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It also doesn't seem fair to compete against stores that have to pay rent and taxes.

A gov run grocery store will have to pay rent and taxes.

The only difference is it doesn’t have to make profits to pay its owners.

The question is, why are you prioritizing being “fair” to people profiting off hunger, over being fair to working people trying to eat? Even if it is “unfair” this is a kind of unfair we should all support (assuming it succeeds at feeding people).

The working people who own grocery stores and bodegas are trying to eat.

Afaik bodegas make most of their money from cigarettes and booze, so this is unlikely to cut into their income in any real way. As for grocery stores owned and operated by the people who work in them, there aren’t many of those but I would expect they’ll be aware of that and open these gov stores far away from small local grocers (who tend to have cheap food already).

As for people who own grocery stores and don’t work in them? That’s an investment not a job, gov has no duty to protect individual investments over people’s basic needs.

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