, he lost by 12 points,' Adams said, dismissing Cuomo. 'I have an opportunity to go 1-on-1 with Mamdani, we are diametrically opposed.' Mamdani's campaign released a brief statement in response to Paterson. It said the Democratic nominee looks forward to building on his coalition in the November general election. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wall Street Journal
07-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Our Grocery Stores Are Gems
John Catsimatidis's success is a paradigm of the American immigrant experience ('Want Soviet Bread Lines? Vote for Zohran Mamdani,' op-ed, July 1). My wife's grandparents escaped Vienna after the Nazis began rounding up the Jews. In the process, her grandfather had to sign over his butter, cheese and egg business in a forced sale. Making it out on the last ship to Havana, he went on to open a small bodega, accumulating a handsome $1,000 profit before migrating to Borough Park, Brooklyn. There, he opened a kosher grocery serving the growing community of Holocaust survivors. Decades later, the grocery was taken over by a Turkish immigrant. New York is a melting pot and city of opportunity. Mr. Mamdani's public groceries would spoil this grand American tradition.
CNN
30-06-2025
- Business
- CNN
Zohran Mamdani wants to build government supermarkets. America already has them
Zohran Mamdani, the favorite to become New York City's next mayor after winning the Democratic primary, has a contentious plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores. But it's less radical than critics portray, some food policy and grocery industry experts say. Mamdani has proposed five municipally owned stores, one in each New York City borough, to offer groceries at lower prices to customers with limited access to supermarkets. In some New York City neighborhoods, more than 30% of people are food insecure. The proposal has been blasted as a ''Soviet' style disaster-in-waiting,' 'farcical' and 'economically delusional.' John Catsimatidis, the owner of New York City-based supermarket chain Gristedes, threatened to close stores if Mamdani is elected. (Catsimatidis is a two-time Republican candidate for mayor.) But Mamdani is drawing on government-owned and subsidized models that already exist in the United States, such as the Defense Department's commissaries for military personnel, public retail markets that lease space to farmers and chefs, and city-owned stores in rural areas such as St. Paul, Kansas. Atlanta is opening two municipal grocery stores later this year after struggling to draw a private grocery chain. Madison, Wisconsin, and rural Venice, Illinois, also plan to open municipally owned stores. 'This is more common than people are aware of,' said Nevin Cohen, director of the City University of New York's Urban Food Policy Institute. 'There's a wide spectrum of food retail establishments that could be created by or with the support of city government.' Mamdani has not released all the details of his plan yet, and it's not clear what role New York City would play in the opening or operation of grocery stores. Would it build stores? Lease them out to a private company or a non-profit? Would the employees be on the city's payroll? Mamdani's campaign did not respond to CNN's requests for more details of the proposal. But a government-owned supermarket 'concept is sound' and can take a 'variety of formats,' Cohen said. 'Rather than giving incentives to private supermarkets without the assurance of low prices, a city-focused program that puts affordability front and center is a better approach.' Yet municipal-owned stores have recently closed in several towns, such as in Baldwin, Florida. Chicago also shifted its effort from building city-owned stores to a city-run public food market, despite a study showing stores were 'necessary, feasible and implementable.' These cities' struggles underscore the challenges of government stepping into the grocery business amid fierce resistance from the private sector. Industry representatives say government-owned stores will compete with private businesses and unfairly disadvantage grocers, local bodegas and other stores in New York. If government stores drive out other food retailers, it would also hurt the problem it's trying to solve. 'This proposal seemingly could use taxes paid by business, and use that money to compete against said business, which is an alarming precedent to set,' said Michael Durant, the CEO of Food Industry Alliance, a trade association. Privately owned grocery stores already run on slim 1% to 3% margins, according to industry estimates. Government stores would be able to offer low-cost groceries because they would not have to pay rent or property taxes, according to Mamdani. 'They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing,' the campaign said on its website. Many companies already buy from wholesalers, have centralized warehouses and partner with local communities, however. His proposal would cost $60 million, Mamdani said in an interview on the podcast 'Plain English' released last week. Mamdani argued his proposal would be cheaper than an existing city program that provides tax breaks and subsidies for supermarkets to open in underserved areas, but does not include any requirements for food to be below certain prices. In many cities, grocers and other retailers governments recruited have closed in low-income areas after their tax incentives expired or they struggled to make a profit. 'This is a proposal of reasonable policy experimentation,' Mamdani said. 'If it is not effective at a pilot level, it does not deserve to be scaled up. But I believe it can be effective. I think that there's far more efficiency to be had in our public sector.' Advocates for independent grocers and small chains say that stronger antitrust enforcement would be a better solution to help lower food prices and spur competition. But Errol Schweizer, a veteran of the grocery industry who publishes the newsletter 'The Checkout Grocery Update' and has written in support of a public grocery sector, said Mamdani's proposal would address a failing in the market. Government-owned grocery stores would not compete directly with bodegas and convenience stores, which typically do not sell fresh produce and meat. 'New York has a great grocery sector,' he said. 'It could be a backstop for cash-strapped New Yorkers.' Other experts, however, say that for government stores in New York City to be successful, they must draw from customers with a wider range of incomes. This would help them maintain broader political support and offset bigger losses from lower-performing stores. 'A network of stores can be really effective if you're placing them in different areas. You're creating a chain of stores to support one another,' said Erion Malasi, the Illinois director of policy and advocacy at the non-profit Economic Security Project. He is working with Venice, Illinois, a historically Black community that received a $2.4 million grant from the state to open a municipally owned store. Rural areas have often been the site of government-owned grocery stores in the past. It's harder for sparsely populated towns to draw a private chain, find a distributor to service the store and labor to operate it, and have a large enough customer base to sustain it. But more cities are trying to open stores in neighborhoods with limited access. Cities can leverage their scale to buy from suppliers and city-owned land. Atlanta recently approved $8.2 million in incentives to a small grocer to operate two stores on city land in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods. Azalea Market is set to open this year and also offer cooking demonstrations, nutrition workshops and other resources for families. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens told CNN that the city created tax incentives and low-cost land to draw national chains, but it couldn't find a taker. 'We said that if they're not going to help us build it, we'll build it ourselves,' he said. Dickens believes government taking a role in offering affordable groceries is similar to investing in other public goods, such as housing, education and health care. 'We should be investing in the public good, from the urban farmer all the way to the independent grocer. People need to eat.'
