I am writing this letter in response to The Bengal’s story “Students Ignite over Smoking Ban,” where it states that there is a grace period before the ban goes into effect. The grace period is too long, and it does not encourage change, except for making the campus look horrible. The grace period needs to be shortened so the campus officials can enforce this newly enacted ban and make it effective.
With a grace period there is no sense of urgency for the people who smoke on campus to quit. I imagine if I had a whole year to quit something such as smoking, I would wait until the later months to quit. I wouldn’t be punished for waiting. With the addictive nature of cigarettes, if people wait nine to ten months to quit smoking, it will be even harder for them to quit.
If trying to create a better campus is the goal of the ban, the grace period doesn’t help. When the ban was initially “enforced,” the ashtrays around campus were removed, which, in turn, left no place for the unpunished smokers to safely throw away their cigarette butts. Because there is no safe place to throw away their cigarette butts, they simply throw them on the ground where they smoke, which, to me, makes the whole campus look like a giant ash tray. I feel sorry for the people who have to clean up after the smokers. My friend, Matt, had to clean up after smokers at Liberty Park in Old Town. He was there for two to three hours; all the while, he was unceasingly cleaning up cigarette butts.
Another issue with the lengthy grace period is that the ban is supposed to be only enforced by students, but that doesn’t seem very effective. I don’t find it effective because it is not my place to tell people what to do; I am not an authority figure; surely most smokers do not respect the ban, and why would they respect a non-authoritative figure encouraging them to follow it? If the ban was enforced by public safety, I believe the change would be much more sudden because they are the authoritative figures on campus. It would be possible for public safety to punish the smokers for disregarding the ban with fines or confiscation of the cigarettes; on the other hand, students lack the capability to punish these smokers.
The ban is not being implemented to its full capability. The major result of the lack of enforcement, litter, is causing our campus to look horrible. The reason for the lack of enforcing the ban is the extremely lengthy grace period. The grace period needs to be shortened to allow the smoking ban to actually be a rule, instead of a quickly shrugged off guideline.
