"City-Run Kansas City Grocery Store Closes Despite Millions in Taxpayer Funding
Story by Haley Strack • 1d • 3 min read

A city-run grocery store in Kansas City that was propped up by more than $18 million taxpayer dollars has closed.

Sun Fresh Market opened in 2018 in the city-owned Linwood Shopping Center. Part of a Community Improvement District, the shopping center received a multi-million renovation budget about a decade ago as part of the city’s sprawling revitalization efforts on the east side.

But after months of bare shelves, severe crime problems Kansas City has spent additional money to curb, and what one reporter described as a “rancid odor” connected to improper drain maintenance, Sun Fresh has shut its doors.

“Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, we are no longer, at this time, able to serve the residents of this important community,” a sign on the front door of Sun Fresh said, local NPR affiliate KCUR reported. “It has always been our dream and passion to provide quality products and services in a safe, family environment. At this time, unfortunately, we are unable to do that.”

Despite huge cash subsidies from the city, Sun Fresh has struggled to break even — likely due to the steep costs of maintaining a security presence at the store.

Police frequently field reports of fighting, drug use and public sex near the Sun Fresh, according to the Kansas City Star. Two managers quit last year over “hazardous” working conditions.

The store’s assistant manager Adriana Rentie said at an August meeting with Lucas and Kansas City Police Department Chief Stacey Graves that on one occasion, a Kansas City police officer “declined to intervene with a SunFresh customer accused of theft because the officer was busy responding to another customer wielding a machete,” the Star reported.

Waving off concerns that New York’s food is expensive because of sales tax rates and high cost of labor, not because of grocery stores’ profit margins, which are famously low, Mamdani has lauded his taxpayer-funded plan as “political experimentation.”

“No matter how you think about the idea, I do think there should be room for reasonable policy experimentation in our cities and in our country, where we actually test out our idea,” he said on a podcast in July. “And if they wok, they work. And if they don’t c’est la vie, then the idea was wrong.”"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/city-run-kansas-city-grocery-store-closes-despite-millions-in-taxpayer-funding/ar-AA1KsrOO