As inflation and the prices of everything continues to rise, Chicago, Illinois, Mayor Brandon Johnson floated out the idea of launching a government-owned grocery store with the “goal of promoting food equity and accessibility for all Chicagoans.”
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.
A better, stronger, safer future is one where our youth and our communities have access to the tools and resources they need to thrive. 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.
Mayor Brandon Johnson said
According to a press release published from the Mayor’s desk on September 13th, Johnson announced a new partnership with The Economic Security Project to create a city-owned grocery store. The press release says The Economic Security Project is a national non-profit dedicated to building economic power for all Americans, that provides “technical assistance in determining a pathway to the first municipally owned grocery store in Chicago.”
Ameya Pawar, Senior Advisor at Economic Security Project, said in a statement, “The City of Chicago is reimagining the role government can play in our lives by exploring a public option for grocery stores via a municipally owned grocery store and market.”
Not dissimilar from the way a library or the postal service operates, a public option offers economic choice and power to communities. A City-owned grocery store in the South or West side of Chicago would be a viable way to restore access to healthy food in areas that have suffered from historic and systemic disinvestment.
He added
Mayor’s administration further annotated that necessity for such a city-owned food store:
Historic disinvestment has led to inequitable access to food retail across Chicago, and these existing inequities have been exacerbated as at least six grocery stores closed on the South and West sides over the past two years.
According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 63.5% of residents in West Englewood and 52% of residents in East Garfield Park live more than half a mile from their nearest grocery store, whereas in West Town less than 1% of residents experience this barrier to food access. Moreover, 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. Exploring innovative initiatives to support food retail is part of the Johnson administration’s broader commitment to correcting systems and practices that have created these inequities.
The impact of inadequate food retail reaches beyond food access. Grocery stores serve as anchors in communities by employing community members and acting as a catalytic business for nearby commercial activity.
Grocery store closures, especially in areas that rely on one grocery store provider, force residents to leave their neighborhoods and spend money outside of their communities to find healthy, affordable, enjoyable food options. This contributes to the existing “retail gap” many South and West side communities face, where millions of dollars in local residents’ purchasing power that could have been invested in their community ends up supporting retail stores in other parts of the city. This feasibility study will contribute to the administration’s commitment to investing in innovative solutions to address community infrastructure, neighborhood revitalization, and economic vitality.
The strides being made in the realm of food justice are now poised for a significant advancement towards innovative solutions.
This opportunity marks a pivotal moment to forge pathways for food accessibility, with the City recognizing its role as a key partner in addressing market shortcomings. By doing so, it aims to propel solutions in communities that have long faced challenges in accessing nutritious and affordable food options.
This partnership aligns with broader statewide initiatives, representing a truly distinctive moment in time. These efforts hold the promise of creating a profoundly meaningful impact.
Anton Seals Jr., Lead Steward of Grow Greater Englewood, Mayoral transition subcommittee co-chair, and inaugural member of the City’s Food Equity Council, stated
As indicated in the press release, this move comes amid more larger chain stores beginning to move out of the city, especially in low-income and black-dominated neighborhoods, due to crime and violence continuing to rise coupled with the rising costs of everything.
The previous Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who once lambasted a reporter and said “I have the biggest d*** in Chicago,” blasted the heads of these companies and chains for leaving the city; though conversely Lightfoot was blasted by the people for basically playing a major part as to why these businesses are fleeing Chicago.
SEE: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Says To ‘Not Use Money’ And Not Carry Cash To Reduce Crime In The City
In a statement to The New York Post, while Walmart still has locations in the city, a spokesperson for the company said, “that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago.”
Steve Boulton, the chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, in city heavily dominated by Democratic policy for a very long time, urges private businesses to just get out.
Take all the problems private chains face in low-income areas, then add in amateur management by a bureaucracy, Chicago-style political corruption in hiring and contracting, and a limited range of products.
Private chains should just pull out of all the neighborhoods, because the city stores will have better police protection and lower prices subsidized by the long-suffering Chicago taxpayer.
Food deserts do exist in Chicago neighborhoods, but the answer is promoting capitalist prosperity and stopping crime, not injecting more socialist dependency.
Boulton said
‘According to the Chicago Police Department, thefts are up 25% to-date year over year. Robberies are up 11%,’ The NYP wrote.
Last year Lightfoot passed a law that prevents police from chasing criminals and vigilantes on foot, effectively allowing lawlessness in the city.
In short, while some Chicagoans are in favor of this move to launch a city-controlled grocery stores, others don’t want it. The editorial board for the Chicago Tribune stands against this move.
The plan, popular among progressives, assumes that the city can succeed where private sector specialist retailers have set up shop and failed. The rhetoric in the announcement goes further than that: It implies that grocery chains are run by those who don’t want to succeed in the neighborhoods that need them the most. This is nonsense.
A city-owned store would struggle with economies of scale, be open to the charge of unfair competition and face a mountain of politicized debate over how much it should be charging.
And, to bring up a point few in the current administration want to talk about, would it suffer the same theft problem that contributed to Whole Foods’ exit? Would the police respond differently if it were a city-owned store? How would that go down with other Englewood small business owners with less clout?
We surely believe that all Chicagoans should have access to fresh food. But we don’t think City Hall should be behind the deli counter.
The paper wrote
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
The neo-fascist screwballs that run Chicago have certainly established a new precedent that I would imagine many more ultra progressive, crime laden dumpster fires will surely adopt.
To give you an idea what this store will probably be, is it will mimic the new Walgreens ‘anti-theft’ store that opened in June, in Chicago, where nearly everything is hidden behind protective cases and requires that transactions be completed via a digital kiosk.
Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
Ezekiel 7:23
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Chicago is a Godless cesspool! Most of Illinois is like the California of the Midwest. I’d rather live in Indiana (where my blood goes back to)
Read about this and what a stupid idea; they will pick that place clean faster then they can stock it, like wolves on a carcass
And the gubmint takes it all over…. Funny, like how they twisted & used Prohibition, exploited by their crony gangsters, to that end. Taking over alcohol production and all ‘controlled substances’ (the definition ever expanding & even relating to food & weeds today!) to all be placed under the sole wielding and monitoring of initiated cronies.
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Any who get out of line get whacked…like Kennedy of ‘Camelot’, then redefined, held up & venerated as ‘martyrs’ and ‘saints’ in classic Roman Machiavellian fashion. Nothing new under the sun!!
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I could be wrong, but the precedent of their ‘evolving natural law’ is established, & I believe they’ll establish their gubmint stores, as they have their gubmint ‘food banks’ etc, and that then, backed by the sword of State, & not just national, but global: there will then be a brutal & bloody, forced ‘re-education’ of the lower level smash-and-grab cronies outliving their ‘usefulness’ to the regime.
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Interestingly, the Pritzker crime family of Jesuit-run Illinois is Jewish. Nice front & fallguys having no king but Caesar, and still the tail and not the head.
This will lead to the government rationing food.