SGA fails to support campus smoking ban

The Student Government Association (SGA) debated implementing a campus-wide smoking ban at their weekly meeting on Tuesday, April 25 at Charles Commons. The Smoking Ban Resolution was initially introduced at last week’s meeting. The SGA did not pass the resolution, with 13 voting for and seven against.

Freshman Class Senator Rushabh Doshi, who presented the Resolution, went over the revisions since last week.

“It’s a very similar resolution,” Doshi said. “We’ve strengthened it. We’ve added statistics to almost every clause.”

Doshi said that his team had reached out to the University of Michigan and the Health and Wellness Center at George Washington University. Both institutions have implemented campus-wide smoking bans.

He argued that the bill’s approach to the smoking ban considers the importance of personal liberty, but it also acknowledges the community’s responsibility for an individual’s well-being.

“I think that this is a good compromise,” he said. “I think this Resolution is essentially the product of last week’s conversation.”

The bill included data from a 2013 campus survey which suggested that the majority of students were in favor of a ban. Doshi said that while such data may be outdated, he believed that, given data from other universities, it would be more pertinent to pass the bill sooner than to wait for more data to be collected.

“I understand that yes, it is three or four years old,” Doshi said. “But if we expect to see the same statistics, this is just kicking the can down the road.”

Sophomore Class Senator Jennifer Baron disagreed with Doshi, comparing the 2013 survey to a similar one conducted the same year on the removal of covered grades.

“Last year no one wanted covered grades removed, but they were using data based on a survey that was taken four years ago,” Baron said.

Junior Class Senator Trevor Lee was concerned because the data supporting the bill was collected exclusively from students.

“[The 2013 data] doesn’t consider the faculty’s perspective, especially those who work in dining,” Lee said.

Junior Class Senator Kwame Alston was also concerned with how the bill would affect faculty and workers.

“The people that will be affected the most are the people who make our university run every day,” Alston said.

He believes that the resolution would exacerbate what he feels is a hostile environment for workers.

“You already feel like an outsider on this campus, and you have to walk away for a smoke break,” Alston said. “You’re stressed out by the students who don’t appreciate you half of the time. It would make your job harder. I think it’s very isolating for them. None of their opinions are being taken.”

While Freshmen Class President Anthony Boutros agreed that respecting workers was important, he believed this issue should be dealt with in a separate bill.

“I highly recommend someone bringing up a bill to help the staff in other ways so that the students understand them,” he said. “We need to make sure they respect people who make this campus run. But I don’t think this is relevant or correlated to the smoking ban.”

Boutros added that the smoking ban could also provide benefits to the staff, and that the bill could be extended to help the staff become involved in cessation programs. These programs aim to help people quit smoking.

“While they may smoke, that smoking still affects them negatively,” Boutros said. “What we should do also is make these cessation programs available to them. That’s a conversation we could have with the University. That’s a concern that would help them in the long run.”

Alston stuck to his opinion that a smoking ban was disrespectful to the staff.

“The true fact of working as an essential staff here is you’re not treated well,” he said. “They don’t get great benefits, and many students don’t appreciate them a lot. There are great students that do, but none of this changes the fact that there are people that are disrespected.”

Doshi argued to pass the bill sooner rather than later so that the SGA could start implementing the bill over the summer.

“We wanted to try to get the entire plan enacted by August 2018 and have a one year gap period with just one smoking station,” he said.

After failing to pass the bill, SGA decided to continue discussion of the bill next meeting.