Secret on-campus smoke breaks not so secret
Students continue to find ways to skirt Langara's smoking guidelines
By SAGE SMITH and KORALEE NICKARZ
Seven years after the Smoke Free Campus policy was implemented at Langara College, students are criticizing it as ineffective and poorly applied.
Josh Frohberg, a Langara sociology student, said he respects the policy and always goes to the sidewalk, off campus grounds, to smoke. Frohberg said Langara should put ashtrays at these popular smoking spots so smokers don’t leave butts on the ground.
“It’s one thing to not support it on campus, but it’s another thing to basically make sure your campus looks dirty,” he said. “I think it’s atrocious.”
Cigarette butts are frequently seen on the sidewalks surrounding the campus, which is the closest place that people can smoke as they are not permitted to do so on school property. On Wednesday, for instance, Voice reporters spotted approximately 20 discarded butts in the area around the Pride Stairs and found multiple places on campus property littered with butts.
Frohberg said he regularly sees people smoking on campus and even recently saw someone smoking marijuana and drinking beer on campus. “I was pretty shocked,” he said.
Langara College introduced the Smoke Free Campus policy in 2017 after surveying students and employees, finding that 74 per cent of respondents strongly supported moving to a smoke-free campus.
The college joined Douglas College and Kwantlen Polytechnic University as one of five smoke-free campuses in B.C. while the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University limit smoking in most areas but provide designated smoking areas.
Stealthy smoking
Ami, who did not provide her surname, sat smoking on campus near the Pride Stairs leading to 49th avenue. The kinesiology student said the college should provide a comfortable area for smokers to use with benches and ashtrays.
She said she currently hides her cigarette butts in a corner in order to make it less obvious but would prefer to use an ashtray.
Ami said that there should be smoking areas on campus, adding it’s difficult to follow the policy when students get short breaks between classes, which allows no time to get off campus. Ami said that offering a smoking room inside could be the solution for those who need to smoke.
She said she has smelled vape smoke in the bathroom before and noted that her boyfriend, also a Langara student, uses the bathrooms to get a quick vape in between classes.
While she supports limits around smoking on campus, she said the college should do more to accommodate smokers. “They should also provide some room for people like us,” Ami said, “because we know that it’s not good, we’re trying to quit, but we just feel the need.”
The college has not responded to requests for comment from the Voice despite ongoing communication since September.