Freezing their butts off

It was a brisk, cold Friday night; the kind of night that you want to party but you figure because it is so cold, the fifth of Absolute is looking like a warm jacket.

As I was walking back from my car, I saw a group of smokers huddled together, perhaps hoping that the flame from the lighter would keep them toasty.

I saddled over to the group and decided to brave the cold and experience firsthand the effects of Fairfield University’s imposed smoking ban in the dorms.

I began talking to a student who wished to be called Virginia Slims. According to Slims, the smoking ban is a good thing.

“I don’t even like the smell of smoke in my room,” Slims said. But does she have a problem with it now that it is winter?

“Now I feel as if I’m getting punished. I’m supposed to get pneumonia because I choose to smoke?” asked Slims. “In the winter, I would smoke out the window and then air the room out by opening the windows but putting the heat on full blast. It worked fine and it didn’t smell at all.”

James Barber, ’04, agrees. “I think it’s pretty lame. It’s unfair that the apartments and the townhouse residents can smoke. What about the juniors who got stuck in the dorms?”

Put into effect for the 2002-2003 academic calendar year, the Fairfield University smoking policy prohibits smoking in all sections of academic and administrative buildings. All eight dorms are also smoke-free.

Last spring, the office of the Dean of Students, Mark Reed, asked FUSA Senate, IRHG, the University Council comprised of equal amounts of students, faculty and administrators, and the Health Center to give their opinions on the smoking ban.

According to a previous Mirror article, Reed said that there was an overall consensus that the smoking ban was a good idea from a safety and wellness perspective.

Katie Holahan ’05, a non-smoker, feels that the ban is useless. “The dorms are our place of residence. I don’t like smoking, but if your roommate doesn’t have a problem with it, we pay enough to go here, so who cares? Besides, how much better is it that when you’re walking into the dorms, there are smokers out there blowing smoke into your face?”