ALBANY — Fresh produce, infant formula and other staples of a healthy diet line the aisles of a small West Hill grocery store as owner Dileep Rathore makes lively conversation with his patrons.

He whips up breakfast sandwiches and lunch subs for the small group of neighborhood residents gathered in the Fresh Neighborhood Market on a chilly but sunny March day. A group of elementary-school-aged children burst through the door to jovially barter with Rathore about how much they can buy with a dollar bill.

In the afternoon, parents wait for the school bus just outside the store at First and Judson. Rathore doesn't sell tobacco or alcohol — he wants to provide a safe place for neighbors and children amid the sporadic violence the neighborhood has experienced. (Just a block away, a man was killed and another injured in a shooting last December; two blocks west, another man was murdered last July.)

But since opening in November, Rathore's store has been denied the designation as a vendor for the Women, Infants and Children program, which would have allowed him to accept the government-issued payment used by low-income women who are pregnant or breastfeeding or have children under the age of 5.

"I don't sell beer," Rathore says, noting that he's forgoing an easy stream of revenue in what's been described as a food desert, where liquor stores outnumber grocery stores. " ... Anybody can walk in, (but) no thugs are hanging out, no one is pushing drugs on you. We always try to make sure our store is clean.

"I don't have a big corporation, I don't get state funds," Rathore said. "Whatever money I make in my job, I invest in my community."

The building at 16 Judson St. sat condemned by the city as recently as 2017. After Rathore redeveloped the location, it offers items not commonly found at grocery stores in the Albany neighborhood.

WIC beneficiaries use paper vouchers at approved stores for items like infant formula, cereal, milk, fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheese and other healthy foods.

Albany County Legislator Norma Chapman and state Assemblyman John McDonald have pressed the state about its decision not to accept Rathore as a WIC vendor.

McDonald said he questioned why the DOH couldn't make an exception for Rathore's store, while Chapman was given "runarounds" when she inquired about certifying the store as a vendor.

"I reached out to the (state Department of Health) and said it doesn't make sense," McDonald said. "Why can't we make an exception? It's a food desert. It's underserved."

In a statement, the state Department of Health said it suspended new WIC vendor designations throughout upstate last April as the department implements a new program called eWIC.

Under eWIC, WIC recipients will be issued a debit card to buy WIC-approved foods. The program is meant to simplify the store checkout process and reduce fraud.

"The statewide rollout of eWIC ... is a top priority for the New York State Department of Health," DOH spokeswoman Jill Montag said in a statement.

The "pause" in vendor applications — which went into effect on April 1, 2018, upstate and Oct. 1 downstate — was instituted "in order to ensure that currently authorized WIC vendors are fully prepared to accept eWIC."

The eWIC technology will be available for all WIC stores and recipients this spring, Montag said — but the vendor application pause will not be lifted until the fall.

DOH would not explain why the eWIC rollout required a lengthy blanket pause on vendor applications, or how the rollout prevents the department from processing those applications.

The approved WIC vendors for the 12206 ZIP code, which includes West Hill, include Save-A-Lot, Price Chopper, ShopRite and Hannaford grocery stores, all located on Central Avenue, more than a mile from Rathore's store.

Community residents, many of whom don't own a vehicle, said they have to make the trek to one of the approved grocery stores either on foot or by taxi or bus.

Michelle Cox, who is pregnant and lives across the street from Rathore's store, said that through the winter she hasn't been able to afford bus fare every time she needs to go to the grocery store, and has walked there to get infant formula for her 1-year-old child.

"If you run out of formula, you don't really have a choice whether there's snow on the ground or not," Cox said. "You have to just go to the store to get it."

But many residents lose money by having to pay for transportation to their WIC vendor — making the government-issued benefits less valuable, as residents let them go unused because of the difficulty of making the trip to the grocery store.

Cox also has an autistic 4-year-old son and a husband on disability. Many months, she doesn't use a large portion of her WIC benefits because the trip to the grocery store is too difficult to coordinate.

"It's almost an hour down the street," she said of the walk to the nearest WIC vendor. "Something right here in the neighborhood is what we need."

Several other pregnant women or mothers of young children echoed her sentiments.

"I come here all the time — I need it," said Akiah Campbell, a West Hill resident who has two small children and is pregnant with a third, referring to Rathore's store. "We need (a WIC vendor) in the neighborhood, rather than being on the outskirts. Something right here would be perfect."

And while the application pause means West Hill residents will have to continue making the trip to the Central Avenue grocery stores, residents in the adjacent ZIP code — 12210, which includes the Arbor Hill and Center Square neighborhoods — have even fewer places to use their WIC benefits.

On the state Department of Health's WIC vendor map, the state has listed two WIC vendors for 12210. But neither of the two listed vendors, a Market 32 at 40 Delaware Ave. and a Price Chopper at 1060 Madison Ave., are actually in the 12210 ZIP code.

Rathore said his store, which is two blocks away from the 12210 border, could serve a large portion of the neighborhoods in that ZIP code that don't currently have a WIC vendor nearby.

McDonald, a pharmacist who served as mayor of Cohoes before his election to the Assembly, called the situation "frustrating."

"As a health care practitioner, I know better than most that one of the challenges in communities is easy and affordable access to proper nutrition," he said. "Dileep is trying to fill that gap, and unfortunately right now the DOH rollout of the new electronic system is what's complicating the process."

"The frustration with the bureaucracy is legitimate," McDonald said, "and we're trying to burst through it."

McDonald said he considers it a "matter of when, not if" Rathore's grocery store becomes an approved WIC vendor, something he said could happen as soon as October.

But Chapman said residents shouldn't have to be concerned about how they'll get food for their children in the first place.

"The problem is, it's over 600 people that have WIC that cannot come to their neighborhood and get their WIC products," said Chapman, who has represented West Hill in the county legislature for 11 years. "Saying that (Rathore) has to wait until October, that's not even saying that that's going to happen."

Rathore estimates he loses between $6,000 and $10,000 a month in sales by not being a WIC vendor, but said his biggest concern is people in the community not having access to the food they need.

"Making that money, I could hire some extra people from my own community," Rathore said. "People are looking for work."

"When the program is there to help people, it's supposed to be taking care of people who really need to use that program," he said. "What good is the program if people can't utilize it?"