Craft grower cannabis licenses are supposed to help Black and brown communities, yet only one business is open.
Reese Xavier has a vision for a vacant strip mall in south suburban Chicago Heights centered around Illinois’ newest billion-dollar industry: cannabis.
A craft grow operation, kitchen, dispensary, and consumption lounge will eventually replace what years ago used to be a hardware store, a boxing gym, a resale shop, and a tax preparer.
After spending 25 years in corporate training and development, he decided in 2019 to start HT23 Growers.
“I thought if I could find a company that could be rooted in the community, that could provide economic opportunity, maybe that could change things around,” Xavier said. “And I thought maybe cannabis could be the tool to make that happen.”
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