Staff Report
The Staff Council passed a resolution Tuesday to ban tobacco use on Main Campus.
Karin Retskin, administrative coordinator for Staff Council, said the resolution was passed unanimously by the councilors who were present.
"It's been something that's sort of been on our radar for a while now," she said. "This particular subject has been before the council and has been debated for the past several months."
Twenty of 46 councilors attended the meeting, Retskin said.
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It takes 18 to establish a
quorum.
Donald Burge, who presented the resolution, said it goes beyond the resolution for the Health Sciences Center. The Board of Regents approved a smoking ban for the Health Sciences Center on Feb. 14.
"What the resolution that I put forward (Tuesday) calls for is not just smoke-free but to go tobacco-free," he said. "There are deleterious effects of people chewing and spitting. Those effects are just as bad if not worse than secondhand smoke."
Burge said there was no
discussion in the crafting of the resolution about including a smoking section on campus to accommodate
smokers.
"Quite frankly, I do not buy into the argument of smokers' rights," he said. "If you're going to talk about the rights of smokers, you're going to have to ask at what point the smoker has the right to harm others."
Burge said a smoking section outdoors is unacceptable, because people's lives would still be in
danger.
"When you have a public institution, that institution has a duty to protect the safety of the people in or on that institution," he said.
Cigarettes are still a danger to people, even after they have been put out, Burge said.
"Most people will, in fact, simply throw it on the ground. Somebody has to clean that up," he said. "Picking up cigarette butts exposes the person who has to pick them up."
Burge said the resolution should be accepted by the Board of Regents, because the board approved the ban at the Health Sciences
Center.
Jamie Koch, president of the
regents, has said the board will not go forward with a smoking ban on Main Campus until students and faculty demonstrate a similar interest in a campuswide ban.
If one part of campus does not allow smoking, it should not be permitted anywhere on campus, Burge said.
"We can't have one section that is tobacco-free and one section that isn't. It becomes
impossible to enforce the policies," he said. "You can't say the health of the people at the Health Sciences (Center) is more important than the health of the people on the rest of campus."
