Family said they couldn’t visit gravesite because of cemetery car show

Bill Petrosky Jr. said his father wanted to place flowers on the grave of Petrosky’s mother, but when his father tried to get to the grave, he wasn’t able to.

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Jefferson Memorial Cemetery in Pleasant Hills, near Pittsburgh, was holding its 10th annual car cruise, WPXI reported.

“There was someone directing traffic and he had to reroute,” Petrosky told WPXI. “They said, ‘Move along, move along.’ They were real ignorant with him.”

Petrosky took his complaints to social media, where others shared their experiences, including one woman, whom he said told him that she wasn’t able to visit her husband’s grave and left the cemetery crying.

WPXI reached out to the cemetery’s officials, who said in a statement that the memorial park is not “a traditional cemetery” and that the event was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, but added, “We are incredibly careful to only use non-burial property to host this event.” The event raised $2,200.

But Petrosky said that there were chairs close to the gravesites and selfies showed tombstones behind the people.

“It’s rest in peace, right? Who sees a beer tent in a cemetery?” Petrosky said.

But not everyone agrees with Petrosky, who said he was never told that the memorial garden would be used in this way. Some people support the use of the grounds, saying they had an “awesome time” at the show in a post on the memorial park’s Facebook page. Others pointed out that other cemeteries and memorial parks also hold events similar to this one and that the events can be “celebrating life.”

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