Groundbreaking ceremony held for recreational marijuana dispensary in Cairo, Ill.

CAIRO, Ill. (KFVS) - A groundbreaking ceremony for the new recreational marijuana dispensary in Cairo off of Kessler Road was held at the site on Wednesday, March 29 at 4 p.m.

Representatives from the city, county, Labor Local #773, Russell Construction and the developer were in attendance.

According to a release from the Cairo mayor’s office, the new 3,200-square-foot facility will be located on Kessler Road next to Exit 1 on Interstate 57.

“This is something with good paying jobs, benefits and employ a lot of folks,” said Cairo Mayor Thomas Simpson.

The principal of Blounts & Moore, LLC Rita Scott said they will build and operate the adult use recreational marijuana dispensary.

“We feel that this location here right off the highway will pull in our visitors from all over,” Scott said. “And they’ll come to this area to buy their cannabis products.”

Scott said the goal is to continue building back up the city of Cairo.

“Not only will we have jobs coming in, we’ll be doing a lot of training, we’ll be doing a lot of giving back to this community because that’s part of our mission,” said Scott. “Our mission is to give back and to make economic growth for everyone.”

Mayor Simpson said this is the first of many new businesses to come to town.

“It’s just the beginning--there’s more businesses that will come because of this,” Mayor Simpson said. “So we’ll employ more people and so this is just the beginning of there’s more to come.”

When it opens, the dispensary will have between 20 to 25 full-time employees and is expected to provide more than $30,000 in new sales tax revenue per month to the city of Cairo’s general fund, as well as new property tax revenue for all the local taxing districts.

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