Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Strapped New Yorkers swarm chaotic Mamdani-inspired free grocery store pop-up: We’re 'in pain’
foxnews.com ^ | February 19, 2026 | Emma Colton , Kiera McDonald

Posted on 02/19/2026 6:15:54 AM PST by V_TWIN

On Sunday in a busy stretch of restaurants and boutiques in the West Village, hundreds of New Yorkers queued up outside a pop-up shop offering free groceries.

"New Yorkers are in pain," Nick from Queens, New York, one of several people Fox News Digital interviewed outside the pop-up, said as he waited to grab pasta sauce, bath soap and a bag of Tide Pods.

The scene was underscored by the city's cost of living woes and anxiety over who would get a yellow ticket granting entry to the small shop before they "sold out" of goods.

As the crowd grew, however, so did the tension.  People in line told Fox News Digital Sunday that they were worried they’d made the trip for nothing. "I literally got here at 9 o’clock… and basically what they said is that they ran out of tickets," a woman named Fatima told Fox News Digital.  Another man, Sherrod from Jamaica, Queens, said the same happened to him. 

"They told me that they ran out of tickets," he said. "I couldn’t get no more food.… I couldn’t get access to the store."

As the crowd grew, however, so did the tension.

People in line told Fox News Digital Sunday that they were worried they’d made the trip for nothing.

"I literally got here at 9 o’clock… and basically what they said is that they ran out of tickets," a woman named Fatima told Fox News Digital.

Fatima and Sherrod spoke after security guards began pushing people off the block shortly after 9 a.m., when the first batch of tickets was gone. Several shoppers said they were told to leave the area and come back around 1:30 p.m. for another chance — and not to linger on the sidewalk as ticket-holders moved through the store.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: food; freestuff; newyork; petfood

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-102 next last
To: PeterPrinciple

This is the predictable outcome. NYC is going to be an even worse disaster than it has been, under Mamdani. Vote stupid, get stupid.


61 posted on 02/19/2026 7:35:09 AM PST by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

“It was only supposed to be open for a week.....that was the plan all along.”

That was the point of my comment but I guess that wasn’t obvious in the paragraph I posted.


62 posted on 02/19/2026 7:36:38 AM PST by suthener ( I do not like living under our homosexual, ghetto, feminist government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

Didn’t read deeply, but who paid for the food?


63 posted on 02/19/2026 7:46:25 AM PST by Da Coyote
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN
'New Yorkers are in pain,' Nick from Queens..

Who'd ya vote for, Nick?

If you said Mamdani, you are getting exactly what you voted for.

And, this is just the beginning, it's going to get a whole lot worse.

64 posted on 02/19/2026 7:46:27 AM PST by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolution?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Skwor

The food is simply donated, it is not even from NYC.

Bread and circuses. I can’t think of a more deserving group of people, NYorkers.


65 posted on 02/19/2026 7:47:29 AM PST by bobbo666
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Da Coyote

Polymarket.....so it wasn’t taxpayer sponsored.

Not this one anyway.


66 posted on 02/19/2026 7:48:28 AM PST by V_TWIN (America....so great even the people that hate it won't leave)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: Vaduz; sauropod; hiredhand; Lazamataz; NFHale; SunkenCiv; Avoiding_Sulla; butterdezillion; ...
Good example how democrat democracy works but the speeches sound good.

It's how rich people see the poor as a mass, not individually. Very few will get their hands that dirty to really empower with their assistance. I've met a couple in my lifetime (Bill Simon in California was one), but they are exceedingly rare. (nice guy, but too polite to save this seething swirl of a State)

I had the good fortune to go to upper crust private schools in San Francisco as a kid (Stuart Hall for Boys in grades 4-8 and Lick Wilmerding high school). As teaching institutions, the expectations were academically much higher, but the actual teaching ability was every bit as spotty as one might suspect and therefore not much better than anywhere else. In the process, I got to know some "rich kids" (Catholic and Jewish, respectively). Children do a wonderful job of betraying the emotional sensibilities of their parents. Again, they were spotty. Among them were some truly fine people: gracious, polite, studious... what one would hope for among an "upper class." Yet the majority were spoiled, vindictive, bratty, shallow, and really not that smart.

Accordingly, in my writings on our social meltdown as precipitated by that upper class, one has to wonder of which type or to what degree are the actors involved. Is what they did a matter of delusional noblesse oblige, or was it punitive delight in droit du seigneur? It can be both situationally but the only way to portray distinctions in character justly is to find and study their childhood development and then their adult writings. It is there that the distaste for "the worker ants" of this world become evident, now taking shape as policies toward population reduction creating a socioeconomic vacuum being filled by illegals which will itself likely take down its perpetrators (as planned, there are multiple hierarchies of elitism you know). It takes time and persistence to make definitive citations to such. One does a lot of writing that eventually (hopefully) collapses into its aspired condensate. C'est la guerre.

67 posted on 02/19/2026 7:48:41 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Bon of Babble

This one wasn’t even sponsored by nyc.....wait ‘till those open up and there’s half the inventory available and it’s only open for an hour twice a week.


68 posted on 02/19/2026 7:50:45 AM PST by V_TWIN (America....so great even the people that hate it won't leave)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

Yep.

Just like in the old Soviet Union... incredibly long lines too.


69 posted on 02/19/2026 7:52:22 AM PST by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolution?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN
Fun thread from last week...

New York City gets its first ‘free grocery store’ — but it’s not what Mayor Mamdani had in mind
New York Post ^ | 02/12/2026 | Steven Vago and Nicole Rosenthal

Posted on 2/14/2026, 10:36:37 PM by SeekAndFind

 

We all knew then what is happening now...

70 posted on 02/19/2026 8:07:08 AM PST by Responsibility2nd (Import the third world. Become the second world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

This IS going to get ugly. Never get between a scumbag who wants your stuff, and your stuff.
Unless you are prepared, which most people aren’t.


71 posted on 02/19/2026 8:13:27 AM PST by vpintheak (The left is violence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: vpintheak

Don’t mind the maggots.

Shadoobie!


72 posted on 02/19/2026 8:14:19 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

Obviously, an advertising stunt by Polymarket!
They will get their money back by getting these people to gamble with them!
Funny, people do not have money for food, but have a lots of money for all kind of vices.


73 posted on 02/19/2026 8:15:15 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

Next thing you know the customers will expect instacart delivery.


74 posted on 02/19/2026 8:18:48 AM PST by CaptainK ("No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up” )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PeterPrinciple

Isn’t this what most people refer to as a food pantry. The 2026 version of a soup line.


75 posted on 02/19/2026 8:22:43 AM PST by Bluebeard16
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN
"The scene was underscored by the city's cost of living woes and anxiety over who would get a yellow ticket granting entry..."


76 posted on 02/19/2026 8:27:40 AM PST by Joe 6-pack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brian Griffin

I agree but only for first offering, things should age out after a while.

St Vincents used to offer cheap thrift options. Somewhere along the line they apparently decided that if Goodwill was going to charge new price for used items then they could too.

They stopped accepting the really cheap junky items which were exactly the kinds of things I went there for because I knew they were going to be destroyed with what I had planned.

It turns out that while women like to wear “vintage” things, this means something like 40+ years old, not last decades fashion so the younger used clothes at full price dont sell.

Since they didnt sell it the first time for a reasonable price like you suggest they remove it because its taking up space and send it to a last chance trash store where you buy by the pound.

I dont remember the prices so Im making this part up for illustrative purposes. Old broken furniture is something like $5, glassware is $0.64/lb, old electronics and household goods $0.48/lb, clothing $0.32/lb, etc.

So they cheated themselves out of a lot of money by refusing to sell when they better had a chance then dumping it for nothing later.

All of that to say, yes. People, especially women, waste far too much on too much clothing.


77 posted on 02/19/2026 8:35:44 AM PST by gnarledmaw (Hivemind liberals worship leaders, sovereign conservatives select servants.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

I hear that it’s hard to find a place to park your Beemer near these shops.


78 posted on 02/19/2026 8:52:58 AM PST by kvanbrunt2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

9:00? So he slept in? People get up earlier for concert tickets, some waiting all night. Guess he wasn’t that hungry. Maybe they should weigh them first.


79 posted on 02/19/2026 9:08:45 AM PST by Whatever Works
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

Definitely not going to end well. It will be like when people feed wild predatory animals.

There will be no end to them, and when they can no longer be sated, they will become extremely aggressive.


80 posted on 02/19/2026 9:27:53 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-102 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson