We learned the other day of a potential lawsuit being filed against the Amigone Funeral Home near Buffalo, New York.  It turns out, according to an article,  that the company’s crematory was shut down in 2012 by the state Attorney General citing “viable (viable was printed, but I believe this may be a misprint and really mean “visible”) emissions into the atmosphere which unreasonably interfered with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property.”

The crematory did reopen this August after receiving approval once it upgraded air pollution control equipment.

However, in this article and news video from Spectrum News Buffalo, you can read and see that neighbors are now getting representation to fight for what their attorney calls “the community’s health and quality of life.”

One of the issues that will come up will be that of “Grandfathering” a business into a zoning area that is no longer appropriate for such a business.  Amigone Funeral Home was “Grandfathered”, however their plaintiff’s attorney contends the grandfathering came when the funeral home was doing what he says was, “778 bodies a year, now we’re up over 2,900.”

You can read another article from the Buffalo News on the issue here.

Funeral Director Daily take:  It is pretty tough for a business to operate successfully when at least some don’t want it in the neighborhood.  That is greatly multiplied when there are visible picketers and protesters present at all times.  Speaking for myself, if I wanted solitude and comfort at a funeral establishment, I would have a hard time choosing a funeral home that was being picketed.

We will see where this goes from here.  It appears from the video that Amigone Funeral Home has a tremendous investment in the area.  Maybe a solution that would make the neighbors happy would be to continue to do funeral services from that location but move the crematory off the premises.

Another interesting thing that may come in the form of precedent if this case reaches a courthouse is the issue of “grandfathering” and usage (call volume).  I’m guessing that the function of the building was grandfathered in without any thought about what a growing number of users (call volume)  would mean.  Are the plaintiff neighbors “right” in their belief that the grandfathering had something to do with the amount of usage and not just the general usage?  How this case plays out will be interesting to watch.  It could, theoretically, devalue grandfathered establishments because if the plaintiffs win, it would seem to indicate that grandfathering refers to not only zoning, but amount of usage (or in the funeral business, call volume).  In essence, no funeral home that was ever “grandfathered” could hope for an increase in death calls without being subject to dishonoring its grandfather provision.

Related:  Here is another article on the Amigone Funeral Home and the area’s opposition to the emissions issue from the Ken-Ton Bee.

[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]