Policy
restricts smoking areas near buildings
By Brian Brannon
On-line Forty-Niner
A
new campus-wide smoking policy will likely
take effect next fall, Wayne Dick, chair
of the Academic Senate told the Associated
Student Senate on Wednesday.
“The president has decided that it’s really
time to go with this policy,” Dick said.
By restricting smoking in a few selected
areas near buildings, the revised policy
will protect the rights of smokers and non-smokers
alike, he said.
“This policy is not meant to be an attack
on smokers,” he said. “No one should have
forced exposure to smoke.”
The Board of Trustees passed an initiative
last fall giving university presidents in
the California State University system the
power to establish smoking policies for
each campus.
President Robert Maxson appointed a committee
last September, which included Dick and
A.S.I. President Danny Vivian, to seek student
and faculty input, and suggest changes to
the CSU policy now in place.
Currently, smoking is banned inside all
university buildings. The new policy will
extend the ban to 20 feet from the entrance
or exit of any building and 20 feet from
any ventilation system.
Smoking will also be prohibited along certain
major corridors, including the walkway extending
from the top of the escalator near the University
Student Union, past the University Bookstore
and Liberal Arts Buildings, to the front
doors of the University Library. Additionally,
no smoking will be allowed anywhere in the
interior of Brotman Hall.
“We decided to start off small so it would
be fairly focused and fairly easy to understand,”
Dick said.
The ability to include additional non-smoking
areas in the future was also written into
the policy. Senator Brian Roberts asked
how long it would take to for new areas
to be included in the plan.
Dick said such suggestions from students
or faculty would first go through the college
or administration responsible for the area
to build a consensus. Once approved there,
they would be sent to a committee to be
reviewed on an annual basis.
Previously, the Senate had suggested posting
signage to alert smokers to areas where
smoking is prohibited. Senator Sam Muraka
asked Dick if there was a provision to include
such signage in the new policy.
Dick replied that signs would be one element
of an extensive information campaign comprising
a large part of the plan.
Senator Patrick Cowley asked Dick if he
had heard any opposition to the policy from
smokers on campus. Dick said that aside
from a few grumbles by individual smokers,
there had been no organized efforts against
the plan. The most outspoken people were
non-smokers who didn’t feel the policy went
far enough, he said.
“We have some people who think there shouldn’t
be any smoking any closer than Bellflower
Boulevard,” he said.
Dick said that by creating well-defined
areas that make sense to non-smokers and
smokers alike, the committee hopes to build
a “culture of cooperation” that would eliminate
the need to issue citations for violations
of the policy.
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