November 5, 2015

VIRGINIA CEMETERY ASSOCIATION

Angela Byrum, President

RE: VCA Comments on Proposed regulations regarding pet/human section of cemeteries

Dear Chairman Gilliam and Cemetery Board:

Thank you for the opportunity to offer our comments on the draft regulations, as directed by HB 588 creating sections of cemeteries for the interment of human remains and their pets.  We commend the Board and DPOR staff on the proposed regulations; clearly much thought and discussion went into crafting the language.

However, we do have concerns about the broad interpretation of 18VAC47-20-190 #16. The new statute (§54.1-2312.01) states that a cemetery may have a pet and/or human section provided that, amongst other things, “The section of the cemetery is clearly marked and advertised as such by the cemetery company.” We believe that the legislature intended the language to mean that the section of the cemetery must be clearly marked and also clearly advertised at the cemetery itself.  We do not believe that their intent was for every advertisement that the cemetery purchases to include a disclaimer that there is a pet and human section of the cemetery.  Such a requirement as currently drafted in the regulations, could prove to be an expensive, overly burdensome and unnecessary mandate.

We do not disagree that it’s important for all our customers to be fully aware of such a section of the cemetery; we just want to offer alternatives that are more narrowly drawn.

To that end, we would like to offer the following options that will achieve a similar result- ensuring that all customers are aware of a pet/human section of the cemetery.

Option 1:

Delete Item 16 and amend Item 17 as follows:

17. 16. Failing to clearly mark or advertise the section(s) devoted to the interment of pets or the interment of human remains and the pets of such deceased humans with signage that is reasonably apparent to the general public.

OR

Option 2:

Amend Item 16 as follows:

16. If a cemetery company has a section devoted to the interment of pets or the interment of human remains and the pets of such deceased humans, any advertisements failing to clearly state the cemetery company has such section(s) in its cemetery. and the GPL fails to clearly state the cemetery company has such section(s) in its cemetery. 

We appreciate the Board considering alternatives that will achieve our common goal with less burdensome and untenable requirements.  Thank you again for your work on these important regulations.

Sincerely,

Angela Byrum

President