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Owners change, but names remain
Sunday, May 23, 1999 By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Don't judge a funeral home by its name -- there's a good chance it's the name of someone dead, retired or bought out by someone waving money at him.
Among the quirks of Pennsylvania law relating to the funeral industry, only a licensed funeral director may own a funeral home in most instances, and the home must bear the name of a funeral director. Those restrictions ostensibly had at least some root in a desire for people to know whom they're dealing with concerning such sensitive services.
So instead of the Acme and Zenith funeral homes competing to serve the Jewish trade in Pittsburgh, for example, you have the Ralph Schugar Inc. Funeral Home vying for the same customers as Burton L. Hirsch Funeral Home Inc.
The only problem from a public information standpoint is that Mr. Schugar died in the 1970s and the elderly Mr. Hirsch sold out to a Canadian conglomerate several years ago, though he still works at the Squirrel Hill funeral home.
Purchasers tend to retain the funeral home's name when they take over, benefiting from the built-up reputation even if H. Samson, H.P. Brandt, Leo Henney or some other well-established name in Pittsburgh funeral circles long ago became a customer himself rather than provider.
"I kept the name because everyone knew Leo. Why screw with something that works?" explained Scott Ritter, who bought Henney's Carnegie funeral home in 1986, six years before the former owner died.
David Ryave, the funeral director in charge of the Ralph Schugar operation in Shadyside, inherited the position from his own late father, who bought the funeral home from Schugar's family. People used to get confused and call him "David Schugar" when he was new, Ryave says, but he believes the Jewish community "is so small around here that everyone knows who they're dealing with."
Still, that doesn't keep him from going to great lengths in advertising to remind people that his is the only "locally owned" Jewish funeral home, hoping it will lure potential customers away from Hirsch.
Rules regarding ownership can be similarly quizzical.
Any funeral director may own a funeral home, whether that individual is already in the business or is one of the more than 400 who are newly licensed in Pennsylvania each year. But unlike most other types of business, state law restricts ownership by non-funeral directors.
Those non-licensed individuals or corporations with the capital to enter the field may do so only by purchasing what are known as "pre-1935 licenses." Sixty or more of the old licenses, which date from before the Legislature restricted ownership to funeral directors, are in circulation and can be purchased for whatever the market bears.
Purchase of the pre-1935 licenses is the primary way cemeteries are able to start up funeral homes on their property, and a few have paid tens of thousands of dollars to do so.
The cemetery operators contend, however, that the ownership restriction unreasonably limits competition in the funeral field and should be stripped the next time Pennsylvania updates its funeral laws. No plans are imminent for any such overhaul.
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