Policy involving flowers at cemeteries not changing

Sep 26, 2023 | 6:00 AM

The City of Vernon will not be changing its policy allowing artificial flowers left at the cemetery, despite the mayor proposing a temporary pilot.

At the regular meeting Monday, Sept. 25, Vernon City Council received a report from staff recommending the bylaw that permits artificial flowers be left at grave sites only between October 16 and March 14, while only real, fresh cut flowers can be left at plots between March 15 and October 15, not be changed.

After receiving the report, Mayor Victor Cumming suggested they reconsider the policy, temporarily, by running a pilot that would allow artificial flowers be left at grave sites in the summer months on a two-year trial basis.

Cumming’s proposal was met with pushback from both staff and council.

Kendra Kryszak, manager of parks and public spaces maintenance, told council the restriction on when artificial flowers could be left at plots was put in place primarily for safety reasons.

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“The safety aspect of it is artificial flowers are not biodegradable, therefore they can get caught in our mowers, our weed whackers can also pick them up and fling them, so people kind of in the area need to be aware of those types of things,” Kryszak said.

“That’s also why we took the trinkets away because sometimes having those trinkets on the edge of the concrete can [be picked up] by the weed whacker and definitely fling it.”

She added there have been cases of artificial flowers and trinkets being caught up in and flung from the groundskeeping equipment in the past.

Councillor Kelly Fehr said the policy creates “a park environment that doesn’t have artificial items scattered throughout,” and agreeing that it is a safety issue, stating “if you step back it would be quite a challenge for the municipality to move back to a safer model if we did encounter issues.”

Councillor Brian Quiring said an independent consultant was brought in to revise the plan for the cemetery and that’s when the issues should have been brought up, stating he “has a fundamental issue” with rolling it back after all the work has already been completed.

Councillor Kari Gares stated she understood that people visit the cemetery to grieve and that flowers can give people a sense of peace and that it was a difficult decision to restrict when artificial flowers could be left at plots. She noted that it is becoming the standard across Canada to move away from artificial flowers at graves as they are not biodegradable and create a risk of harm to workers and the public. She also said there were many types of flowers that could “withstand the elements of the summer” and last longer in the dry heat.

Cumming stated he understood the arguments made by council, but also stated that “during the implementations of these significant changes, it’s really important to watch the implementation, and if there’s tweaking that’s required during the implementation, then this is the time to do it.”

Cumming added he saw there was no support for his proposal at Monday’s meeting, to which Gares said she could be in support if there was some sort of consistency to what materials the artificial flowers are made of, though she also referred to that idea as “a bigger ask and a bigger task.”

Depite Cumming’s proposal sparking a conversation in the council chambers, his motion for the two year pilot was not seconded and it died on the floor.

Council voted unanimously in favour on the motion to accept the report.

by Liam Verster

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