ASG to give students places to smoke while on campus
For semesters, the Associated Student Government has been discussing the installations of designated smoking areas around the FCC campus. With every conversation on the topic, no action was ever taken.
This semester, ASG senator and next president, Daniel Melchor was assigned the duty of getting the policy approved and raise awareness for the forthcoming smoking areas next semester.
Melchor explained that bill has been approved and the signage for the designated areas for smoking were being made, waiting for summer break for the installation.
“Right now my current job is to basically do a campaign of awareness and let every student know that starting next semester, there’s gonna be designated smoking areas in place,” said Melchor.
Previous ASG senators that were assigned the task never delivered results despite student interest, with the last senator even departing ASG.
“[The policy has] been going on for years, students voted on it twice,” Melchor said regarding past attempts. “I just say a lack of leadership and interest to actually get this done.”
Out of a total of 19,702 voters in a 2010 – 2011 ASG election, 36 percent of students voted for designated smoking areas followed by a tie of 26 percent between no change to the policy and changing to a non-smoking campus.
In 2004, the majority of FCC students voted for a non-smoking campus 455 votes out of 1,223, second being designated smoking areas with 309 votes and third being no change with 295 votes.
There will be ten designated areas for smoking on FCC’s campus and the Career and Technology Center site.
The areas on FCC are the south side of the west lawn by OAB, university mall between student services and the library, the benches on the corners of Weldon and College, the patio area outside of Theatre Arts, west of the Health Science Building, southeast of the tennis court next to the metered parking, northwest and east side of Ratcliffe Stadium’s track.
At C&T Center, the two designated spot are left to the East Annadale parking lot entrance and outside of the student lounge.
DSAs are equipped with outdoor ashtrays, a trashcan and a sign marking the smoking area.
