Nearly four months after ASU enacted its smoke-free campus policy, student smokers are gravitating toward areas without trash cans, causing concern about littering.
Criminology and criminal justice student Ericka Davis, the city of Phoenix liaison for USGD, first brought the issue to USGD in September. The original concern was that the designated smoking areas on the map were unclear, Davis said. It appeared to students that they were allowed to smoke in the lot between Taylor Place and the Valley Youth Theatre because it is not considered ASU property. At this point in time, students were putting their cigarettes out on the ground because there wasn’t a place to put out cigarettes.
ASU police aides began asking student who chose to stand on the sidewalk behind Taylor Place to put out their cigarettes or relocate because, technically speaking, the sidewalk is ASU’s and the empty lot belongs to Phoenix, police officials said.
“What is the difference between standing over here,” Davis said while gesturing to the sidewalk, “and standing on the dirt?”
Some students began to comply, but the littering issue was still in the air.
“People would leave their butts here and it would rain and they would all rise up here and be on the sidewalk,” Davis said. “That’s disgusting. It’s disgusting to a non-smoker and a smoker.”
There have been no citations for littering since the no-smoking policy went into effect, ASU Police Commander Christopher Speranza said. This was not because the no-smoke policy is peer-enforced, as an ASU officer can issue a citation to any citizen.
USGD Vice President of Services Marcus Dudas was concerned for students’ financial situations should they be fined for littering and decided that it would be good to invest in something that would allow students to put their cigarette butts out responsibly.
“We saw a need for something to be done, but word got around and we ended up not having to do anything,” Dudas said. “Somebody put those odd-looking vases out there.”
Those “odd-looking vases” are called Smokers’ Oases and they were originally placed next to the sidewalk by Taylor Place, which reduced the litter at first. But they are now having less of an effect because they were moved to the center of the empty lot and, according to Davis, students are not fond of smoking in the middle of the lot.
It is unclear whether ASU or the city of Phoenix put them in the center of the empty lot.
“They’ve already exiled us enough. They are trying to push us even farther away, so now (standing on the sidewalk) is more of a rebellious thing,” Davis said. “They are treating adults that want to smoke like 5-year-olds.”
Nonprofit leadership and management junior Alex Milliken said students would be happier if ASU gave smokers a designated area.
“I don’t smoke on campus because I totally understand that people don’t want my chimney blowing in their faces, but we’re part of the student body too,” Milliken said.
Students would be more willing to smoke near the cigarette urns if benches and plants surrounded them, Milliken said. People don’t want to sit on a concrete slab in the middle of an empty lot, which is where the oases are.
However, journalism sophomore Johana Soto, a non-smoker, said it’s students who smoke who should make the effort.
“Those outdoor ashtray things are right there. I get that people that smoke want to sit comfortably, but really, if those things are there and they aren’t using them, they are just being lazy and maybe they should be fined,” Soto said. “They clearly aren’t worried about getting in trouble for littering if they aren’t using what has been given to them.”
Contact the reporter at ttcole1@asu.edu
