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 help behind Andrew Cuomo — simply days after a rival group obtained rocked over a Zohran Mamdani endorsement, The Submit has realized.
“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 outlets, magnificence salons, mechanics and eating places within the Large Apple.
“However we favor Andrew Cuomo,” Marte advised The Submit. “He’s the very best of what we have now now.”
At situation for a lot of of those small companies are Mamdani’s plans to open city-owned grocery shops that might supply clients wholesale costs. Small enterprise homeowners, particularly retailers, have likewise been rattled by Mamdani’s previous feedback about defunding the police.
Cuomo, the enterprise homeowners consider, shall be more durable on crime and shoplifting.
He’s “guaranteeing extra public security and isn’t coming with this loopy thought 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 shedding members, based on Marte and different grocers.
“I believe 1 / 4 of the United Bodega Affiliation’s members will go away as a result of they really feel betrayed,” Marte advised The Submit, including that a number of have already advised 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 deliver members with him to the actual affiliation,” mentioned Carlos Collado, who owns two Advantageous Fare supermarkets within the Bronx and is a vp 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 imagined to publicly again a politician.
Mateo additionally advised The Submit on Wednesday, “A whole lot of bodega homeowners 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 beneath 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, based on Marte.
Mateo and Rodriguez cut up off to type the United Bodegas of America.
“If we see that we have now frequent floor, we will discover a manner” to work collectively once more, Marte mentioned.
