Fewer Butts Showing On Campus
Bill Foley considers himself a social smoker, one who “only
smokes when he drinks,” as the saying goes.
“I do smoke when I go to the bar, which is basically the only
time I smoke,” said Foley, a graduate student studying student
affairs in higher education. “I don’t think I’m going to smoke
anymore. I bum cigarettes from people at the bar. So if there’s no
one around me smoking, I’m probably going to be less likely to
smoke.”
The Smoke-free Fort Collins Ordinance goes into effect today and
prohibits smoking in restaurants, bars and other places of
employment.
“The ordinance in the bars and the restaurants is going to
affect social smokers,” said Chris Devault, a senior economics
student and former smoker. “(That) is going to lead to less people
being addicted in the short and long run.”
The new city ordinance will make a difference for many smokers.
Gwen Sieving is a health educator at Hartshorn Health Services who
helps students quit smoking.
“My business has doubled in the past five weeks,” Sieving said.
“People know the ordinance is going to start and they really think
now is a good time to quit.”
For social smokers like Foley, when they cannot smoke in
restaurants or bars, there seems little reason to smoke.
“When they get in the process of quitting, they are pretty
excited about not having to go into bars and restaurants where
they’re tempted to smoke,” Sieving said. “I (also) have several
clients who are workers. Some have asthma and don’t smoke and it’ll
be a relief for their lungs.”
Some non-smokers find the ordinance quite favorable.
“My sister has asthma so whenever we’re in a restaurant and
there’s a lot of smoke around she has a lot of problems,” said
Elaina Garcia, a junior microbiology major. “I think for people who
don’t smoke especially it’s a good thing because they don’t want
to
be around it.”
While the ordinance will affect many off-campus areas, this is
nothing new to CSU. Three years ago, students pushed to ban
smoking from inside and 20 feet around all campus buildings,
Sieving said. Because of this,
few changes will have to be completed to make the campus
compliant with the new ordinance.
“It really isn’t going to change things here on campus a whole
lot,” said Capt. Bob Chaffee of the CSU Police Department.
Currently, building proctors and department heads — members
of the faculty and staff — monitor smoking in and around
buildings. The police are only called if someone asked to stop
smoking causes a disturbance.
“We now would have the option of issuing a municipal ticket,”
Chaffee said. “Before it would have to be on the order of
disorderly conduct or something like that.”
Chaffee said that the police encounter few conflicts regarding
smokers and smoking.
Facilities Management and Housing and Food Services have had
little to do in order to accommodate the new law.
“I’ll be real candid — I don’t think we’re doing anything at
the moment,” said Brian Chase, the director of Facilities
Management.
Chase said the only thing the university might do differently is
move some of its ashtrays away from the entrance of buildings to 20
feet away.
“On a practical basis, what that’s meant to do is to keep people
from standing by an entrance and smoking and the smoke goes in the
building,” Chase said. “But the reality is most people, if they are
putting out a cigarette, think to put it out before they go in the
door.”
Facilities Management will experiment with the placement of
ashtrays to see what is most effective and compliant with the
ordinance.
“We’ve had smoke-free halls for a good three years,” said Jim
Dolak, director of Housing and Food Services. “The smoking areas
that we have outside
buildings, they’ll be at least 20 feet away from the main
entrance, and that’s the way they’re set up now.”
The smoking areas were moved to the 20-feet requirement last
year, Dolak said.
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