Democrat Mayor Proposes Government-Owned Grocery Store

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) has begun advocating for the creation of government-owned grocery stores — announcing a partnership with a far-left nonprofit to advance his proposal, which he claims is part of his plan for “racial justice.”

Johnson made the announcement in a press release, in which he claimed that the potential city-owned grocery store would be necessary to address the exodus of corporate grocery stores — which have been leaving many Democrat-run areas due to skyrocketing theft and lack of legal consequences for criminals. The Democrat mayor also asserted that government-run grocery stores are needed to promote “food equity.”

“[F]ood access and security link directly to environmental and racial justice,” the press release read, adding that “37% of Black residents and 29% of Latine/x residents are food insecure, compared to 19% of residents overall.”

Johnson went on to argue that “historic disinvestment has led to inequitable access to food retail across Chicago” — claiming that “existing inequities have been exacerbated as at least six grocery stores closed on the South and West sides over the past two years.”

While the Democrat mayor is attempting to shift the blame for grocery stores such as Walmart and Whole Foods leaving Chicago, the truth is that the city’s violent crime and large-scale theft problems have caused the issue. In April, Walmart announced that it was closing four stores in Chicago’s South and West Side neighborhoods — noting that the closures were due to a lack of profitability.

“These stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years,” the company’s press release stated.

While Walmart’s statement did not specifically cite shoplifting — which has skyrocketed by 25% over the last year in Chicago — the company’s CEO Doug McMillon warned in 2022 that if shoplifting across the U.S. did not slow down, he would have to close some stores.

Meanwhile, Chicago has not provided an exact estimate for the cost of a city-owned grocery store — though Johnson’s chief of policy, Umi Grisby, claims that the project won’t use taxpayer dollars. However, Grisby did admit that the city would use state and federal funding for the project.

“We are not spending any taxpayer dollars, right?” she said during an interview on CBS Chicago. “What we’re also going to be able to access is the funding that exists at the national level and the state level.”

Critics have slammed the idea as “Soviet-style central planning,” with many pointing out that the government-run store would price out its competition by selling items at cost because it isn’t as concerned about profits — which would eventually exacerbate the problem and potentially lead to the spread of government-run grocery stores across the country.