Exclusive | NYC bodega leaders voice support for – Business News
Leaders of a key New York City bodega and restaurant group are taking the uncommon step of talking out in regards to the mayoral election and throwing their support behind Andrew Cuomo — simply days after a rival group bought rocked over a Zohran Mamdani endorsement, The Post has realized.
“We don’t endorse candidates,” stated Francisco Marte, founder and president of the Bodega and Small Business Group, which represents some 3,000 bodegas, barber outlets, magnificence salons, mechanics and eating places within the Big Apple.
“But we favor Andrew Cuomo,” Marte advised The Post. “He’s the best of what we have now.”
Francisco Marte is the president of the Bodega and Small Business Association. Robert Miller
At challenge for many of these small companies are Mamdani’s plans to open city-owned grocery shops that may offer prospects wholesale costs. Small business homeowners, particularly retailers, have likewise been rattled by Mamdani’s previous feedback about defunding the police.
Cuomo, the business homeowners consider, might be harder on crime and shoplifting.
He is “guaranteeing more public safety and is not coming with this crazy idea to compete with us with city owned grocery stores,” Marte stated.
Marte’s group is taking a stand after a rival group, United Bodegas of America, blindsided its members this week, together with its co-founder Fernando Mateo, by endorsing Mamdani. In response, Mateo angrily resigned from the commerce group, which The Post completely reported on Wednesday.
Now, United Bodegas’ President Radhames Rodriguez, who made the shock endorsement at a native eatery within the Bronx this week, is dropping members, based on Marte and different grocers.
“I think a quarter of the United Bodega Association’s members will leave because they feel betrayed,” Marte advised The Post, including that a number of have already advised him that they’re leaping ship to his group.
Zohran Mamdani was endorsed by United Bodegas of America’s President Radhames Rodriguez. James Keivom
Rodriguez didn’t instantly reply for remark.
His group has about 2,000 members in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, out of roughly13,000 bodegas in New York City.
“We are planning to ask Mateo to sit with us and to bring members with him to the real association,” stated Carlos Collado, who owns two Fine Fare supermarkets within the Bronx and is a vice president of the Bodega and Small Business Group.
Earlier this week, Mateo referred to as Rodriguez’s Mamdani endorsement a “betrayal” and a violation of the commerce group’s bylaws as a nonprofit, which isn’t alleged to publicly back a political candidate.
Mateo additionally advised The Post on Wednesday, “Hundreds of bodega owners already reached out expressing their discontent. I had to explain to them that I had nothing to do with it.”
Carlos Collado is the proprietor of two Fine Fare supermarkets within the Bronx and a VP of the Bodega and Small Business Group. Helayne Seidman
An outspoken conservative, Mateo unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 2021’s mayoral race.
But Mateo and Marte weren’t at all times on the identical web page.
They operated below the identical umbrella – Bodega Association of the USA – till 2017, after they had a beef over who would take the lead at a press convention on crime at bodegas, based on Marte.
Mateo and Rodriguez break up off to kind the United Bodegas of America.
“If we see that we have common ground, we can find a way” to work collectively again, Marte stated.
