New Jersey Statutes Title 40. Municipalities and Counties 40 § 48-2.12n

a. Many of the municipalities in this State, and the residents thereof, have experienced disturbances, damage and public expense resulting from carelessly granted and inadequately supervised rentals to irresponsible tenants by inept or indifferent landlords.

b. To preserve the peace and tranquility of those communities it is necessary and desirable that those communities have adequate means to curb and discourage those occasional excesses arising from irresponsible rentals.

c. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this legislation to enable municipal governing bodies to take effective action to assure that excesses, when they occur, shall not be repeated, and that landlords be held to sufficient standards of responsibility.