Fresno Cemetery ordered to "cease and desist," cannot sell new plots

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The tiny Chapel of the Light Cemetery successful Fresno, disconnected Belmont Avenue, has been ordered to "cease and desist" operations amid claims of fiscal mismanagement.

The authorities stepped successful aft proprietor Buck Kamphausen wanted to transportation the cemetery and 3 others successful the Bay Area to Evergreen Ministries.

It is simply a nonprofit spiritual enactment that Kamphausen acceptable up.

Regulators fined each 4 cemeteries $5,000 each past month.

They accidental the cemeteries are unlicensed and indispensable halt "conducting immoderate cemetery business, including internments and selling cemetery property."

The wide manager of Chapel of the Light's ceremonial location did not privation to spell connected camera but told Action News the citation lone prohibits them from selling caller plots.

The cemetery tin inactive inter those who made anterior arrangements oregon purchased their plot.

The manager stressed that the cemetery concern is abstracted from the ceremonial location here, and helium said determination is "a batch of misunderstanding."

In a forceful bid successful January, a Solano County justice was clear, writing:

"Evergreen Ministries was formed for the intent of avoiding governmental regulation..."

She called it a "scheme of fiscal mismanagement ... by a azygous idiosyncratic ... Buck Kamphausen."

"We haven't mismanaged funds," helium told ABC30's sister presumption KGO.

"Most everything they enactment out, close from the start, was a lie. We are appealing their ruling."

Chapel of the Light has been a mainstay successful the Fresno community.

It has often hosted high-profile funerals for instrumentality enforcement.

The region has contracted with the ceremonial home, spending hundreds of thousands connected cremation services.

The manager says ceremonial services are unaffected, and respective are planned for the weeks ahead.

The merchantability of caller plots astatine the cemetery remains halted arsenic the entreaty is underway.

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