Smoking Ban on Westchester Community College - Is It Effective?

Westchester Community College, NY, has recently become a smoke free campus in January, 2012. However, is the smoking ban really effective?

Westchester Community College, founded in 1946, currently holds over twenty-seven thousand students as of 2011. Since January, 2012, students have been banned from smoking on campus. This policy covered all ground, including the parking lots and extension centers. There is no designated spot for smokers on campus, except rolling up the windows in their car and smoking in there.

Once this ban came into effective, there has been no statistics on whether or not there has been a decline on smoking since the ban took place, so this is where students and faculty came into play. Zayna Marjieh, WCC student, who usually has class near the technology building, says she constantly smells smoke and finds it gross to encounter smoking on campus because she herself is not a smoker. She went on to say that there is less smokers on campus because of the ban, but usually comes across students hiding behind buildings.

Students do not have a right to smoke on campus, as there is no “right” to use tobacco under either state or federal law. Nonsmokers on campus are also protected by the federal law, stating "the right of nonsmokers to be free from exposure to secondhand smoke is protected by both legislation and judicial rulings." This ban is enforced by compliance, which means WCC hopes all smoking on campus should be stopped by the smokers themselves, without the need of being told to. However, faculty and security may take action of this compliance is abused.

This is where Lynette Boone came in, WCC Security Supervisor, who wished to not be on camera, went on to say a fair warning is given. After a fair warning, if she catches the smoker again, their identification will be taken and given to by the Dean which then the student could get suspended from class. She went on to say that no student has ever been suspended, nor has ever had to take a student to the Dean.

Could this be because students are actually complying, or are fair warnings all students are getting? Based on what was found near every double door, which was hundreds of used cigarette butts was questionable doubt that forceful action is actually being used.

To find out more about WCC’s ban on smoking on campus, click here and here for more information.