"Police data show assaults, robberies and shoplifting in the immediate vicinity have been on an upward trend since 2020.... 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.... [P]olice Maj. Chris Young said that even an 'overwhelming presence' of officers in recent months didn’t significantly decrease incidents.... 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... and so people arrested for minor crimes are quickly released... 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.'"
From
"Kansas City poured millions into a grocery store. It still may close. More cities and states are experimenting with the concept of city-owned grocery stores, but these experiments often don’t account for social issues" (WaPo).
This article is, I assume, prompted by Zohran Mamdani's pledge to open 5 city-owned grocery stores in NYC if he is elected mayor.
The Kansas City store lost $885,000 last year and "Despite a recent $750,000 cash infusion from the city, the shelves are almost bare."
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61 కామెంట్లు:
Yes, but once government controls all the grocery stores, they can ban Coke sales to EBT cards. Or allow them. Depending on which vote you're trying to buy.
Twas ever thus.
Kansas City doesn't have a jail? C'mon man.
The last Republican mayor of Kansas City left office in 1991, and was only the second Republican to occupy the office for over 100 years.
Mamdani - No work experience.
Just an adorable communist who would like to close more prisons.
Why are lefties so oblivious to human nature?
Photo cutlines:
"Happy Foods is a privately owned, for-profit grocer not far from the KC Sun Fresh store. It offers fresh produce and other choices.
"The well-stocked aisles of Happy Foods."
The private, for-profit store is full of food. Zero empty shelves.
The communist gastronom run by the Socialist black people of course looks straight out of Soviet Russia during the Lenin years.
I think the moral of this story is don't let black people try to run communist grocery stores in America.
The steep decline into moral degenerate and criminal behavior - occurred in sync with biden-soros corrupt pro-crime regime.
Criminals like crime... elites can go back home to their gated and guarded corvettes .
Commercial grocery stores operate on very thin profit margins, so efficiency and minimizing loss is very important. So is customer service. Government stores can just hit up taxpayers to make up for losses due to poor management and theft. They don’t have to bother pleasing customers either. They don’t care because they don’t have to care.
...it always works until you run out of other people's money. Thatcher smiles.
And they say Rs and Cs don't follow the science (evidence).
Enforce the laws. Make the neighborhoods safe. For profit stores will return, providing products and services that people need.
This isn't rocket science.
Original Mike said...
"Why are lefties so oblivious to human nature?"
They aren't. They know perfectly well that hungry people are easy to control.
"the city’s lack of a jail" You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh. It puts me in mind of Bernie Sanders being thrown out of a commune for not contributing.
These are largely not stupid people who promote this idiocy. They simply do not live in the real world because they think reality is ugly, and doesn't comport with their desired worldview. I know and love some of these same sorts of people. I say nothing. They are more important to me than their delusional beliefs.
are there any economists here?
if a private grocery store "lost $885,000 last year "..
how long would it stay in business?
The Kansas City store lost $885,000 last year and "Despite a recent $750,000 cash infusion from the city, the shelves are almost bare."
Sooner or later, they run out of other people's money.
One of the nice things about democracy is that the majority of voters tend to get what they deserve. One of the unfortunate things about democracy is that the minority of voters have to live with the consequences of this.
Thanks for the article highligting the real issue. Somewhat. You can't run a store if people are allowed to shoplift with no consequences. And engage in anti-social behavior with no consquences.
The reason the Government store is there, is because its a food desert. And its a food desert because private industry doesn't have to put up with theft, it can just close down and leave.
The Grocery store at our Local military base was doing great business and was the perferred grocery store for those who had military ID or military retirees. But then, they didn't have to put up with thieves and people fornicating next the cheetos.
I found a non-paywalled article at the Kansas City Star. The city bought the whole failing strip mall, Linwood Shopping Center, not just the grocery store anchor tenant.
There is a grocery store a mile to the south, and another a mile to the east.
The story says crime is a problem.
And KC isn't going to run out of "other people's money". Its called tax revenue and it also gets its share of State and Federal Government money.
And we've given Ukraine $200 billion to fight a war. And we haven't made one cent of profit. We've "Lost" $200,000,000,000. Maybe we should have put a losertarian in charge. HE would've ran a profit.
I found a non-paywalled article at the Kansas City Star.
The city bought the whole failing strip mall, Linwood Shopping Center, not just the grocery store anchor tenant. They fixed it up in a renovation project. The building and the parking lot look modern and inviting. I looked at it with Google Earth.
There is a grocery store a mile to the south, and another a mile to the east.
The store in this story is not all that big at 38,000 sq ft. A healthy adult can walk at a pace of 3 miles per hour, so many people could walk to a competitor in 20 minutes. You could ride your bike or drive even faster.
Everywhere I have lived there has been turnover of who is top dog in the grocery business. I have seen stores this size close as much bigger stores with more variety take over the market.
Lefties remind me of those monks in, "The Holy Grail, that smack themselves in the head with boards as part of their religious practice.
"those monks in, "The Holy Grail, that smack themselves in the head with boards as part of their religious practice."
I've always loved that scene.
what nonsense. The truth is what everyone knows, but is too scared to say- if you import the third world, you get unlivable cities. not just grocery stores.
High trust societies used to exist-europe and America. This so called diversity ruined things. immigrants used to want to learn English, and fit in. Now they insist on bring the corrupt barbaric crap from home, and want to be treated as equals.
NO ONE wants to go shopping at the end of a long day at work, and put up with people pooping and peeing and drugging in the parking lot. and then watch some fat obese woman buying thousands of dollars of free food, taken from your wages.
Inga et al fully supports this crap, they voted for it, cheer for it. as long as it doesn't keep them out of their own safe stores
Just remember, this is what Obama, Clinton and Biden and Harris want for all of us. A drug fueled dystopian night mare, one in which they are not part of-they are above it. scratch a leftist on this blog, and you will find the same vibe-they are special, and don't need to deal with the masses.
government owned anything is a joke. healthcare, schools, damn near anything the collective comes up with.
Vestibule is one of the great words.
Around here, when grocery stores (either big chains or local employee-owned) expand and renovate, they like to put in two sets of doors, well away from each other.
After a few years, they close one side.
My father managed chain grocery stores when I was very young. Like 5-7 years old. There was a non-profit co-op in the town we moved to when he was the opening manager at the new Food-Fair in town. The for profit stores didn't bother considering the co-op as competition. They existed, and sold food, but were beneath consideration. The town was built out by 1960, the population then and now is about 25,000. When he opened the store- it was the first self service grocery store in town. There are now 3. The store he opened is gone, but there's another chain in the space. I know it's changed hands at least 3 times. The adjoining bakery is now a bagel shop, the DQ is now some other ice cream shop, and the barber shop in the strip mall is gone...
And the co-op is gone, as are most, if not all, the grocery co-ops of the era. Why are the co-ops gone? Well, to shop there at their discounted prices, a family member had to "volunteer" at the store a minimum number of hours per week. And getting volunteers to work for the benefit of others is always difficult. And getting them to work harder/smarter even more difficult. Seems in the long run, simply paying people wages, however small, is a more efficient way to run a grocery store.
Another programs to reduce consumer cost- one my daughter and son-in-law participate in- CSA- Community Supported Agriculture. Cost this year $400, and for 3 months they get a dozen eggs each week, and an assortment of newly harvested other stuff- including local berries of all kinds. This last week they got beets, among other things. I've got some in my fridge right now- seems my daughter thinks beets are gross, and my son-in-law has never had them... It's basically pre-paying the farmers for food. So it might not be doable in an actual city.
You get more of what you incentivize, especially if there's no downside of punishment. A store that loses almost a million in a year isn't a business, it's a failure. The empty shelves are proof of that. To not make that as the main point is a failure of journalism. They're pretending that, in spite of the law-breaking chaos, it's still a functional grocery store.
"Social issues" = thieves.
"operating without a profit motive”
“Obviously, they don’t feel like this is their responsibility. … Or they don’t care"
Those two statements are saying pretty much the same thing.
"consumer behavior" = thieves
"social justice protests" = looting
No one washes a rental car.
“ No one washes a rental car.”
I actually did once. It was so filthy it made me sick to drive it. And that’s when they delivered it (Enterprise)
" No one washes a rental car.”
We did, a couple of months ago. We had it for 2 months, it was filthy from the backroads we were driving it on, so we washed it before returning it.
"Despite"!
Lefties remind me of those monks in, "The Holy Grail, that smack themselves in the head with boards as part of their religious practice.
Except their plan is always to start smacking other people in the head as soon as they get the power.
Only people who came from NAIVE WORLD are surprised that a government funded enterprise selling a product, failed.
Just last week I noticed that California's High Speed Rail is still in the early stages of construction after 17 years, and $13 billion. The original statement pushing voters to OK this boondoggle, was that people would be able to travel from SF to LA in 2.5 hours.
"The original statement pushing voters to OK this boondoggle, was that people would be able to travel from SF to LA in 2.5 hours."
The original cost estimate was $33 billion.
JIM said...
"Just last week I noticed that California's High Speed Rail is still in the early stages of construction after 17 years, and $13 billion."
Time lapse footage of the California high-speed rail system being built (2008-2024): https://x.com/monodevice/status/1775589976220246032
The government is a reliable monetary inflator. Free never cost so much.
"No one washes a rental car"
Mr. A.I. sez: The times, they are a-changin' .
"Original Mike said...
Why are lefties so oblivious to human nature?"
They lie to themselves and everyone else all the time and lack the ability to model future behaviors based on past actions of humanity. They claim to believe that humans are born good and only do bad to fill needs when forced to by other people. Those others are currently believed to be the born bad white men.
As Ronald Reagan once said...
https://youtube.com/shorts/qIIs5L5xt6A?feature=shared
This article touches on some important points students often overlook. If anyone’s feeling overwhelmed, our team is always here to offer personalized assignment help —because no one should have to tackle academic stress alone.
That any of this is a surprise to anyone is the real tragedy here.
Kansas City is an utter hellhole. I can’t believe people want to live there.
"...the shelves are almost bare"
As in virtually every store in the Soviet Union, except those special locations reserved for Party apparatchiks, diplomats, and foreign reporters like Walter Duranty, who still has a Pulitzer.
They never learn because learning means condemning that which they cherish more than life to the flames of Hell.
Inferno remains timeless by this one aspect. During his tour, Dante is often moved to tears of sympathy by the horrors he sees, whilst Virgil remains untouched by any sentiment other than contempt, until his final descent into Cocytus, when he realizes that none of the suffering damned he has spoken to regretted the crimes that dictated their fates.
On the other hand, naked customers rarely shoplift.
"...the shelves are almost bare"
But there's one important difference between Kansas City in 2025 and Moscow in 1975, the downtrodden Moscovite wage-earner who might try to obtain some of the goodies hoarded by the Party for itself, assuming he could buff his way past the Militia guard at the door, could find himself a Zek in a Siberian slave labor camp, whereas the thieves who keep the shelves bare in Kansas City are never arrested, let alone punished.
"I think the moral of this story is don't let black people try to run communist grocery stores in America."
This particular store would have never been funded and opened if voters applied the same reasoning to their city governments, but that would be "racist."
Cool.
Every generation throws a Boris Yeltsin up the pop charts.
One of the stupidest phrases in governance: THIS time we'll do it right.
And, after the inevitable failure, there's always going to be a next time to get it right.
As someone once said, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Communism = 100,000,000 broken eggs, 0 omelets.
"operating without a profit motive”
An extremely well ran grocery store has a profit margin of 1 to 2 percent. That means that if you are not subsidizing the stores using tax dollars the most you would be able to reduce the prices, assuming the government is doing an excellent job of running the grocery store, is 1 to 2 percent. The government store will have to be subsidized, of course, because if private grocery stores could make a profit operating were the government store is going to be located, they would be opening stores there.
It's 2025 and we're debating "government-run grocery stores"......what a time to be alive!
"It's 2025 and we're debating "government-run grocery stores"......what a time to be alive!"
Going by a lot of Science Fiction from the 50s and 60s we all should be eating at communal dining halls by now. It would be much more efficient!
If only free enterprise weren’t so terrible
This doesn't have anything to do with the lack of a jail in Kansas City, Mo. KC is building a new jail, meanwhile non violent inmates are housed in neighboring counties and violent ones in Missouri state prisons.
Shopping centers go out of business for two reasons, severe recessions or demographics. Here in KC I think of four malls that failed because the suburban growth didn't follow the expected corridor or the area became older with no children.
I can think of more that were destroyed by a specific subculture, some being jewels of this city.
As I understand it, (at least part) of the support for the NYC owned groceries is $0 property tax. Seems like you would do better to have that apply to the privately owned stores with a mechanism to pass most of the savings along to the customers. Perhaps no sales tax on staple food products. You'd still get the benefit of competition = better service and products and it would still cost the city less than the financial black hole of city owned stores..
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