Standing in support of millions of New Yorkers, thousands upon thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of jobs, the coalition is taking action to protect storefronts, workers and taxpayer dollars while pushing for public resources to reach more struggling families.
NEW YORK August 26 2026 — What began by bringing presidents of chambers of commerce and longtime business partners together under one umbrella has grown into a broad, nonpartisan force taking a stand for New York City’s businesses, workers, taxpayers and families.
The Multicultural Business Coalition, representing approximately 50 chambers of commerce and working alongside supermarket and bodega leaders, small-business organizations and other stakeholders, has taken its fight over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s taxpayer-backed grocery-store plan from neighborhood storefronts to the courts — and into headlines across some of the country’s most prominent news organizations.
The coalition filed lawsuits challenging the Mamdani plan and followed them with public press conferences bringing together business and community leaders who say New York can help families struggling with food costs without jeopardizing the supermarkets, bodegas, storefronts and jobs already serving them.
The action quickly drew widespread attention, with coverage from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox News television, Fox Business, CBS New York, the New York Daily News and other major print, television and digital outlets.
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The Multicultural Business Coalition’s fight to protect New York City businesses, jobs and taxpayer dollars reached national television, including Fox News coverage of the coalition’s legal and public campaign.
The attention reflects the scale of what stands behind the coalition.
MBC brings together chamber presidents representing Hispanic, Black, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Jewish and other communities, while working alongside supermarket and bodega leaders and businesses directly on the front lines of New York’s economy.
Together, those chambers and partners represent millions of New Yorkers, thousands upon thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of jobs across one of the largest and most influential urban economies in the world.
The coalition was created so those communities would no longer have to fight their economic battles separately.
Duvi Honig, founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, brought longtime chamber partners and presidents together and co-founded the Multicultural Business Coalition alongside Chairman Frank Garcia, President Ken Roldan, legal counsel Mark Jaffe President of the Greater NY Chamber and other business leaders who joined the effort.
Together, the leadership built a structure designed to bring communities that had traditionally advocated separately under one umbrella — giving them the ability to speak and, when necessary, act with one voice.
That unity is now being translated into action.
Honig has worked alongside Frank Garcia, Ken Roldan, Mark Jaffe, chamber presidents, supermarket and bodega leaders and other coalition partners as MBC moved from advocacy to legal action, public press conferences and a broader campaign to make New Yorkers aware of what the coalition believes is at stake.
The fight over Mamdani’s grocery proposal has become an early demonstration of what the coalition was created to accomplish.
The concern is that taxpayer-backed grocery stores, operating with government support that ordinary neighborhood merchants do not receive, could create an uneven playing field for supermarkets and bodegas already operating on tight margins.
Those businesses pay rent, payroll, utilities, insurance, taxes and other operating expenses. They employ New Yorkers, support wholesalers and suppliers, occupy neighborhood storefronts and invest in the communities they serve.
Protecting them, the coalition argues, is not simply about protecting individual business owners.
It is about protecting commercial corridors, preserving jobs and safeguarding the economic infrastructure that keeps New York neighborhoods functioning.
But MBC’s position goes much further than opposition to government grocery stores.
The coalition strongly supports the underlying goal of helping New Yorkers who are struggling to afford food.
The question is how to make the greatest possible impact.
Rather than spending taxpayer dollars in a way that could create new competition for existing neighborhood stores, the coalition is urging policymakers to examine how those same resources can work through and alongside New York’s existing network of supermarkets, bodegas, wholesalers, distributors and neighborhood retailers.
Those businesses already have the stores, refrigeration, employees, supply chains, delivery networks and community relationships necessary to get food into people’s homes.
The coalition believes they should be part of the solution.
The objective is straightforward: make every taxpayer dollar stretch further, reach more homes and feed more struggling families — while protecting the businesses and jobs already serving those same communities.
“Who would have imagined that bringing all of these communities together under one umbrella would so quickly give us a voice capable of taking a stand for millions of New Yorkers?” Honig said. “Together with Frank Garcia, Ken Roldan, Mark Jaffe and all of our chamber and business partners, we represent thousands upon thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of jobs.”
“We are standing up to protect those businesses and storefronts, protect the people whose livelihoods depend on them and protect taxpayer dollars,” Honig continued. “But protecting taxpayers also means making those dollars accomplish the most good. If the goal is to fight hunger, then those dollars should reach the most homes possible and feed the greatest number of families possible. We can protect businesses and jobs while helping more people.”
That message has helped create momentum far beyond any one neighborhood or industry.
Chamber presidents representing different cultures and communities are standing together. Supermarket and bodega leaders are bringing the realities of running neighborhood businesses directly into the public conversation. The lawsuits have taken those concerns into court, while press conferences have brought them before New Yorkers.
The coalition’s message has moved from the courthouse and neighborhood storefronts onto Fox News television and other national broadcasts, while The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and other major publications have carried the story to audiences across the country.
The strength of MBC is that it is not one community speaking only for itself.
It is a nonpartisan coalition bringing together communities, industries and business leaders in support of New York.
The fight over the Mamdani plan has therefore become about something larger than five proposed grocery stores. It is about whether government can pursue important social goals while respecting the entrepreneurs, workers and taxpayers who already make those communities work.
For the Multicultural Business Coalition, those goals do not have to compete.
New York can protect businesses, preserve storefronts and jobs, safeguard taxpayer dollars and use those same public resources to reach and feed more struggling families.
That is the stand the coalition is taking — together, with one voice, on behalf of New York.