Butts sit across ‘tobacco free’ grounds

Ethan Fobare
Staff Writer

Some students are so opposed to the tobacco ban on campus that they will light their cigarettes in front of the “No Smoking” sign outside of the Marvin library.

In fall 2013, Hudson Valley became tobacco free, and since then has been promoting it all over campus. Every few feet, you will find a “Tobacco Free Campus” sign, and the phrase even flashes on the Hudson Valley entrance sign. The days of leaning against a building and taking a long drag are gone at Hudson Valley, but do students actually care that Hudson Valley is a tobacco free campus?

There are multiple areas across campus that students have deemed as their personal smoking areas. Around the library and away from the campus center, some students feel that they are not being monitored as closely and can sneak their daily cigarette. The auto tech building, located outside Cogan Hall, is one of many personal smoking spots.

With a cigarette butt can placed on top of a shelf of dead transmissions and scrapped parts, this becomes a typical area for students to catch their quick drag. Students can be seen on a smoke break there, but clouds can be seen rolling over the tops of cars in the parking lot as well.

Despite this area being frequent for smokers, finding a person using that smoking area is far less common than seeing smoke in the parking lot. Auto tech student Chad Bradt is a smoker that finds the parking lot as his designated drag spot.

“Wherever I can get [smoking] in, from the car or to the car,” he said. Bradt isn’t the only student that uses the parking lot to get a quick drag. Many students feel that the spot to smoke is simply wherever you light up.

“I’ll fucking burn one in the parking garage, I don’t care,” said general studies student Matt Fobare. Despite the tobacco ban, students seem to be in the mindset that any area is a smoking area if you’re smoking in it.

Although most people follow the ban enough not to smoke in the middle of campus, it isn’t uncommon to see people walk out the door, and immediately smoke a cigarette before their class.

Evidently the student body is not too keen on taking orders from a sign, but student smokers try to keep themselves out of sight to get their cigarette in.