End of grace period means fines, unsatisfied smokers
By Jessica Mitchell
With the college’s tobacco ban in full swing, procedures and ticketing become an adjustment that students are required to make.
Beginning last August, students and faculty were no longer allowed to smoke freely outdoors. The ban mandated that people either smoke inside their cars or at the ITC building; any violation would result in a $10 fine.
Dana Grove, executive vice president of educational planning, said that with the tobacco ban being such an alteration, a grace period was implemented to allow students and faculty to ease into it.
“Every term there’s a two-week grace period,” Grove said. “So, officers who are walking around and seeing people smoke can simply tell them what the practice is.”
With the ban forcing people to either walk to their cars or to the ITC building, not all smokers have taken kindly to this movement.
“I like smoking and it’s really ridiculous to have to go in your car,” said Timothy Madison, student. “I don’t smoke in my car anyway. We need designated smoking areas.”
Madison has even gone as far as setting up a petition with the objective of bringing the unsatisfactory of smokers to awareness. His goal is to collect 2,000 signatures in hopes of having some ground to stand on, he said.
“We are enforcing designated smoking areas ourselves because we have to run around and hide from cops,” Madison said. “So to just legitimize those small corners would be really all we need.”
Students, while dubbing certain areas around campus their secret smoking vicinity, have begun to congregate in unhealthy and possibly dangerous places.
“[In-between the GEB and COM building] there is a brick wall, there are generators inside that brick wall and students are going in there which could potentially be a very dangerous hazard with all the electricity,” Grove said. “So we are walling the rest of that up…just be darn careful where you [smoke]. It’s not because of getting caught, it’s because of safety.”
In the college’s smoking ban rules, if a person is caught smoking outside of the designated areas, the person will be issued a $10 ticket. If caught again, the ticket will rise to $20, said campus police officers Ed Vesey and Scott Wargin.
Since the ban has been implemented, the college has been freely issuing tickets to students that don’t abide by the rules. According to Wargin’s records, four were issued this semester and approximately 30 were issued last semester.
Madison has been given two tickets and a few warnings since the ending of the grace period. If tickets do not get paid off it becomes a hold on student records and can even stop the ability of enrollment, said Madison, having a similar situation happen to him.
The smoking ban, not even a year old, has already stirred up controversy with some. A town hall meeting will be held Wednesday Feb. 15 at noon in COM 156. Everyone is welcome to attend.
“This isn’t an unusual thing to do,” Grove said. “More and more college campuses are restricting and banning smoking. You have cities doing it, counties are doing it, and entire states are doing it. So it’s the movement.”
Contact Jessica Mitchell, features editor, jmitch54@jccc.edu.