|
Smokers, not policy, are key to campus environment
Behind the generally peaceful exterior of SCSU’s campus, a debate has raged during the last few years.
The issue: cigarette smoking, and where people should and should not be able to do it.
Non-smokers have long complained that trying to get into buildings like Stewart Hall required them to walk through thick clouds of smoke that hung in the air over smokers standing outside entrances.
At Miller Center, the occasionally still-lit cigarette has been tossed into the deposit box that used to be right outside the building’s doors. More than once, that hot cigarette has ignited the other discarded cigarettes in the box. Smoldering, toxic smoke from the deposit box was subsequently drawn into the building’s ventilation system, spreading fumes throughout the library and making both students and employees sick.
This has all changed recently. Most residence halls have adopted policies that outline a smoke-free zone within a specific number of feet from entrances (for example, Mitchell Hall’s no-smoking zone is 20 feet from all doors and windows).
This year, all dorms became smoke free at the start of fall semester. This week, smoking and no-smoking areas were designated outside academic buildings, with the idea of cutting back the groups of smokers who used to congregate in front of entryways.
Smokers on campus are seeing their smoking rights slowly minimized as more non-smokers realize their right to breathe clean air takes precedence over smokers’ rights to pollute it.
But will the anti-smoking measures work?
Only if smokers take the initiative and care to respect the rights of those who want to avoid secondhand smoke.
Despite the new policy, some students continue to smoke just feet from the doors of residence halls and in newly-established smoke free zones at academic buildings like Stewart Hall. While the policy has helped, it has not solved the problem.
Smokers ARE the key to the solution, however; by respecting new no-smoking zones, they can be courteous to people coming and going from buildings.
Keeping secondhand smoke away from building entrances will make SCSU’s campus a more enjoyable environment for everyone who spends time here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
