Bill Text: NJ A3840 | 2014-2015 | Regular Session | Chaptered

---

Bill Title: Prohibits religious entities from engaging in certain practices involving cemeteries, funeral homes and mortuaries, memorials, mausoleums and burial vaults.

Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 18-5)

Status: (Passed) 2015-03-23 - Approved P.L.2015, c.30. [A3840 Detail]

Download: New_Jersey-2014-A3840-Chaptered.html

---

§1 - C.16:1-7.1

§2 - Note

 

P.L.2015, CHAPTER 30, approved March 23, 2015

Assembly, No. 3840 (Second Reprint)

 

 

An Act concerning certain religious entities and supplementing chapter 1 of Title 16 of the Revised Statutes.

 

     Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

 

     1.    a.  Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, rule or regulation to the contrary, a religious corporation, association, organization or society, however formed or incorporated, that owns or controls a cemetery or that engages in the management, operation or sales of or for a cemetery, whether directly or indirectly, or the owner or operator of a religious cemetery, is prohibited from engaging, directly or indirectly, in:

     (1)   the ownership, manufacture, installation, sale, creation, inscription,  provision or conveyance, in any form, of memorials;

     (2)   the ownership, manufacture, installation, sale, creation, provision or conveyance, in any form, of vaults, including vaults installed in a grave before or after sale and including vaults joined with each other in the ground;

     (3)   the ownership, manufacture, installation, sale, creation, provision or conveyance, in any form, of a mausoleum intended for private use, which shall not include a mausoleum built for use by or sale to the general public membership of a religious organization;

     (4)   the ownership or conduct of any funeral home or mortuary, or the engaging in the business or profession of funeral directing or mortuary science;

     (5)   the sale, renting or leasing of any of its real property ¹[, including that which is adjacent to a cemetery or]¹ dedicated to cemetery purposes, for the location of a funeral home or mortuary or the conduct of the business or profession of funeral directing or mortuary science; or

     (6)   the entering into a management contract to authorize control of its cemetery related operations with any entity that, directly or indirectly, in this State, engages in the ownership or conduct of a funeral home or mortuary or that engages in the business or profession of funeral directing or mortuary science.

     b.    As used in this act:

     (1)   "funeral directing," "mortuary" and "mortuary science" shall
have the same meanings  as set forth in section 3 of P.L. 1952,

c. 340 (C. 45:7-34); and

     (2)   "mausoleum," "memorial" and "vault" shall have the same meanings as set forth in section 2 of P.L.2003, c.261 (C.45:27-2).

 

     2.    This act shall take effect ²[immediately] one year following enactment².

 

 

                                

 

     Prohibits religious entities from engaging in certain practices involving cemeteries, funeral homes and mortuaries, memorials, mausoleums and burial vaults.