Employed students will patrol areas where the Tobacco-Free Environment policy is frequently violated, starting this spring, according to the Office of Health Promotion. | Left: Thomas Han/Photo Editor; Right: Hagar Elsayed/Photo Editor
Smokers beware: this semester, the University will beef up its enforcement of the Tobacco-Free Environment Policy, which bans the sale or use of tobacco products on University property, according to the Office of Health Promotion.
Four student monitors, employed by Campus Life, will patrol areas reportedly popular among smokers, according to Director of the Office of Health Promotion Heather Zesiger.
The student monitors, who could not be reached by press time, will walk in pairs through an area between the Robert W. Woodruff Library and Henry L. Bowden Hall, near Dooley’s Den and outside of Starbucks on Oxford Road.
“The students are encouraged to work as many hours as they can during the times when there are more violations, to stop people before they start,” Zesiger said.
She added that the student monitors would warn a potential policy violator as he or she pulls a cigarette or a lighter from a purse or pocket, a better response than expensive cameras with face-recognition technology that would only serve a punitive purpose.
Still, Zesiger said, “if they’re belligerent, [the students] are going to ask for I.D.s, and there will be disciplinary action.”
Zesiger selected the three areas based on anonymous reports submitted through the Tobacco-Free Emory site’s enforcement page. She has been keeping track of the reports since October, after Human Resources employee John Kosky left Emory last summer, and said she has received seven to 10 reports per week since.
The perpetrators, according to Zesiger, are not entirely students.
“There are people in uniform, visitors, parents,” she said. “A lot of people simply don’t know that there’s a tobacco-free policy here.”
Along with student monitors, Campus Services will place signs in areas frequently cited in the anonymous reports.
Though, Zesiger acknowledged, there are often tobacco butts found littered on and around the signs already in place.
“It isn’t to surprise or sneak up on anybody – we’re not looking to be the bad guys at all,” Zesiger said. “It’s just a friendly reminder.”
College senior and smoker Druva Kota said increased enforcement isn’t the answer to creating a smoke-free environment.
“I honestly don’t think they can stop people from smoking,” Kota said. “At the end of the day, if people want to smoke, they will – it’s nicotine, it’s an addictive drug.”
Kota suggested the creation of a designated smoking area, not unlike those of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, for people to enjoy a cigarette or two without the risk of harming others nearby.
“I understand if they want to have a smoke-free environment,” Kota said. “But it’s not the University’s place to try to take that away from them.”
The University implemented Policy 4.113, titled Tobacco-Free Environment, on Jan. 1, 2012 “in order to create an atmosphere that is consistent with Emory’s mission and commitment to improve the health and wellness of members of the Emory community, Emory University and Emory Healthcare.”
The policy prohibits the use or selling of “cigarettes, cigars, pipes, all forms of smokeless tobacco, clove cigarettes and any other smoking devices that use tobacco such as hookahs, or simulate the use of tobacco such as electronic cigarettes.”
The Office of Student Conduct and the Human Resources department handle Tobacco-Free Emory policy violations.
– By Lydia O’Neal, Asst. News Editor
A College senior studying economics and French, Lydia O’Neal has written for The Morning Call, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Consumer Reports Magazine and USA Today College. She began writing for the News section during her freshman year and began illustrating for the Wheel in the spring of her junior year. Lydia is studying in Paris for the fall 2015 semester.
