New Jersey legislation (S.3024/ A.4486) would require every hotel to “place AEDs throughout the hotel in a manner that ensures they are readily accessible in the event they are needed to respond to a sudden cardiac event.” This bill would require every hotel in the State that is not a bed and breakfast to provide an automated external defibrillator (AED) in each lobby, meeting room, banquet hall, and fitness center, and on every other residential floor. Bed and breakfasts will be required to provide an AED in each separate building or structure on the premises of the B&B that is used by, or accessible to, guests.
Bystander use of AEDs greatly increases the odds of survival.
The bill passed the Assembly earlier this year and passed through the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee in September. To become law, the legislation would have to pass the senate next. The state’s legislative session wraps up in early January. New Jersey residents and other advocates are urged to contact the legislators listed below in support of this legislation.
Three steps to take
- Send an email to sensweeney [at] njleg.org (Senate President Steve Sweeney) and cc Kdrennan [at] njleg.gov (Kevin Drennan), executive director of the senate. The email should ask the senate president to post S.3024 for a vote.
- Send an email to the Senate bill sponsors, sengopal [at] njleg.org (Senator Vin Gopal) and sengreenstein [at] njleg.org (Senator Linda Greenstein) and ask that they request to leadership that S.3024 gets posted.
- Call/email tlittle [at] njleg.org (Tom Little), joint aide for district 11, and ask him to push S.3024.