Responsibility lies on UK, not city, in ban

With the Nov. 19 tobacco ban imminent, UK is scrambling to find ways to make the seemingly unenforceable restriction work.

Instead of taking responsibility for patrolling all areas of campus, UK is looking to hand off a large portion of campus — the sidewalks — to the city.

Hesitating to enforce these smoke free areas doesn’t look good. It seems as if UK is looking for somewhere to place the blame if its let’s-get-healthy campaign isn’t as successful as it hoped.

We’ve all seen what’s happened on the UK medical campus: smokers stand in droves along Limestone to get their nicotine fix.

UK realizes sidewalks are the inevitable option for students, faculty and staff on campus as well. Asking the city to patrol these areas for violations is just a way UK can point fingers if things go wrong.

According to an Oct. 22 Kernel article, 3rd District Councilwoman Diane Lawless has expressed concerns over people moving outside the boundaries of campus to smoke, making neighboring areas “UK’s ashtray.”

“I’d like to kind of poll the neighborhoods because many of them have said since they heard about (the tobacco ban), they’re concerned that people will be walking across the street and smoking in their yards,” Lawless said.

This doesn’t seem to be something UK has put enough thought into. If the university is trying to improve the relationship between the school and the Lexington community, making surrounding areas a wasteland of cigarette butts isn’t the best way to do that.

Since the university is not willing to provide designated smoking areas for members of campus, more attention needs to be focused on helping these people drop their bad habits.

Relying on coverage in the Kernel and posters in obscure areas of campus about their quit-smoking programs isn’t enough. Be proactive and get representatives of these programs out on campus.

If not, come Nov. 19, we may finally be able to clearly define the ambiguous boundaries of UK’s campus. Just look for the border of butts.