NYC Bodegas Rally to Fight Ultra-Fast Delivery Apps, Dark Stores

Bodegas in New York City staged a rally with the Save Mom-and-Pop Business Coalition to get the attention of local elected officials regarding ultra-fast delivery operations and the toll they’re taking on long-established neighborhood businesses, according to media reports.

Aside from the app-based competition, immigrant, working-class neighborhoods have been dealing with the proliferation of dark stores, also known as ghost stores, which are renting local storefronts and repurposing them as mini-warehouses filled with merchandise that algorithms predict people want.

“Bodegas are the very heart of New York City’s culture and economy,” NYC Comptroller Brad Lander said at the rally.

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Safety is another issue local businesses and residents complain about, due to companies such as Gopuff that have couriers leaving the storefront riding ultra-quiet electric bikes down the sidewalk.

“We can’t allow bodegas to be displaced by fifteen-minute delivery warehouses that undermine diverse local entrepreneurship, weaken neighborhood ties, put workers and pedestrians at risk while turning their back on our communities,” Lander said.

Save Mom-and-Pop Business Coalition is an industry association representing small grocers in all five boroughs and is calling on local government to provide support to bodega owners and better regulate startups’ use of dark storefronts.

“Do you realize these are illegal warehouses in an area zoned for retail, restaurant and food establishments? They are not in the right zoning category. That’s right, illegal, illegal. They are not legal, and they are going to kill,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer.

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GoPuff took over the storefront of a new condo development on the Lower East Side, where Streit’s matzo factory was located at Rivington and Suffolk streets. Around the corner, 15-minute delivery service Fridge No More moved into the storefront at 103 Norfolk. Gorilla renovated two Lower East Side stores into warehouses — one on Grand Street and the other on East 14th Street.

The new coalition lobbying for bodegas indicated it’s not opposed to third-party delivery apps, but is seeking help from elected officials to put an end to the unfair and possibly illegal practices of dark stores that could be ducking current zoning regulations.