Cardinal Points

Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Andrei Popovici Vlad PSUC senior A.J. Mertz lights up a cigarette outside the ACC. Starting July 1, all SUNY schools will prohibit smoking inside residence halls and forbid smoking in any location where second-hand smoke can enter a college facility.

It's 2 p.m. on a Saturday and a crowd of Plattsburgh State students are huddled around the entrance of Macdonough Hall.

Most of them hold cigarettes. The students talk and laugh, telling jokes between long, deep drags. Clouds of smoke curl around the students' faces, hovering in a dingy white cloud above their heads before rising toward the open windows of the red brick building behind them.

Such a scene is about to become scarce at PSUC.

Starting on July 1, all SUNY schools will prohibit smoking inside campus residence halls and forbid smoking in any location where second-hand smoke can enter a college facility.

PSUC dorms have been smoke-free since 1994, Director of Residence Life Bryan Hartman said, but the college has never even considered a policy forcing smokers away from doors and windows.

Now, PSUC - like all SUNY schools - has no choice.

"We want to be perfectly clear that this is not a Plattsburgh State policy," Hartman said. "This is a mandate from the SUNY Board of Trustees. It is our job to comply with their guidelines and enforce this new policy to the best of our ability."

Hartman said he has no objection to the new set of rules.

"Smoking is a choice," Hartman said. "I am very understanding of the fact that smoking is very addicting and that most smokers need support or medical attention to break the habit. However, in a residence hall setting, smoking negatively affects more people than just the smoker. We have to make the decision that is best for the majority."

Hartman is chairing a sub-committee of the Campus Safety Committee that will present recommendations to the PSUC Executive Council regarding ways to implement and enforce the new policy.

According to Hartman, the most likely course of action will be the establishment of a specific smoke-free perimeter - anywhere from 15 to 50 feet - around campus buildings.

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools