Leaders of a key New York Metropolis bodega and restaurant group are taking the uncommon step of talking out concerning the mayoral election and throwing their assist behind Andrew Cuomo — simply days after a rival group obtained rocked over a Zohran Mamdani endorsement, The Submit has discovered.
“We don’t endorse candidates,” mentioned Francisco Marte, founder and president of the Bodega and Small Enterprise Group, which represents some 3,000 bodegas, barber retailers, magnificence salons, mechanics and eating places within the Massive Apple.
“However we favor Andrew Cuomo,” Marte informed The Submit. “He’s the most effective of what we’ve got now.”
At subject for a lot of of those small companies are Mamdani’s plans to open city-owned grocery shops that will provide clients wholesale costs. Small enterprise house owners, particularly retailers, have likewise been rattled by Mamdani’s previous feedback about defunding the police.
Cuomo, the enterprise house owners imagine, can be more durable on crime and shoplifting.
He’s “guaranteeing extra public security and isn’t coming with this loopy concept to compete with us with metropolis owned grocery shops,” Marte mentioned.
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 Submit solely reported on Wednesday.
Now, United Bodegas’ President Radhames Rodriguez, who made the shock endorsement at an area eatery within the Bronx this week, is dropping members, in accordance with Marte and different grocers.
“I feel 1 / 4 of the United Bodega Affiliation’s members will go away as a result of they really feel betrayed,” Marte informed The Submit, including that a number of have already informed him that they’re leaping ship to his group.
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 Metropolis.
“We’re planning to ask Mateo to take a seat with us and to carry members with him to the actual affiliation,” mentioned Carlos Collado, who owns two Wonderful Fare supermarkets within the Bronx and is a vice chairman of the Bodega and Small Enterprise Group.
Earlier this week, Mateo known 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 again a politician.
Mateo additionally informed The Submit on Wednesday, “A whole bunch of bodega house owners already reached out expressing their discontent. I needed to clarify to them that I had nothing to do with it.”
An outspoken conservative, Mateo unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 2021’s mayoral race.
However Mateo and Marte weren’t at all times on the identical web page.
They operated below the identical umbrella – Bodega Affiliation of the USA – till 2017, after they had a beef over who would take the lead at a press convention on crime at bodegas, in accordance with Marte.
Mateo and Rodriguez cut up off to kind the United Bodegas of America.
“If we see that we’ve got frequent floor, we will discover a manner” to work collectively once more, Marte mentioned.
