Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatened to close or sell his Manhattan-based grocery chain Gristedes if Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is elected the next mayor of New York City.
“We can’t compete with Mamdani opening city run supermarkets for free,” Catsimatidis told The Post on Wednesday, referring to the mayoral hopeful’s plans to open grocery stores owned and operated by the government in the five boroughs.
“Will Mamdani run the supermarkets with union help? When people start shoplifting, will he even have cops arrest them,” Catsimatidis pondered.
The 76-year-old supermarket mogul also suggested that if corporate taxes are hiked in the Big Apple – another lofty ambition included in Mamdani’s campaign’s progressive agenda – that he would need to relocate his company’s headquarters.
“We’d probably move our corporate headquarters to New Jersey,” Catsimatidis said.
That move could include Catsimatidis’ Red Apple Group, the billionaire’s main conglomerate of real estate, energy and a slew of other industries.
The Gristedes supermarket chain, founded in 1888 when the first store opened in Manhattan, currently operates 17 stores in the Big Apple, according to its website.
Catsimatidis added in an interview with The Press that if Mamdani takes over City Hall he’d spend more time in Florida, which he described as the “promise land.”
“I would spend far less than 183 days a year here, that’s for sure,” he told the publication.
Catsimatidis isn’t the only wealthy businessman mapping out an escape plan from a concrete jungle led by Mamdani.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, even went so far as to suggest Mamdani could trigger an exodus from the city not seen since the coronavirus pandemic.
“If Mamdani becomes the mayor of New York. You’re going to see the flight of businesses from New York. Most of the businesses that operate in New York City in the financial sector are incredibly portable,” Ackman told The Free Press.
Ackman’s own firm, Pershing Square, was eyeing a move to Miami, he added.
A Tuesday poll indicated that Mamdani held a narrow lead over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 over a slew of sexual assault allegations he continues to deny.
A spokesperson for Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
