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SF was headed for Mamdani-style grocery stores. Those plans have been spiked

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood introduced a proposal last month to fund affordable grocery stores, but last minute political wrangling has effectively nixed it.

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, left, and Mayor Daniel Lurie. | Source: Autumn DeGrazia/The Standard

By Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler Politics Reporter

Published Jul. 9, 2026 at 5:58pm

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Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said Mayor Daniel Lurie and another lawmaker have derailed part of his government-backed grocery store proposal after it was kept off the agenda of a committee hearing. He said Amazon also played a role in its destruction.

The proposal, a two-part ballot measure authored by Mahmood last month, would establish a fund to subsidize grocery stores and levy a tax on vacant supermarkets and pharmacies owned by large businesses.

Mahmood said he received a call Thursday afternoon from Supervisor Connie Chan, chair of the Budget Committee, informing him that the tax proposal would be stricken from Wednesday’s Budget and Finance Committee agenda. Chan told Mahmood of her disapproval and signaled that the mayor was opposed to the legislation, he said.

“This is frankly just bad governance at the board,” said Mahmood.

Mahmood said Lurie and Chan’s intervention makes it difficult for the proposal to move forward since it needs to be heard by the full Board of Supervisors by late July to make it to the November ballot.

The dispute highlights competing visions for reviving San Francisco’s economy. Mahmood argues that vacant grocery and pharmacy sites should face financial pressure to reopen or lease to another operator, while Lurie has emphasized incentives and public-private partnerships to encourage businesses to return downtown.

Mahmood’s legislation would create a fund and tax vacant supermarket and pharmacies run by large corporations. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

“Mayor Lurie is working to bring grocery stores to San Francisco’s communities,” his spokesperson, Charles Lutvak, said in a statement. “More taxes won’t achieve that. We support the Affordable Grocery Fund and will continue working with Supervisor Mahmood and the entire board to bring more grocery stores to the city.”

Robyn Burke, a spokesperson for Chan, said the supervisor “agrees” with the intent of the measure, “but she also understands that much work needs to be done to this measure. Supervisor Mahmood has amendments he wants to make to his legislation. With that, she came to the conclusion that this measure is not ready at this time.”

Mahmood says he has faced stiff opposition from business groups opposed to the proposal, including Amazon. The supervisor said a lobbyist for Amazon suggested last month that the retail giant could mount a campaign against the tax and requested that its vacant Whole Foods storefront on Market Street be exempt from the legislation. The supervisor declined to grant the exemption.

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Amazon lobbyist David Noyola denied this.

“Amazon is in full overdrive trying to kill this ballot measure,” Mahmood told The Standard, adding that the company doesn’t “want to be held accountable for the zombie stores they hold,” using a term critical of companies that close a storefront but continue to hold the lease.

Pro-business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and Advance SF, have expressed skepticism about the idea to the supervisor. Nationally, the idea has proved controversial as moderate Democrats contend with a growing populist fervor within their party and the country reels from an affordability crisis.

Amazon’s Whole Foods site on Market shuttered in 2023 after being open for a little over a year, emblematic of the anxieties surrounding downtown’s post-pandemic economy and worsening street conditions at the time. Since then, Lurie and others have launched efforts to rehabilitate the neighborhood, as office vacancies remain a challenge. Recent figures show some recovery (opens in new tab) as artificial intelligence companies increase demand. In April, the Downtown Development Corporation, a group created by Lurie’s allies in an effort to revitalize the neighborhood, announced (opens in new tab) a $25 million initiative to help businesses with below-market rate loans and move-in grants.

Lurie has run on a pro-business platform and has tried to revitalize downtown through philanthropy. | Source: Anadolu via Getty Images

Mahmood said he is spearheading the ballot measure because of the growing problem of disappearing supermarkets and pharmacies across the city, as well as rising food prices that are a national problem. Mahmood’s district covers the Tenderloin, a neighborhood known for a lack of pharmacies and supermarkets.

The city in 2024 opened a free grocery store for low-income residents in the Bayview.

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Mahmood’s ballot measure would have a dual purpose.

It would create a fund, fueled by philanthropic dollars or city coffers, to subsidize the conversion of corner stores into grocery stores with fresh foods or, as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has suggested, to lease out city-owned spaces at below-market rates to affordable grocers.

It would also tax vacant grocery stores and pharmacies operated by large chains at $3 per square foot in the first year, $5 in the second, and $10 annually thereafter, capped at $250,000.

Mahmood maintains that the tax would not affect small businesses, and that the affected companies would be able to avoid the penalty if they lease their vacant space to someone else, abandon their lease so someone else can take it over, or reactivate the storefront themselves.

He said the argument businesses have used to defend closures — that crime and homelessness make it difficult to run a storefront — doesn’t pass muster.

“I recognize during COVID there were concerns, but the data show that crime is down,” he said. “That excuse is no longer valid.”

Amazon’s vacant Whole Foods site is roughly 65,000 square feet.

A report from the city controller on the proposal’s cost is pending, said Mahmood. He claims the measure could generate several million dollars in tax revenue.

The Whole Foods on Market Street has been shuttered since 2023.

Noyola pushed back against Mahmood’s description of Amazon’s position.

“That’s an inaccurate characterization of a conversation I had with Supervisor Mahmood. Full stop,” the lobbyist said, adding that the business community at large tried to propose an exemption for the downtown neighborhood, not for the Whole Foods site specifically.

Mahmood stood by his account, saying Noyola told him Amazon spent $250,000 opposing Proposition D — the Overpaid CEO Tax that failed in June — and could spend a similar amount opposing his measure.

New York City’s Mamdani, whose progressive politics have proved popular after a slate of congressional wins by democratic socialist candidates during the city’s June primary, announced his first city-owned grocery store in May (opens in new tab) at an affordable housing complex in the Bronx.

The SF Board of Supervisors’ rules committee is set to vote Monday on the fund aspect of Mahmood’s law. Mahmood said he has four supporters of his proposal: Supervisors Cheyenne Chen, Danny Sauter, Stephen Sherrill, and Myrna Melgar. He would need a vote from one more supervisor to move the fund measure from the full board to the November ballot.

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Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler

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Bilal Mahmood Daniel Lurie Grocery Politics Taxes The Lurie Experiment Vacancy Tax Zohran Mamdani