The next time you try to smoke in the middle of McCullough Plaza, you might want to think twice.
On Monday, Sept. 21, the Campus Executive Council met to discuss how to better enforce the two-year-old smoking ban on campus.
As proposed, starting Nov. 1, students smoking anywhere on campus, other than inside their personal vehicles, will be considered in violation of the smoking policy.
The possible solutions suggested for better enforcement are to have the IUS Police and Residence Life employees hand out citations, a deputy program utilizing members of student organizations to enforce the policy.
They may even consider hiring part-time personnel to patrol campus and hand out citations.
The first time a person is caught catching a butt on campus, they will receive a warning and be required to attend a smoking cessation class on campus.
The second time a person receives a citation, they get the choice of paying a $25 fine or performing one hour of community service picking up cigarette butts on campus.
And the third time a person is cited for violating the policy, they get a choice of a $50 fine or two hours of “butt duty,” and they get to have a one-on-one chat with Ruth Garvey-Nix, vice chancellor of Academic Affairs.
If anyone hasn’t realized by now, smoking is still legal in this country.
Although I support the administration’s right to make the main parts of campus smoke-free, I don’t approve of the suggestions that were made to enforce and punish those who violate that policy.
First, the IUS Police have enough to do on a daily basis rather than patrol the parking lots, handing out citations to students that, for the most part, are trying to comply with the tobacco-free campus policy.
Second, “deputizing” students involved in campus groups to enforce the policy is a terrible idea, but I guess it could be used as a recruiting tool.
The punishments, in this case the community service picking up cigarette butts, are a form a ridicule that should not be considered in this situation.
As I pointed out, smoking is still legal in this country.
My other issue with this policy is that the only people that it can be enforced on are IUS students and employees.
There is no practical way to enforce the policy or fines on visitors that come to campus.
Whether a person comes to campus to see friends, to give a speech to students or to see a show at the Ogle Center, if they are cited for smoking, there’s really nothing that IU Southeast can do to them if they don’t follow the punishments or pay their fines.
Speaking of the fines, one suggestion for the money raised from the citations was to purchase more plastic signs to notify you not to smoke on campus because those are much prettier than a few stray cigarette butts around the parking lots.
To me, this all just seems like an attempt by IU Southeast to force people to quit smoking by making an example out of them through public embarrassment.
Making smokers sit in their cars is like putting an animal in a cage for everyone to walk by and look at for their enjoyment.
In addition, making people walk around campus, as was suggested at the Executive Council meeting, in orange safety vests while picking up cigarette butts is nothing but a modern-day version of putting someone in the stocks to be ridiculed in the public square.
The real answer to the problem is to have a designated smoking area on campus where people can go to smoke and not bother or be bothered by anyone, but that’s not going to happen.
So instead, I’d like to suggest another option: Keep the main campus tobacco free, but when it comes to the parking lot, why not just “butt” out.
By SCOTT GILLESPIE
Editor
tsgilles@ius.edu