Vermont's ‘City Markup’ Bamboozle

By Ted Cohen

The idealistic, socialist bohemian crowd in Vermont's largest city bought the hype hook, line and sinker.

They heard “co-op” and they saw nirvana.

We're talking about a place called City Market, also known derisively as City Markup, a high-priced grocery outlet in Burlington Vermont.

City Market sold itself to the unsuspecting liberal crowd as a “cooperative,” persuading the rose-colored cultists that they could buy memberships and be in control of their own economic destinies.

Sounded too good to be true.

Turns out, it was.

When Burlington's liberals heard that a new grocery store would be “community owned” they couldn't write their checks fast enough.

The so-called community-owned grocery company just laid off a dozen workers and has a massive load of debt.

The “member-owned” co-op lost $1.2 million last year and has been in hawk for eight years in a row.

A long-time co-op member and once one of its biggest boosters reported recently on social media that she feels she has been misled.

“How is it that alarm bells are ringing from news articles, but not within the City Market newsletters or updates to members?” the member asked. “How can we see such striking and steady declines without calls to action directly from City Market leadership?”

The so-called co-op was originally located in downtown Burlington and then amid its mounting debt had the temerity to spend millions by building a second location in the southern end of the city.

The downtown location has been plagued by crime-driven, drug-addicted squatters attracted to Bernie town for its liberal welfare benefits.

The Bernie acolytes now claim they never saw this coming.

Suddenly they're not so “liberal” anymore.