MAMDANI SUPPORTERS, TAKE NOTE: Kansas City poured millions into a grocery store. It still may close.

Nearly a decade ago, Kansas City spent $17 million to buy and fix up the moribund Linwood Shopping Center on busy Prospect Avenue. KC Sun Fresh opened in 2018 with a salad bar, fresh shrimp on ice and flower bouquets. “We were thrilled,” Taylor recalled.

The store was first run by a private grocer; Pierson’s nonprofit took over in 2022. Sales were okay at first, but after the pandemic, crime rose and sales began to plummet. Police data show assaults, robberies and shoplifting in the immediate vicinity have been on an upward trend since 2020. Shoplifting cases have nearly tripled.

At a community meeting last year, Pierson played videos of security incidents so graphic he gave a warning in advance — a naked woman parading through the store throwing bags of chips to the ground, another person urinating in the vestibule and a couple fornicating on the lawn of the library in broad daylight.

Advocates like Taylor have accused the city of neglecting the property. Discussions about fixing a fence behind the store dragged on for months until it was repaired in early July, and the city just remedied the sewer stench that Taylor and others say has pervaded the store for weeks.

“Obviously, they don’t feel like this is their responsibility. … Or they don’t care,” she said.

Or maybe government is no good at running a business, particularly in a neighborhood where assaults, robberies and shoplifting are all on “an upward trend.”

If K.C. stuck to fighting crime, maybe they wouldn’t need shovel millions into a failing state-run grocery store.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Mamdani’s government grocery scheme won’t work for New Yorkers — but that’s not who it’s supposed to benefit.