Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - After numerous complaints for decades from local residents about the debris emitted from the crematorium services of Amigone Funeral Homes, a law was enacted last year allowing Amigone to relocate their crematorium services on Sheridan within the City of Tonawanda.
Amigone did not act within the six month timeframe, which is now forcing state lawmakers to propose another bill to force a shut down.
"The bill would strip away Amigone's permission to operate a crematorium site on Sheridan. That bill passed the Senate this year and is being carried by Assemblymember Conrad in the Assembly and it will be addressed when we come back next year," said New York State Senator Sean Ryan.
"You can not have a crematory and a funeral home combo anymore, that's illegal, so they were grandfathered in," said New York State Assemblyman Bill Conrad.
"We've created a bill that allowed them to move within the municipality and it was my understanding, the Senators understanding, as well as some folks from the DEC, that they wanted to move and they did not have the legal legislation to do so. We created that legislation and passed it, the governor signed it last year. We waited a year, we met with the attorneys from Amigone and they indicated that they felt that that legislation actually hurt their ability to move, we disagreed and we came to a stalemate."
The non-profit crematorium, operating in the same facility as their funeral home on 2600 Sheridan Drive is one of eight in Niagara and Erie County and Conrad recognizes that cremation is a popular option for those who lost a loved one.
"This whole time, we've been trying to work with the company. There's only 49 crematories operating within New York State and 51% of burials right now are cremation. We do have a demand issue where there's a high demand for cremation, we have a low supply. I think Pennsylvania has 250 crematories. We're trying to juggle that. We didn't want to hurt a small business. I've had many friends and family who have used the Amigone Funeral Home and Cremation. But at this point, we've been weighing this business along with the needs of the neighborhood, where they've had several incidents of essentially stack blows, particulates, human remains and ash and although albeit not as frequent as some may think, it still is bothersome and worrisome for the neighborhood," said Assemblyman Conrad.
In 2012, Amigone shut down their crematorium services and opened them again in 2018, after installing new pollution controls but problems continued to ensue when there was black smoke emitting from the facility in 2020, captured via pictures by Tonawanda Board Member, Sharon Patch.
Amigone says it was an operator error and the emissions are no different than the diesel truck emissions that drive down the Sheridan daily.
The facility still has the chance to move.
"There are several separate crematories around the area. So what this bill would do when introduced and we again, we're out of session now, but if we were to go back in session in January and get it passed, it would give them so much time before we would end up shutting them down," said Conrad.
"They should move to where crematories are throughout the state. They're often located in industrial parks. They're fit into the neighborhood just doesn't work," added Senator Sean Ryan.
"They do a very great funeral home business. But they can't seem to stop making mistakes on the other end of their business. We'd like to have that separated off for the funeral home, moved out of neighborhoods into an industrial park and then also to have the close monitoring that they're under from the Department of Environmental Conservation to stay in effect."
"It's time for them to move and continue the business somewhere else to a more commercial industrial area in the town. They had mentioned previously, that they attempted a decade ago to move and that the neighbors had fought them about that move. Those said neighbors have, at least in the immediate vicinity have stopped arguing that point," notes Assemblyman Conrad.
