USG resolution to recommend more designated smoking areas, enforcement


By
 in ,

Undergraduate Student Government formally joined the debate over establishing a smoke-free campus Tuesday with the introduction of a senate resolution that recommends adding more designated smoking areas in addition to clearly marking them and enforcing them.

The resolution, which was authored by Greek Senator Andres Guarnizo and Residential Senator Marissa Roy, will be voted on at the USG senate meeting next Tuesday, USG Vice-President Logan Lachman said. It requires a majority vote for passage.

USG senate resolutions communicate the student body’s interests to the administration.

“The majority [of students], in the end, did not want a complete ban,” Roy said during a portion of the Senate meeting devoted to questions about the resolution.

Nearly 65 percent of 1,485 respondents to a USG online poll supported limiting smoking on campus, according to the resolution. In addition, about 40 percent of the respondents favored a change in the university’s smoking policy that includes designated smoking areas.

The proposed resolution also includes a clause noting that “[USG] wants to recognize the rights of all students, both smokers and non-smokers.”

In 2010, the USC Academic Senate and the USC Staff Assembly, the respective representative bodies of faculty and staff, passed resolutions in support of creating a smoke-free campus.

“We want there to be a rule,” Roy said. “We don’t want to go all the way to banning it.”

The resolution can be amended up until the vote next week, Lachman said.