Russell: Is Tech becoming a tobacco-free campus?
Terrell Key, director of Custodial Services: “We were in a Building and Grounds Committee Meeting last month I guess it was, and we have a lot of problems with cigarette butts in certain areas and around certain doors. The policy now is 25 feet from the building – that’s where you need to be to smoke. Well, that’s not, people are smoking around the building in certain areas and we were just discussing the policy and thing we might do to help and all this kind of stuff. Someone brought up the idea of a smoke-free campus. So, Douglas Airhart, our chairman, has looked into it, and it looks like Austin Peay and another university have a smoke-free policy, and we were just looking, we recommended a smoke-free campus in the committee. But that brings up the thing of really looking into it and seeing what we’re really talking about, and that’s about where we are right now – looking into these schools and their policies. We do not have another meeting this year so it’ll be next fall before we ever talk about it again. It would probably be sent back to our committee to discuss further and bring up some more detailed policy, but I would think it would be next fall before we could get into all that.”
Russell: Any other ideas than a completely smoke-free campus?
Key: “Years ago, we move people out of their offices, no smoking in the buildings. That caused congregations around the porches and the side doors, and so, we looked at that. Finally, we came up with the 25 feet away from the building, but you know, none of it really solves anything actually. And we just do know those schools are smoke-free campuses. Now, I was reading on the policy of one of those universities, and a person can go to their own automobile in the parking lot and smoke. And I know that people do that now. It’ll end up that we’ll bat this thing around a little bit more and critique it and all that stuff at our next Building and Grounds Committee meeting.
