Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Cemetery, like an HOA, has limits for decor

Wander through Las Vegas’ oldest cemetery, home to more than 40,000 dead, and you’ll find candy bars, booze, scarecrows, sports memorabilia, birthday banners, picture frames and action figures resting near granite headstones. Last year, groundskeepers found a full Thanksgiving feast laid out at a gravesite.

At Woodlawn Cemetery, tchotchkes have mounted a turf war, and cemetery workers aren’t pleased.

Their ire rises every time the wind blows, scattering trinkets across the public cemetery. Don’t get crews started on the hassles of mowing around garden gnomes and decorative fencing. One plot included a 4-foot-by-18-inch knickknack organizer.

“We’re like the homeowners’ association,” said Jon Laskie, family services manager at Bunkers Mortuaries, Cemeteries and Crematory, which manages Woodlawn. “You might like pretty garden gnomes all over your yard, but your neighbor might not.”

The cemetery regularly receives complaints from people upset about over-the-top displays, Laskie said.

Some decorations are allowed. Plots can include solar-powered lights next to the grave marker, real or artificial flowers and approved vases sold by the cemetery. In fall, cemetery staffers allow extra decorations for the holidays. On a recent visit, a small snow globe sat on a headstone, accompanied by a cigarette, a Troll Doll and a rosary.

“Decorate your grave, have a good time,” Laskie said. “But by Feb. 28, all of that will be gone.”

Every few months, the 101-year-old cemetery’s grounds crew cleans up. Loved ones know to expect this — or at least they should.

The person who paid for the plot had to sign a document that outlined the cemetery’s rules, including, “The placing of boxes, shells, toys, metal designs, ornaments, chairs, settees, glass, wood or iron cases, and similar articles upon plots, walkways, casements or roads shall not be permitted, and, if so placed, the Cemetery reserves the right to remove the same without liability.”

Recognizing that people don’t always read the small print, cemetery officials included on the form photos of approved and prohibited items, identified by smiling or frowning emojis.

Cemetery workers understand visitors miss their loved ones and want to connect. When Laskie worked at a cemetery in Baltimore, a man there dropped off coffee and a doughnut every weekday at his brother’s grave. At Woodlawn, Laskie has found bullets on grave markers and a note that said, “You still owe me $5.”

“Cemeteries are for the living,” Laskie said. “They’re not for the deceased.”

Still, the cemetery must maintain what Laskie calls a park-like atmosphere, which is why he was forced to intervene when a woman arrived one day with a truck, three construction workers and a cement mixer.

She had bought a flat grave marker but wanted to increase its height by building a raised concrete foundation.

“There was a service like 20 yards away,” Laskie said. “I had to go out there during the service and say, ‘Hey, ma’am, you really can’t do this.’”

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