Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Wants to Open City-Owned Grocery Stores

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”― Thomas Jefferson

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is exploring the idea of opening city-owned grocery

stores. Many stores in Chicago have closed. Walmart, Walgreens, and Aldi are some of the businesses that have thrown in the towel and left the city. Mayor Johnson is exploring the idea with the Economic Security Project to see if city-owned grocery stores are feasible.

“Economic Security Project senior adviser Ameya Pawar compared the proposal to ‘the way a library or the postal service operates.’” 1 The Mayor and the Economic Security Project have devised a workaround to bring vital businesses back to Chicago. A grocery store or a pharmacy grocery is not comparable to a library or a post office. The former businesses are for-profit, and the latter are non-profit, although the planned businesses could be run as non-profit. In my humble opinion, a government-run business will always lose money. That would be taxpayer money.

The elephant in the room is that the city government's executive branch should not compete with private enterprises. Since the government can not run a business to compete with private enterprises, welcome to the Economic Security Project.

Under “What We Do” on the Economic Security Project website, they announce, “Our team disburses grants, runs issue campaigns, develops creative interventions and research products, and convenes the field to advance our issues and turn bold ideas into reality.” 2

The ESP Challenge is:

The Challenge

The Challenge, Economic Security Project

Inequalities rooted in racism, justified by outdated economic ideas, and maintained by a wealthy few, have left us all less secure and resilient.

This challenge does not address why the businesses mentioned above-closed shop and left Chicago. They claim the issues that ESP corrects are based on racism.

It looks as though Mayor Johnson would have the Economic Security Project administer the planned new businesses. “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,” Pawar said. 3

Instead of enforcing the law and arresting the criminals who looted the hapless businesses, Mayor Johnson will spend taxpayer money on so-called government-run companies with the hope that they will provide the service the citizens of Chicago deserve.

Although Johnson’s police chief, Umi Grisby, claimed the city would not be “spending any taxpayer dollars,” Johnson’s office said the grocery stores would be funded by grant money from state and federal tax dollars. 4

A question comes rolling to the forefront of this discussion. Will the rabble that put the other viable businesses out of business respect the new city-owned stores? Why would they? I will assume the rules of law would be the same. Lawbreakers will not be held accountable for their lawlessness. The result would be the failure of the reimagined businesses.

Responses on X (Twitter) by Chicagoans:

Sam Sanchez @samsamco Nobel intention but not a good idea. These grocery stores will be operating in the red and losing taxpayers money. Control crime and business will come.

L.A. Seals @SonofSeals Sep 13

Sam, it is worth the study. In particular, where the market refuses to show up, and if it does, it doesn’t do a good job. And to note, it won’t just be just grocery stores, but other markets as well. If you have ideas, please do share.

Sam Sanchez @samsamco Sep 14

I would love to share ideas; it’s not a criticism of our Mayor, I give him credit for the concern he has for underserved communities. The government should not be part of free enterprise. But create tools for free enterprise.

what’s in a name?@tootleburger· 4h

Well, well, all comes out. Big government taking control of food supply. Didn’t take but one Biden administration to get the ball rolling, and what a brilliant place to start, Chicago

Michelle oh @mkohlrogge 3h

This is how dems work. Create the problem by not policing, then “solve” the problem using taxpayers’ money. It’ll be a food pantry where people just come in and take the food because they’re still not policing

There, you have both sides of the spectrum. Some folks don’t mind if the government takes