Letter to the Editor: Smoking ban

3/27/08

Dear Editor,
The smoking ban is wonderful. Living in Stonehenge is nicer now; before it was like walking thru a chimney, with everybody smoking in front of the door, just far enough away from the building so that it was allowed on campus, but close enough that everyone ends up having to walk thru it to get into the building. It is nice not having smoke blowing into students when they have someone smoking in front of them as they walk to class. Maybe walking to the parking lot in the freezing ice and snow will even encourage some people to quit smoking.

Occasionally the whole stairwell of the Whitelaw building smells like smoke. One has to wonder if people are smoking in the building. You can sometimes see people smoke while they walk but since the smoking ban it is not seen nearly as often. There is nothing wrong with people smoking; but who wants to breathe it if they don’t have to?

The crackdown on smoking as been great; students don’t have to smell smoke or breathe smoke if they don’t want to. If you don’t smoke why should you have to smell like it? Why should you have to breathe in secondhand smoke just walking around campus? What if you got lung cancer from having to walk thru smoke to get to get to your dorm?

The college should be thanked for creating this new rule and for enforcing it. Lyndon is a healthier environment for the smoking ban. People won’t feel like they should have to hold their breath to walk up to their building. The smoke free air is healthier and a lot nicer to breathe.

Katrina Ploof