In January of 2007, UF made it illegal to smoke within 50 feet of any campus building. It's a simple rule. It's easy to understand. Somehow, though, smokers keep forgetting to maintain a proper distance.
What are we going to do with these people?
We could give them the benefit of the doubt and say they only breach the 50-foot no-smoking bubble because they left their tape measures at home, but that seems a bit unlikely.
Maybe they thought it was sufficient to walk to a secluded area within 50 feet of the building and thought it was OK to light up because no one was around.
One UF assistant professor has conducted a study to assess how well smokers have been following the rule. Apparently, UF smokers are failing miserably compared to SFC smokers.
To solve the problem, a policy enforcement group is being assembled to lay down the no-smoking law.
The Editorial Board fails to see the point of this.
We aren't smokers, and we prefer not to have to inhale the smoke that just poured out of some random guy's nostrils, but we aren't necessarily concerned about the lack of compliance with this rule.
We remember when the policy was put in place last year, and we thought it was a good idea.
Unfortunately, we haven't noticed any difference since then, and that's fine with us. We don't see the need to get all riled up about a policy that, even though it hasn't been enforced, hasn't made UF any less pleasant.
