Good times could come from smoking ban

Simplertext By Joshua D. Scroggin

No more.

I’ve had it with these renegade smokers. It’s time the university came up with a solution on how to deal with the insurgent rebels violating the smoking ban.

OK, they’re not violating yet, it begins Oct. 1, but they’re sure to assemble and violate it sometime, right?

And when they do? There will be plenty of campus cops to slap the cuffs on and haul them in for questioning.

Well, that’s not quite true either.

According to early reports on how the university will deal with the violators, smoking in unmarked areas will lead to “administrative discipline.”

Administrative discipline? It sounds more like a fictional brainwashing technique used by Soviet Russia.

Actually, I have no idea what administrative discipline means, and neither do you, but it better be bad. I have no sympathy for anyone brash and brazen enough to blatantly disregard the university’s health policy.

If the university still hasn’t come up with a way to deal with the smokers who can’t keep it limited to the 17 designated smoking areas – there’s one near almost every building on campus (two near the music building) – they should look no further than the rest of this column.

Smoking is kind of offensive, but smokers aren’t criminals. They’re not smoking the hippie lettuce.

So why doesn’t the university solve two problems at once and use our campus smokers’ unfortunate addiction to its advantage?

Start a smoking lounge.

It can be well publicized, and everyone would know where it would be. There wouldn’t be any searching for one of those little ashtray/trashcans with a cigarette logo on the side.

I’ve only seen one, and I’ve been on campus since Aug. 15. And that one was behind a portable office by the Conley Art building. I dare you to try and find it.

But see, this smoking lounge idea, it’s a goldmine.

It could be set up like a groovy club – complete with a velvet rope, a bouncer and a $10 cover.

Pretty soon, it’ll be the place to be. Everyone will want to go there, even if they don’t smoke.

By the time anyone is able to figure out what’s going on, the lounge would be raking in the dough, the budget deficit should be paid for, fees would be lowered and world peace would be achieved.

I know it sounds only slightly better than one of those poorly-rehearsed Miss America pageant “what would you do with a million dollars?” answers, but implemented with care and precision? Money-money, money-mon-ey, MUH-NEY. You know the song.

No matter how the university decides to discipline smokers, smoking lounge or no smoking lounge, it needs to do so with some guts. The decision to discourage smoking on campus doesn’t need to be an empty threat.

Either lock them up, or let them smoke.

-This columnist can be reached at [email protected]