I pretty much consider every gameday cigar I smoke to fall under “religious ceremonial purposes,” so I’m good. But you plain ol’ pagan puffers will have to extinguish your campus cigarettes or take them to in a “privately-owned vehicle” (with the windows up) come August 21. That’s when Auburn’s will become the 1,160th supposedly smoke-free campus in the country.
“Other SEC schools such as Florida and Arkansas have been smoke-free for a few years now and we are modeling some of our strategies from them,” says Eric Smith, Director of Health Promotion and Wellness Services for Auburn’s Division of Student Affairs.
But can the smoking ban actually be enforced, say, during the Iron Bowl? Wagging your finger at a freshman cloving it up in front of the library is one thing. Telling 90,000 football fans they can’t light up on the Jordan-Hare ramps at halftime or at their tailgate or inside their windows-down pickup truck would seem to be another matter entirely.
Smith says educating students and fans “will be a key to implementing this policy.”
“We will make people aware of the smoke-free environment through posters, signage and employ several of our on-campus communication tools such as Auburn Daily, Auburn Report and This Week @AU.”
Beyond that, it seems that smoke-free success will hinge on self-enforcement and hoping for the healthy best.
“Our strategy is the same regardless of game day or workday,” Smith says. “If you see an individual smoking on campus, please remind them about our new policy and ask for their compliance. The Auburn Family is known for making good choices and we ask everyone continue to do so by choosing to abide by this policy.”
The first time Auburn tried to curb campus smoking was in in 1963 when the administration said no to smoking in undergraduate classrooms. It took a little while for people to get the message.
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Well, we know how I stand in this thought. Cigars are a staple of my Gameday experiences.
What’s the logic for prohibiting the electronics cig things? The only groups I’ve seen make a push against them are the big tobacco companies.
Smokers at Jordan-Hare disgust me, fwiw.
How many cigarettes would equal the fumes spewed out by tour buses idling around outside JHS? Brain-dead feel good decisions at work.