Overview
- Budget Chair Connie Chan declined to schedule Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s vacant‑store tax after saying the measure needs more work, a decision Mahmood says came after Mayor Daniel Lurie asked her to pull the item on Thursday.
- Mahmood says Amazon and Whole Foods lobbied City Hall against the tax and sought an exemption for a closed Market Street store, a claim the company has not publicly answered.
- The vacancy tax was designed to charge large grocery and pharmacy chains for long‑term empty sites and to seed an Affordable Grocery Fund that would convert corner stores into subsidized markets.
- The mayor’s office said it supports the Affordable Grocery Fund but opposes the vacancy tax as poor policy and warned more taxes would not bring new grocers to the city.
- If Board President Rafael Mandelman does not bring the measure to the full board by Tuesday, the tax will likely miss the July filing deadline to qualify for the November ballot, leaving only the fund component with a clear path forward and prolonging concerns about food access in neighborhoods with shuttered supermarkets.