‘There’s no nothing’: Publicly-funded Kansas supermarket serves as a big warning for New Yorkers

A partly publicly-funded grocery store in Missouri is failing epically and, in doing so, offering a warning to voters in New York City (NYC).

The leading mayoral candidate in NYC is Zohran Mamdani, a self-avowed socialist (and alleged communist) who wants to build fully publicly-funded grocery stores in the Big Apple.

“It’s like a public option for produce,” he said in a TikTok video uploaded in December. “We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores whose mission is to lower prices, not price gouging.”

“These stores will operate without a profit motive, or having to pay property taxes or rent, and will pass on those savings to you. They’ll partner with small businesses and nearby farms and sell at wholesale prices,” he added.

When 85% of New Yorkers say the cost of food is rising faster than their incomes, it’s time for a real alternative.

Introducing a public option…for produce. pic.twitter.com/8ZNGRC8sNy

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) December 12, 2024

There’s just one problem: History has consistently shown that publicly-funded grocery stores and other socialist schemes never work.

Take, for instance, the Sun Fresh Market, a publicly funded grocery store in Kansas City. Launched in 2018, the store has since transformed into a hot mess replete with crime, empty shelves, and even rancid smells.

“A rancid odor fills the market, with shoppers turned off by bare shelves and coolers, along with empty meat and deli departments,” according to a recent report from local station KSHB.

“Over the years, the city has spent tens of thousands of dollars on security because of persistent crime problems,” the report continued.

Learn more below:

For all the Zohran fans, let’s check in on how the city-funded grocery store experiment is going in Kansas City…

Maybe capitalism isn’t the boogeyman you think it is. pic.twitter.com/qktbekeUd9

— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) July 23, 2025

This is despite millions having been spent on this scheme.

“The store, known as KC Sun Fresh, lost nearly $900,000 over the last year and received tens of millions of dollars dating back to 2018,” according to Fox Business.

As noted earlier, it’s only “partly” publicly funded through a non-profit. The local government gives the non-profit money, and the non-profit then uses it to keep the store afloat.

Except that the store is clearly not being kept afloat.

“It make me want to walk right back out,” local resident Greg Hayslett told station KCTV after walking into the store and finding the shelves empty earlier this week. “It’s mind-boggling.”

“I don’t understand why the stocks haven’t been refilled,” Toni Williams,  another local resident, added.

“There’s no meat, there’s no vegetables, there’s no nothing,” a third shopper anonymously told Fox Business. “Are you going to take care of the community that’s surrounded around you? If not, sell the store to someone that can be more responsible.”

But who would want to run a grocery store in such a hellish area? KSHB notes that the area is “plagued by crime, substance abuse, and prostitution.”

It’s the exact same thing that happens whenever the government tries to resolve the problem of so-called “food deserts” — areas that actual grocery store chains avoid precisely because of the incessant crime.

The map of “food deserts,” in my home city, is identical to the map of “high crime high overdose areas.”

This is also true in Appalachia.

This is not some complex mystery. https://t.co/UZkWlOmwVX

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 6, 2025

For instance, dozens and dozens of retail stores in downtown San Francisco have closed up shop in recent years because of all the crime.

“There have been over 10,000 cases of larceny or theft in San Francisco already in 2023, according to data from the San Francisco police department,” The Daily Caller reported that year.

“Critics have pointed to laws such as Proposition 47, a statewide ballot initiative which passed in 2014 and made theft of under $950 a nonviolent misdemeanor, as contributing to the increase in crime,” the report continued.

Just like San Francisco, Kansas City is also a Democrat-run city.

The KC Sun Fresh grocery store was supposed to solve “food deserts.” Instead, it became a $17 million dumpster fire full of crime, rot, and human waste. Now Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani wants NYC to copy that exact failure? There is a reason why the government shouldn’t run… pic.twitter.com/qywomr0iCm

— April Chapman (@Unshakablewapr) July 24, 2025