In 1994, UB implemented a policy prohibiting smoking in university-owned and operated facilities. On June 1 of this year, the university's new policy was set in place, a policy that in effect banned smoking on all UB campuses with the exception of five specially designated areas split between the North and South campuses.
These "smoking areas" are located on South Campus at the Biomedical Education Building Atrium area and in front of the patient area of Squire Hall. On North Campus, one area is in front of the Student Union, facing north, and two are outside Capen Hall, one facing east toward Norton Hall and the other on the ground level facing north.
Smokers, particularly in the residence halls or the university apartments, now must walk (or drive) to one of these locations to smoke a cigarette on campus. It could feasibly take fifteen minutes for a third of the student body to reach any one smoking area. Meanwhile, the central university administrative offices are only a short walk from two of these areas. For on-campus residents especially, the new smoking policy falls short of being student-friendly.
Solving this problem would not be difficult. If the university is intent on a policy that prohibits smoking in both outdoor and indoor locations, more places for smokers to indulge should be designated. It is fair and prudent to prohibit smoking inside the residence halls, where living arrangements often cannot be changed and students may be forced to live with someone whose smoking could be a detrimental to their health. Additionally, safety and fire prevention measures are especially key in the wake of the deadly Seton Hall dormitory fire of 2000. Nonetheless, students do smoke and to accommodate this reality and to prevent students from smoking in their rooms or in common areas, the university should create smoking areas more convenient to the student residence halls.
The new policy will also be difficult to implement in university apartments. While the policy is considerate to non-smokers breathing their neighbor's smoke through the ventilation systems, it fails to take into account the difficulty of discovering violations and the even greater difficulty of determining who the violator is. Rather than implement a blanket ban on smoking in the apartments, the university should consider designating a specific building for the use of student smokers. To counteract the higher costs of repairs, UB could either impose a higher rent on apartments in the smoking building, or continue as is, and charge damages to tenants as needed.
The question of enforcement, too, is problematic. Forcing the University Police to enforce such a rule would be an unacceptable strain on the department. This leaves the university with few options. The first of which is to spend money on "smoking police," perhaps off-duty officers that patrol campus grounds, but this idea is too expensive and too ridiculous to be practical. Next, UB could add more smoking areas, distributed evenly around the North and South campuses and take into consideration the greatest areas of need. Finally, they can keep the former system in place, publicize the butt stops, and move on.
In short, the new policy, while created with what were surely the best of intentions, sets goals that are far too lofty and is almost certainly doomed to fail as a result. Student smokers have already expressed their intent to ignore new smoking guidelines, and should these rules persist, any progress made thus far could well be lost. UB needs to choose its battles wisely, and this new anti-smoking campaign is simply overkill.
