Attention all smokers: Take two steps back, because the smoke-free perimeter has officially widened from 20 to 25 feet.
Administrators sent a campuswide e-mail Monday claiming the changes were made in response to comments from faculty, staff and students earlier this month supporting the perimeter’s extension.
Despite the changes, Revelle College junior and General Store Co-op employee Andrew Rubens said the changes will have no effect on cigarette sales The General Store is the only on-campus vendor that sells cigarettes.
‘Increasing [the perimeter] by five feet is equivalent to increasing it by a short person,’ he said. ‘If they’re going to ban smoking, just do it. Don’t increase it by five feet and waste paper.’
Rubens’ co-worker, Sixth College junior Lucas Rohm, said the new policy is ‘impossible to enforce.’
‘Are they going to have people walking around with tape measurers?’ Rohm said. ‘No one cares, no one obeys and concrete is not flammable.’
UCSD Facilities Design and Construction proposed the changes to the campus smoke-free policy in order to meet indoor air-quality requirements set by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED, a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998, provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction. According to its regulations, designated smoking areas should be located at least 25 feet away from building entries, outdoor air intakes and operable windows.
‘This change should not have any significant impact on students or staff,’ Dave Weil, assistant director of facilities management, building commissioning and sustainability, said in an e-mail.
Other UC campuses have a varied range of smoke-free perimeters. UC Merced has a perimeter of 30 feet, while UC Berkeley has a perimeter of 20 feet.
Weil said many campuses are moving toward a 25 foot minimum to meet the LEED requirement, adding that the UC Office of the President is also considering changing the no-smoking zone from 20 to 25 feet in its systemwide policy.