New York City mayor frontrunner Zohran Mamdani wants to build a city-run grocery store.
Kansas City, MO, built its own city-funded grocery store, KC Sun Fresh, in 2018, and it has failed.
Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit led by Emmet Pierson Jr., “leases the site from the city.”
Empty shelves. Rotting food. Persistent crime.
The $15 million idea is a bust. From KSHB:
A rancid odor fills the market, with shoppers turned off by bare shelves and coolers, along with empty meat and deli departments.Jannine Owens told KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson on Monday she’s been shopping at the store since it opened, but in recent weeks, she can’t leave with everything she needs.”We need answers because at the end of the day, that don’t make sense,” Owens said.The City of Kansas City owns the shopping center.The Sun Fresh Market is part of a Community Improvement District (CID).The city collects revenue from a 1% retail sales tax on purchases in the CID to help pay for the development.The Linwood Shopping Center was a $15 million public/private investment.Over the years, the city has spent tens of thousands of dollars on security because of persistent crime problems.
That crime? So gross:
The store was first run by a private grocer; Pierson’s nonprofit took over in 2022. Sales were okay at first, but after the pandemic, crime rose and sales began to plummet. Police data show assaults, robberies and shoplifting in the immediate vicinity have been on an upward trend since 2020. Shoplifting cases have nearly tripled.At a community meeting last year, Pierson played videos of security incidents so graphic he gave a warning in advance — a naked woman parading through the store throwing bags of chips to the ground, another person urinating in the vestibule and a couple fornicating on the lawn of the library in broad daylight.
Maj. Chris Young said an “overwhelming presence” of cops hadn’t stopped crime. Young pointed out the city lacks a jail:
Part of the problem is the city’s lack of a jail, Young said. The left-leaning council closed the previous facility in 2009 as a cost-saving measure — a move the Kansas City Star has called a “$250 million mistake” — and so people arrested for minor crimes are quickly released instead of being held in rural counties miles away.That allows them to hop on the local bus system — free since the pandemic — and head back to the same location, Young said.“We typically have the same group of offenders every week that are recognizable by face and by name, just loitering and hanging out,” he said. “A small percentage of people are ruining it for the rest of the community that deserves to go to their grocery store and their library.”The city is making plans for a new jail, though construction could take years.
Socialism does not work.
On May 8, activists demanded city council pass an emergency ordinance to release $1 million promised to the store last year.
The city council passed an emergency ordinance for $750,00 for immediate assistance.
So where is the money?
KCTV sought answers and hit brick walls:
“Mayor Lucas and Kansas City remain deeply committed to access to healthy food on the Prospect corridor. The City will work closely with store ownership and all neighborhood stakeholders to support the long-term viability of the store based on normal revenues from customers and area consumers.”The office of Mayor QuintonLucas Pierson has not addressed that question either. He sent a statement as well.“Community Builders of Kansas City, through Midtown Grocers LLC, has worked tirelessly to provide food and necessary services to the urban community. Community Builders is committed to addressing the food desert that exists within our under resourced communities. However, for years Community Builders has been vocal, in the press, with the community and with the City of Kanss City, Missouri (the landlord of the KC Sun Fresh Midtown location) of the challenges we face. Community Builders’ concerns and fears are well documented.“We have no other comments at this time.”Emmet Pierson Jr. Community Builders of Kansas City President/CEO
City council members told KCTV, “No comment.”
However, Pierson told The Washington Post he used the $750,000 “to pay off outstanding invoices and restock the shelves.”
The store is now $39,000 in the red.
“It’s a deep, deep, deep hole,” Pierson said, adding that the store is a long way from breaking even, “even with all this city money.”
Huh. Imagine that.
It doesn’t help that no one will take responsibility:
Police and city officials say the area around Linwood Shopping Center has in recent years become a hotspot for crime and nuisance problems like loitering. Last year, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves promised more police officers would patrol there.“The city of Kansas City, Missouri, owns the store,” Grant said. “It owns the shopping center, and therefore it is responsible for addressing crime and blight in that area.”The city also established the Linwood Community Improvement District to provide more oversight and management of the grocery store. Community improvement districts allow the city to levy a tax over a specific area — one as large as Westport, for instance, or as small as this Sun Fresh — to raise revenue for infrastructure and other improvements in that district.But City Manager Mario Vasquez said at Friday’s meeting the revenue from the Linwood Community Improvement District isn’t enough to meet the needs of the store, and a chunk of the money already goes toward private security to patrol the area.“The city does provide another set of funds to the (community improvement district) to take care of basic things like the snow removal, landscaping, any kind of repairs that need to happen on the property, security,” he said.
Oh, read this. I emphasized an important word:
Grant said the store shouldn’t have to pay private security to do a job that should fall to local police.“They can’t sustain that,” she said. “And it shouldn’t even be expected, especially with how much money we invest in KCPD from the city anyway.”
Private. It’s almost as if you can always rely on the private sector. Weird.
Plus, the insurance company dropped KC Sun Fresh. The new insurance company’s premiums are 45% higher than the old one.
The store lost $885,000 in 2024.
KC Sun Fresh has about 4,000 customers a week, down from 14,000 a few years ago.
It’s basic economics. Prices don’t matter if you don’t have products to sell. You cannot sell the products you have without customers.
You cannot have customers with a history of consistent crime.
It’s no wonder a private grocery store won’t open a store in the area.
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