Mission Local26%
Vacant grocery-store tax polls well but may not survive, says Supervisor Mahmood 64%
By Io Yeh Gilman63%
7/14/2026, 1:25:21 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Self-Serving Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Pessimism Bias as the most egregious example at 14.6% saturation with 145 hits. Analysis detected 1,548 faulty-reasoning hits from 992 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 58.5% and a BS Rank of 64% (7,972 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 63.60% of the article peer group.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood shared a poll with Mission Local today showing that his proposal to tax large companies that hold leases for vacant grocery stores or pharmacies is a winner with San Franciscans: 61 percent approve.
But those voters may not get a chance to weigh in on the legislation this November.
Supervisor Connie Chan decided last week not to schedule a hearing on Mahmood’s legislation.
With the late-July deadline to make the ballot fast approaching, Mahmood’s measure may not make it.
Chan shelved the legislation, she said, because she thought it needed more work before going up for a vote.
Mahmood claimed that Chan pulled it after a conversation with Mayor Daniel Lurie, which their offices denied.
“They know this is popular, they know this is going to pass if it makes it to the ballot,” Mahmood said about his proposed tax.
“I’m disappointed that they would try political interference.”
“Mayor Lurie is working to bring grocery stories to San Francisco’s communities.
More taxes won’t achieve that,” spokesperson Charles Lutvak said.
Mahmood also blamed lobbying from Amazon for Lurie and Chan’s opposition, though both denied that Amazon lobbied them.
Amazon holds a lease for a Whole Foods at Eighth and Market streets that has been vacant since 2023.
If the tax passes and Amazon cannot fill the storefront, it would have to pay about $200,000 under the proposed tax.
According to Mahmood, Amazon’s lobbyist, David Noyola, asked him to either exempt that specific parcel or exempt a larger section of downtown, where the parcel lies, but he declined to do so.
Noyola denied that he asked for a specific exemption, telling the San Francisco Standard that the business community as a whole wants downtown to be written out.
Several grocery stores across San Francisco have closed in recent years, and the measure is intended to tackle the resulting food deserts.
The Fillmore and Tenderloin, two neighborhoods that Mahmood represents, both do not currently have full-service grocery stores, only small markets.
Mahmood particularly hopes that the tax will change the calculus for “zombie stores,” where a company continues to hold a lease after closing a store.
“It is cheaper for those stores to remain vacant than it is to activate them,” Mahmood said.
**Missing amendments or legislative ploy?
**
Chan’s office said that while the supervisor “agrees with Supervisor Mahmood’s intent for this measure,” it was not ready because Mahmood had yet to send her his amendments.
Amendments are changes to proposed legislation that shore up inconsistencies in the legislation or address critiques.
Mahmood said he had drafts of his amendments ready as of early last week.
Several supervisor offices confirmed that they had received them.
But having amendments is not typically a pre-condition for a hearing to be scheduled, multiple city hall sources said.
New amendments are often brought by supervisors to hearings day-of.
Mahmood said that when he was speaking with Chan last Thursday about the hearing being canceled, she refused to listen to his amendments.
Instead, she told him, “she agrees with the mayor that there’s too many things on the ballot and there’s too many other taxes.”
(There are currently 13 potential measures, five of which are taxes.)
Chan’s office denied that she made these remarks, and insisted that her decision was because they had not received his amendments.
Others say that while Mahmood’s measure is ready to be considered by the Board of Supervisors, Mahmood has not built a large enough coalition to back the measure and in fact, an opposition has built.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce thinks that the tax would just penalize companies and would not help fill grocery store vacancies.
“We’ve spoken to every major retailer that would be impacted, and they’ve emphasized that there are market conditions, street conditions, new economic realities that have led to stores closing,” said David Harrison, the spokesperson for the Chamber of Commerce.
“You will not keep grocery stores open by taxing them after they close,” said Nate Rose, the vice president of communications for the California Grocers Association.
Even the city’s labor unions are lukewarm.
The San Francisco Labor Council said they had not had in-depth conversations with Mahmood about the proposed measure.
“While we are still in support of the legislation, it is clear there is not enough support and there is not the coalition necessary to pass an ambitious policy like this,” said Jim Araby, the director of strategic campaigns for United Food and Commercial Workers, a labor union that represents grocery store workers.
Mahmood, for his part, said that he has gained the support of food justice advocacy groups, neighborhood groups, and some labor unions and also worked with business advocates to address their concerns.
There is still a narrow path to the ballot.
Mahmood must convince a subcommittee of the Board to vote in favor of holding a hearing in front of the entire Board of Supervisors.
Then, he must win the approval of a majority (six) of his colleagues.
The tax measure is one part of Mahmood’s “Affordable Groceries Act.”
The other pieces include an ordinance that cuts taxes for new pharmacies, an ordinance that makes it quicker and easier to replace a shuttered pharmacy or grocery store, and a second November ballot measure to create a fund for programs that bring cheaper groceries to the city.
Mahmood’s poll was carried out by David Binder Research, a reputable pollster, and surveyed 400 likely voters in San Francisco’s November election.
It has an error rate of 4 percent.
Mahmood said his goal is for fresh produce and groceries to be available within walking distance for all San Franciscans.
“Oftentimes, walking more than 1 or 2 blocks is impossible” for children and seniors, he said.
“Even taking a bus carrying a load of groceries is, frankly, not a situation we should expect any San Franciscan to have to go through.”
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