Students showed up in force to last Wednesday’s Student Government Association meeting to protest an upcoming bill that will ban smoking on campus.
The 31 member group included both smokers and non-smokers.
About half of the students asked the senate to block the bill during the time allotted to student speeches.
The other half offered support in the form of applause from the back of the room.
The bill had not yet been submitted for review by the Senate, said Speaker of the Senate Reyes Ramirez.
UH student Michael McHugh argued that that wasn’t a reason for the students to leave the meeting without speaking.
“Students who go to this University reserve the right to address their grievances at a public forum,” McHugh said.
“Potentially their opinions and their voices can influence what happens in committee before the bill even makes it out.”
The students argued smoking was a right the school shouldn’t take away.
“I know it’s a lifestyle choice,” McHugh said. “And it’s a personal choice. I just don’t know why we need to ban smoking. It’s telling some of our students who pay tuition, ‘you can’t do this.’
“I think it’s better to enforce existing code; right now we have people that smoke in the UC, so that isn’t being enforced. If we can’t enforce it in the UC, how can we enforce it everywhere on campus?”
According to students, smoking provides a sense of community.
Students would end up smoking in the dorms rather than outside in designated areas, and students who are bothered by the smoke should seek out less serious solutions, according to speakers.
After they had finished speaking, most of the students left the meeting without waiting to hear the senators’ response.
“No matter how much I hate smoking, I respect your right to do it. What’s disappointing to me (is) 90 percent of you will leave thinking that you weren’t heard,” Senator Melanie Pang said later in the meeting.
“I just want you to know that we are trying our best to represent you, but just as much as you want your voice to be heard, we want our voices to be heard too.”
Engineering Senator Stuhr also encouraged students to stick around for the meetings.
“To the 30 people in the back of the room, thanks for coming and voicing your opinion, but stick around so we can talk back with you,” he said.
“There may be other things going on here that concern you.”
It may be too early to judge what the constituents think about the bill, though.
“I’ve got four weeks to figure that out,” Stuhr said.
“You can’t base your vote on the students that show up at a meeting, and you can’t base your vote on what you think personally.
“I vote based on what my constituents say; if I don’t have a constituent’s opinion, then I generally abstain from the vote,” he said.
The next SGA meeting will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the UC Cougar Den.
As a nonsmoker, the only thing I'd like to ask smokers is to at least not huddle near entrances and to at least attempt to discard cigarettes in an ash tray or snuff on ground and drop it in the trash.
If you want to smoke, feel free to do so. But nonsmokers who'd like to avoid inhaling secondhand smoke, would appreciate it if you weren't clustered around too close to entrances, because there's not usually a way around that most of the time. There's actually some UH rule referenced in another Daily Cougar article stating that you're not technically supposed to smoke within 200 ft of a building, which of course isn't really enforced and it's probably excessive. If only there were designated smoking zones around campus…
Tossing cigarette butts on the ground just seems like littering to me, and it's somewhat disrespectful to the school and other students. I don't litter, and not saying every smoker does, but it's enough to warrant this request. Otherwise I agree, a smoking ban is too excessive for people who are here much of the day, and it's silly to have to walk past Wheeler or Scott to take a smoke.
quikboy,
I entirely agree with your thoughts. As a smoker I consider it incredbly inconsiderate when people just huddle around the entrances. However, when there are no seats/coverings of other area's around the buildings it is hard to not huddle around there. Perhaps the smoking students could raise money to place chairs and tables around the area's where we are allowed to smoke?
I can see your point. Like I said, I think UH should be the one to create designated smoking zones, because it's a public health issue for nonsmokers, and it's something they shouldn't have to deal with. It shouldn't be too difficult to scope out potential spots, find some seating/benches around UH, and put some ash trays too. There's a solution that can work for both sides, if UH and opposition groups would try to find common ground.
Bingo!
This is a college campus, an institution of higher learning, we shouldn't be smoking here. If smokers were not such litterers, it wouldn't be quite so noticeable where they are smoking.
By this standard, this is an institution of higher learning, we shouldn't be drinking here.
I agree that the littering is bad and we should work towards fixing it.
I agree with Quikboy… I am a reformed smoker (I know, usually we are the worst!!), and as much as I hate the smell of smoke, everyone has their own life choices to make. But… PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL of those who do not smoke. There is nothing I hate worse than walking into work in the morning, and there are 10 smokers all huddled around the entrance to my building, which by the way, is under cover, so the smoke has nowhere to go. I have to walk through them to get to the door, as there is just no way around them. I would hate to see a complete ban on campus because frankly, nobody would enforce it anyways. There are signs posted in the hallway to my entrance that say no smoking, but they still stand right under the sign and smoke. Who is going to police this new rule? Can we just ask the smokers to obey the rules that are already in place? Anytime I try to ask the smokers to move further from the door, I get nasty looks, horrible comments, and just feel like I asked them for their first born. My parents both died from diseases they obtained from smoking… I just don't want to die that way! Thanks for your time!
Thomas Firey (Who contributes to the CATO institute) said this in his article a while back about smoking restrictions "Free societies allow people to make decisions that others don't like."
While I agree that we should place certain restrictions on smokers, for example perhaps having designated smoking area's or even enforcing the ban in the UC/near entrances, we have to be realistic. A straight outright ban wouldn't deter smokers, as there aren't enough UHDPS officers to enforce this possible measure. Also, I would personally prefer it if their focus was on their current job of keeping students safe than having them police littering laws/smoking bans.
The answer here isn't legislation, it's community common courtesy. Lets create an open atmosphere and politely ask smokers not to smoke around non-smokers. Let's start a campaign regarding the proper disposal of cigarette butts. If there's money, lets create a program to help smokers quit. We can all agree that it's bad.
The way I see it, this is simply a overreach on the personal rights of smokers. They (we) shouldn't smoke, but it is their right to do so. Let's keep this campus open when it comes to personal liberties.
Please come to the SGA meetings. You are awesome!
Why are non-smokers always soooo concerned about exposure to icky cigarette smoke, but could give a rat's ass about what their car exhaust is doing to the same air they breath? It drives me up a wall that these same people are so indifferent to air pollution if it involves changing their transportation habits. No cigarette smoke ever effected global warming. But smokers are easy targets. Global warming? Not so easy. I don't drive an car And I quit smoking. But I live in the U.S. — you know, that country that won't sign the Kyoto Protocal. Insane!
I am a smoker and I do not smoke while standing in front of an entrance and I always find a trash can or ash tray (which are located at the entrance to buildings) to dispose of my cigarettes. I pay tuition, buy books and pay to park at UH all to recieve a higher education. This is a college campus and adults attend the university. How can you enforce a ban on adults who pay the school to get an education. There are so many more issues that can be delt with other than people complaining about smokers. There is theft and sexual assults happening all the time! What is anyone doing to stop that other than telling women to walk in lighted areas? How about make our school a safe enviorment then worry about those who smoke a few cigarettes while they walk to class!
National Night out and Walk in the Dark? Did you hear about those events on Tuesday night?
Thank you SGA.
Parking sucks, tuition is sky-high (at last count, UH is more expensive per semester than A&M), professors are making boatloads of money on custom textbook deals (that students can't sell back), crime is still rampant across campus, it costs a student more in fees than in tuition to attend UH, illegal drug use and underage drinking happen almost daily, and admission standards still amount to little more than "can you sign your name on this check?"
Glad to know that cigarette smoke tops your to-do list over all these issues. Who cares about those issues anyway?
If the University of Houston were serious about fighting smoking on campus, then they would enact serious solutions to this big problem. Banning smoking completely is unfeasible and unenforceable, (not to mention expensive). A good starting point would be to quit accepting nearly $700,000 that the university currently receives from the tobacco lobby as these funds contribute to getting our young people hooked on cigarettes in the first place.
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