Smoking policy to be enforced at Read

Read Center will begin more aggressively patrolling IU's new smoking policy outside residence halls today. The new rules, which were passed by the University last semester, require students to be 30 feet away from buildings before lighting up. Signs have been hung around Read Center informing residents of the rule and warning that "staff will document anyone smoking within 30 feet of doors, walkways, etc ..."\nStill, students who break the rules will receive a verbal warning and no sort of formal reprimand, said Read Residence Manager Doug Yeskie. Yeskie said Read Center had not been able to enforce the policy until this week because it had large, concrete ash urns in place just outside several doors until then.\n"The policy started some time ago," he said. "We had some huge ash urns which sat there and made it pretty difficult to enforce. But those were removed last week by the physical plant." \nYeskie said, in particular, the entrance facing the music school next to the Hoosier Cafe has been a hangout of sorts for smokers because it had one of the urns just several feet from the door. \n"We're just going to warn them of the rule and let them know to move," Yeskie said. "We've had groups within Read that wonder why we don't enforce it. I've walked out that entrance and been met with all that smoke too." \nAlthough the old urns have been removed, new ash trays further from the building have not been installed but have been ordered, Yeskie said. He said he believes the physical plant has received the new ash trays -- called "smoking butlers" -- but are waiting until the ground thaws to install them. The butlers will be an ash tray fixed to the top of a pole, cemented into the ground. \nDave Hurst, manager of campus division for the physical plant, said his department has begun installing ash trays outside various academic buildings but that none have been installed yet outside any residence halls. He said even with the new policy, his department will likely face the same problems picking up after smokers in certain areas. \n"It's not much different than before," Hurst said. "We're always going to have some problem cleaning up. It's just a matter of adapting to the new policy. I think it will be fine, but it will take awhile to adjust."\nAlthough Yeskie said no one will be written up, he said if students continually abuse the rule, disciplinary action could follow.\n"I think that will be a judgement call," he said. "Most of the time, it seems like residents will obey the rules. That will be judgement call. I imagine if someone was really belligerent or if the same person did it five or six times, at some point you have to document that."\nDenver McDaniel, a junior and a resident assistant at Read Center, said he will begin asking smokers to move away and writing people up for smoking today. \n"They just informed us of the policy that we were to start documenting people," McDaniel said. "The policy has been in place since Nov. 1 as far as University Residence Halls are concerned. We've been on this kind of leeway time where the ashtrays were to be rolled away, and we were just supposed to enforce the policy and ask them to move away."\nIn June 2003, a 15-member task force of ten faculty and staff members and five students was created to review IU's smoking policy. The task force made its recommendation and Chancellor Sharon Brehm then amended IU's policy, with the new rule going into effect Sept. 1, 2003. \n-- Contact campus editor Gavin Lesnick at glesnick@indiana.edu.