Da, what could possibly go wrong, Comrades?
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced last week that his administration is exploring a city-owned grocery store as a means of promoting “equitable” access to food, though the plan has drawn criticism from skeptics of a government owned and operated store.
Chicago would become the first major U.S. city to implement a municipally owned grocery store to address food inequity if the proposal advances, the mayor’s office said in a release. Johnson’s office said Wednesday that it’s working with the Economic Security Project, a non-profit group, on a feasibility study that “will help inform the Johnson administration’s emerging food retail strategy, which will receive input from experts, community leaders, and Chicago’s Food Equity Council.”
“All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides,” Johnson said. “My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequities. I am proud to work alongside partners to take this step in envisioning what a municipally owned grocery store in Chicago could look like.”
It’s a challenge in those areas because the crime is out of control. It’s a problem of their own making, both the citizens for the criminality and the city for not having the police necessary and for not prosecuting. How would this actually work, though? Does the city have people who are familiar with running stores? Understanding the supply chains? How much money will the city spend with all the money they do not have? How much money will the stores lose because of theft and mismanagement? Of course, if they go forward with the plan, it will take years and years, because they will do studies and such
The mayor’s office said in a release that it intends to pursue “values aligned funding opportunities” for the city-owned grocery store initiative such as those from the Illinois Grocery Initiative, which commits $20 million for grants and technical assistance for grocery stores in the state. The city didn’t provide a timeline for the study.
Paying a few people a huge amount for studies, rather than talking to people who can get this done quickly.
It cited data from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture estimated that 63.5% of residents in West Englewood and 52% of East Garfield Park residents live more than half a mile from their nearest grocery store. It added that “food access and security link directly to environmental and racial justice. 37% of Black residents and 29% of Latine/x residents are food insecure, compared to 19% of residents overall.”
Half a mile? The horror! How many grocery stores does the USDA think there should be? I have zero within that range. I have 6 within two miles. There are only so many places one can be.
Walmart announced the closure of three stores in Chicago’s South and West Side neighborhoods this April, in addition to one store in the more affluent North Side after years of challenges with profitability despite investing in upgrades to the facilities. Those closures occurred after Walmart CEO Doug McMillon warned in December that its stores across the country were grappling with shoplifting to a degree that, “If it’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close.”
“The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years,” Walmart wrote in a post announcing the closures. “The remaining four Chicago stores continue to face the same business difficulties, but we think this decision gives us the best chance to help keep them open and serving the community.”
If they are not profitable, and are losing double now, why keep them open? That’s why Whole Foods and others have closed. They aren’t charities. Add in the danger to the employees and patrons, and it’s a big loser. But, you know what? I’d love to see Chicago give this Soviet Union style experiment a whirl. Every experiment needs an experimental group, right?
Par for the course, the left desperately wants the country as a whole to fail so spectacularly that Marxism starts looking good by comparison. This venture, if they do end up trying it, will be such an obvious boondoggle of a train wreck, other leftist run cities will immediately jump on board with their own even more unsuccessful versions while kicking themselves for not coming up with it years ago. The leftists in .gov will then demand that the whole money losing system be federalized to “save it”
, much to the delight of Marxist/Socialist ne’er-do-wells everywhere.
It will never get off the ground but the whole thing will be such a dumpster fire money pit by design, you wouldn’t be able to kick 5-gallon buckets of $100 bills off a cliff fast enough to match it.
These numbsculls don’t give a hoot about the “underserved”, whatever that means this week. The mission will never be to feed or help them. The same way the ACA was never about healthcare, a carbon tax is never about the environment, gun control has zero to do with stopping violence.
More over-reach, money and control for them, less individual liberty for the citizen, that is the overriding mission.
If you don’t get that yet you’re either not paying attention, you’re stupid or you’re part of the problem.
One Conspiracy to Bind Them All!!
“Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”
Some red states like Louisiana have homicide rates 400%,higher than some Blue states like Massachusetts.
Despite higher crime rates in cities gir decades people have been leaving rural red areas and move to bluer areas . Having Trump lead the GOP hasn’t helped. NC and AZ will probably be the next 2 states to go to blue. In the case of NC it is due to all those “smart people” moving to the triangle. Their intelligence is spreading further afield
More BS from H. Exactly what we’ve come to expect. You’re disdain and loathing of the average working man in red areas drips from your lips like I hate filled speech by any other communist or Nazi who’s ever lived.
You’re ability to disparage your fellow Americans because they didn’t go to college like you and work on a farm or because they don’t Vote Blue like you and they’re not rich like you is a sign of your contempt for humanity in general and your lack of compassion specifically. You are exactly what the communists have created over the last 100 years.
Behold at the destroyer of societies they are now among us.
A Democrat explains taxation
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UGgwW5IQaPw?feature=share
Mr H didn’t disparage his fellow Americans for any reason, much less for not attending college or for working on a farm or for not being rich.
We need both our rural and urban areas, but please understand the elites raping both areas want us all fighting amongst ourselves, so we won’t notice the screwing that all working Americans are getting.
Our rural and suburban brethren have been told repeatedly over the decades to hate Blacks, gays, Hispanics and urbanites. Urbanites have been taught to mock rural white Christians as unsophisticated, ignorant and racist.
What makes the commenter believe/feel that Mr H is a communist?
Cities have problems but blue cities are the heart of America’s economy. They pay the taxes that keep poor red states solvent.
How about an occasional “thank xou’ from those poor red states we must constantly give out taxes to?
Those poor states feed your commie ass. How about you thank them for keeping you and your family out of the bread lines commies create.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A01JIjDG3Yw?feature=share
Seems like pretty even fields, red vs blue states. You should drive through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois sometime.
Why do you seem to be pissed off all the time?
Top States people are moving to: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina
Top States people are moving from: New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California
Johnny-do you notice a pattern..?
Food inequality. Since where I live has a very low drug problem are we suffering Meth Inequality?
Being a city-owned grocery store, you can bet that the employees of ChicagoMart would be unionized, meaning either higher prices for groceries, or other Chicagoans to subsidize the food of the people in the new grocery stores customer base area.
Being a city-owned grocery store, you can bet that the employees of ChicagoMart would be unionized, meaning either higher prices for groceries, or other Chicagoans to subsidize the food of the people in the new grocery stores customer base area.
Of course, the new ChicagoMarts would have the same crime problems as the closing down privately owned grocery stores: criminals gotta criminal! Even with their food already subsidized through
food stampsEBT cards, the criminal class still keep stealing stuff. So the public grocery stores will lose money, just like the private ones have.There is, naturally, a simpler solution: enforce the law! Prosecute, seriously prosecute shoplifters, and send then to jail.
Walmart stock price has nearly doubled over the past 5 years, so even the investors are doing well.
That said, no business is obligated to keep open a branch that continually loses money. WalMart claims they have been losing money in Chicago the last 17 years, not just recently.
Stores in impoverished areas have always had profitability issues, and not just because of crime. Although poor people spend more of their income than do others, they spend less in total per capita. Food “deserts” in poor areas are real. Transportation, safety, money to spend are all problems.
There are more than 20 WalMarts in the greater St Louis area.
Last year a video circulated from an Asian country. Shoppers walked up to monitors, placed their orders, paid, then waited for their box of groceries to come down the conveyor belt. Al Sharpton will protest because his followers will lose out on an easy source of food.
This scheme brings to mind when the Chi-Coms actually opened a store down the street from us to actually learn how retail consumer sales worked. Called ‘The Great Mall of China’, they ran it for a couple of years, took their data, ‘training’, and went home. This was sometime in the ’80’s if memory serves. Interesting place, we visited regularly. Of course, the comparison ends there as this venture was for political ‘good will’ and to learn more about western capitalism. Wasn’t intended to make money.
It will be interesting to watch lefty dems start, stock, employ staff, and operate a grocery. I think they would be well served to buy one of the closed stores and try to hire experienced staff, we’ll see. Since grocery stores operate on a rather narrow margin, the taxpayers of Chicago should brace themselves because they will be stuck with the shortfall. Probably a better idea would be to deal with the crime issues and educating the target area population. That probably won’t happen as it is not in the lefty playbook.