A cannabis retailer intends to raze a century-old church in Atlantic City that was once the site of a notorious mob associate’s wedding.

Today, the former Victory First Presbyterian Deliverance Church sits abandoned at the corner of Pacific and Pennsylvania avenues. The building was damaged in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy and the congregation relocated to a new church in 2018. It also served as home to a well-known soup kitchen that has also found a new home.

Records show the property had been owned by the First Presbyterian Church of Atlantic City beginning in 1885.

Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the political boss and one-time Atlantic County sheriff who worked in organized crime, married his second wife, Florence Hosbeck, in the church in 1941 on the eve of being incarcerated for crimes tied to the mafia.

Johnson’s mob involvement was the subject of the 2002 biographical book that inspired “Boardwalk Empire,” the acclaimed series produced by HBO. Actor Steve Buscemi played the character inspired by Johnson.

The building will be the site of an inaugural dispensary for Pure Genesis, a cannabis retailer, the business’s co-founder and CEO Faye Coleman told NJ Advance Media. A five-year-old demolition order outdates the property’s purchase by the company, Coleman said. It was sold to the Pure Genesis in 2022, according to property records.

Full article via nj.com