Tobacco ban enforcement still in the works

 

 

By Austin Schmitt

With seven months until UK goes tobacco-free, more questions than answers remain.

The Tobacco-Free Campus Task Force met for the sixth time Monday afternoon and discussed issues from compliance with the tobacco ban to smoking in parking garages.

Most of the discussion focused on how to communicate the message of the ban to people on campus and how to enforce the policy.Tyler Montell, Student Government president and leader of the Task Force’s Compliance Committee, held a meeting last week that discussed compliance issues with faculty, staff and students on his committee.

Members of his committee wanted to know who was going to police the policy, Montell said, and what they could do about it.

“ … Not why (there is a ban), but what can we do about this,” Montell said.

Other members of the larger committee questioned how to enforce this policy, as well.  The question of how it would appear in the Student Code of Conduct was discussed.  The consensus of the group was that the policy must be consistent in approach – discipline and enforcement.

The topic of the current policy — no smoking within 20 feet of buildings — was approached.  Committee members said the policy is rarely enforced.

Ellen Hahn, co-chair of the task force along with Anthany Beatty, the vice president for public safety, said that this policy would be different from the 20-foot rule.

That policy was decided one day and was not properly planned, Hahn said.

“This is different,” Hahn said.  “We’ve been given nine months to figure it out.”

Hahn said this smoking ban is not about taking away rights, but rather helping people.

“Rights issue doesn’t hold any water for me,” Hahn said.  “If you don’t want to quit, that’s fine.  But we have an ethical obligation to help them.”

Describing herself as an optimist, Hahn said  she believes all people are naturally law abiding but knows that there will be some resentment.

Jimmy Stanton, member of the task force and executive director of public relations at UK, said this is a large project that will take a lot of time to develop and plan but will eventually end positively.

“It’s a large project, but a valuable one,” Stanton said.