Letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader - Meng Seeks Coronavirus Relief for Bodegas, Ethnic Grocery Stores and Small Independent Supermarkets in NYC

Letter

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy:

We write on behalf of the approximately 13,000 bodegas, ethnic grocery stores, and other small
independent supermarkets in New York City, as well as the many millions of families who rely
on them. We strongly request that the next stimulus package address the millions of Americans
who were food insecure before COVID-19, and the millions who will be driven into hunger
because of it.

Small grocers provide a unique access point to ensure that those who are food insecure can
purchase healthy foods and fresh produce. While major grocery chains are struggling to keep up
with panic buying of toilet paper, paper towels, and other staples, New Yorkers are turning to
their community stores for these critical supplies.

We ask that funding be included in the next stimulus package to support:
* Grants to directed toward the purchase of refrigeration units to store fresh produce and to
offset the increase in utility costs as a result of refrigeration;
* The facilitation of links between farms in rural areas and small grocers in order to create
new points of sale for local meat, produce, and dairy. This would not only address food
insecurity in urban districts, but would also support farmers who are so desperately in
need of relief as the restaurants that they would normally sell have temporarily or
permanently closed;
* Authorization for a national Healthy Bodega Campaign, based on New York City's
successful program, which aims to boost the availability of and demand for healthy
foods in neighborhoods with the highest rates of poverty and chronic diseases;
* Increased funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to address the
food needs of more than 40 million food insecure Americans;
* Support hazard pay for frontline grocery store employees;
* Exemption of wages earned by workers in the grocery industry and their suppliers from
2020 federal income tax;
* Ensure that the stimulus checks provided to Americans with Social Security numbers are
retroactively provided to people with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers
(ITIN); and
* Unemployment Insurance for those who qualify for it regardless of citizenship status.

Community grocery stores are a lifeline to their neighborhoods, who cater to specific cultural
food preferences. As such, we urge you to help strengthen this critical community asset in the
next relief package.