50 Dresden Jobs at Risk
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WEAKLEY COUNTY, Tenn.- Dresden City leaders are working around the clock to save one of the city’s biggest employers from being evicted Friday. Mayor Danny Forrester said the company, National Tobacco Company has been in Dresden for more than a decade. The city received notice on Wednesday that the company is facing eviction as early as Friday. City officials said the dispute began over a leaky roof. “They had problems with a leaking roof that is continuing to leak, they’ve lost some product and they had some damage inside,” said Mayor Forrester. “We’ve been meeting hourly trying to find resolve.” According to Mayor Forrester, the city has offered to fix the roof, even buy the property or build a new facility to save the 50 tobacco packing jobs from leaving the city but negotiations are at a standstill. “It’s devastating to these employee’s children in school,” Forrester said. “It hurts morale all over the town. You go into the holiday season and you want to be cheerful and happy but this just hangs a cloud over the entire situation.” Mayor Forrester said if National Tobacco Company moves out of town, the loss of salary alone would be more than a million and a half dollars a year. City officials said the economic impact of losing those jobs could put the city of Dresden in a financial crisis. “It used to be where 50 jobs, you wouldn’t think would be a huge amount. It’s probably not in a big city but in a town like Dresden 50 jobs is a lot of jobs…and any job lost for someone who had the job is awful.” “We want to keep them in town, we’ve got to keep them in town..to keep the town focused and growing,” said Forrester. “We are talking about 200 to 300 people that are involved just in the loss of the employees, that’s not counting what it does for the people who go to restaurants, buy fuel, go to convenience stores, to ball games ..it would just takes years to get over that.” Mayor Forrester said the city has formed a five-person crisis team who are working along side Dresden’s Industrial board to make FDA approved location options available. At this time, National Tobacco Company officials said they are reviewing those options. “I’ve never given up on anything and I’m not going to give up until they nail the last nail in the coffin,” said Mayor Forrester. According to the mayor’s office, the Tobacco Company has filed suit against its landlord to stay in the building beyond Friday. The first court hearing will be be in chancery court Monday.
