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.