Hors d’oeuvres and tours of the cannabis business Kase Manufacturing were a part of a recent ribbon cutting event set up by the Ceres Chamber of Commerce.
Chamber and city officials gathered at the 22,000-square-foot facility at 4111 Brew Master Drive in Ceres on Oct. 16 to formally welcome Kase Manufacturing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Starling Brands.
Kase opened after the Ceres City Council approved a developer agreement in May 2017 that spelled out how the business would pay the city a monthly fee of $50,000 per month during the first year; $75,000 per month in the second year; and $100,000 per month in the third year.
Kase is licensed by the state to cultivate, extract and distribute cannabis products. It utilizes machinery and lab equipment and is operated by award-winning extractors who consistently produce industry best cannabis oils and distillate, a company press release stated. Kase is also one of the first volatile and nonvolatile cannabis extraction manufacturing labs approved for operations in California.
One of the lead proponents of the business was Mike Reynolds, a former Central Valley High School coach whose son Kase suffers from seizures related to chromosome 5q14.3 deletion syndrome, a neurocognitive disorder characterized by epilepsy and intellectual disability. He said Kase went suffering 1,000 seizures per day to five to 10 because of cannabinoids extracted from marijuana. Describing himself as a church-going conservative, Reynolds said he believes cannabis is the only product that has given his son “quality of life.”
Since Kase was approved, the city of Ceres has approved three other marijuana related businesses which had resulted in increased revenues to city coffers. They are:
• Cannabis distributor Pacafi Cooperative, Inc. which operates a 6,000-square-foot dispensary at 1442 Angie Avenue.
• Cannabis distributor Kase’s Journey dispensary, which is also a project of Reynolds, selling product at 4030 Farm Supply Drive, Ceres.
• Testing facility Tri Valley Labs, Inc., at 2909 McKittrick Court.
