COVINGTON, Ga.—As the days leading up to Halloween dwindle and the sun sets earlier with each passing day, the city of Covington is considering restricting activity in cemeteries.
On Monday, the Covington City Council voted to initiate a new ordinance subsection that would confine allowable visiting hours to between dawn and dusk. Additionally, the ordinance would prohibit for-profit, commercial use of the city cemeteries (with exceptions for services provided by mortuaries and the like).
“I personally, and other people that contacted me over the weekend, do not feel that people need to be going into the city cemetery as much as it's used by our residents every day, whether they're walking, visiting loved ones or whatever, for people to be in there turning a profit,” said Mayor Fleeta Baggett.
Last weekend, videos surfaced on social media of what appeared to be a tour through a cemetery. Across the world, historical and ‘ghost-hunting’ tours are a popular attraction, particularly among tourists.
But many Covingtonians took issue with the sight of people appearing to disrupt the resting place of their ancestors.
One video showed over a dozen people entering a cemetery at nightfall. Locals, including members of the Covington City Council, weighed in with their opinions on social media.
“It’s wrong, distasteful and disturbing to make money off the souls of others,” Baggett wrote. “I don’t care how ‘respectful’ your tours are.”
Though Councilman Travis Moore was absent from the council meeting on Monday night, he shared his take in the comments as well.
“I have been on this particular tour in Covington just to check it out. It was done respectfully and no one was taking pictures of tombstones, or left the street,” Moore wrote.
In another comment, Moore added that he was “not arguing right or wrong,” just sharing his experience on the tour.
That discourse, coupled with the few short weeks until Halloween and the awareness of Covington’s prominence as a vampiric tourism spot, appears to have sparked the city council into action.
“I feel like there should be no tours for profit, no filming,” said Councilman Anthony Henderson. “I feel like when it comes to cemeteries, these are people that have been laid there to rest, so I think we need to give them the right to rest.”
Rather than ban all tours, the council specified that for-profit commercial activity would be the basis of the regulation, with an exception for mortuaries. That way, history tours could still take place, but they would not be an experience that the attendees paid for.
Covington Ghost Tours, a local business that offers spooky walking tours across the city’s historic district, did not speak out against the proposed ordinance when asked by The Covington News.
“We have always strived to follow the ordinances set by our elected officials and have worked closely with city officials to ensure our business is an asset to the downtown community,” a spokesperson with Covington Ghost Tours told The News, in part. “The city cemetery has been posted with a sign stating that it closes at 9:30 pm for many years. It has been a stop on our tour. But it is not a huge part of our tour. We will continue to comply with the cities [sic] elected officials ordinances as we always have.”
The spokesperson added that they frequently change the tour’s route in order to “keep things interesting.” Rather than the proposed ordinance, the spokesperson took issue with the videos that had been circulating on social media that seemingly sparked the discussion.
“The only thing that has concerned me recently has been a grown man hiding in the shadows of a back street video recording women and minors without their permission and posting it on social media,” the spokesperson wrote. “That is the scariest thing I have seen in a while.”
After agreeing on the terms, the council members approved the first reading in a unanimous 4-0 vote (Council members Moore and Susie Keck were absent). A second reading is slated to take place at the council’s Oct. 20 meeting, just days before Halloween.
