Campus Anti-Smoking Policy Won't Be Enforced

Those caught in violation of the recently publicized campus' smoking policy will not be fined. Instead, they will be warned to obey the policy which stems from state law. "The state law itself basically prohibits smoking inside any district facility. Now we had this on the books since 2003, we just never enforced it," said Director of Public Relations Juan Gutierrez.

The campaign, headed by the Health and Services Department under the title, "No Buts, No Butts," lists the details of both the prohibited areas of smoking and the potential penalties if disregarded. One such clause states citations for violations will be issued as of January 2009. However, citation refers to a warning and not a ticket or fine.

According to Gutierrez, the most the campus could do under current bylaws is issue a warning to smokers in violation of the policy and pursue repeat offenders with a reprimand from the school, but not a fine.

"Since it's a district policy, I don't think anything really came up to fines. It's basically one of those warnings and if someone continues to refuse then its one of those things where you take the next step," said Gutierrez.

The reason why this issue is being restated is that now - as opposed to 2003 - the campus has the resources and manpower to apply the policy.

However, the problem keeping the hands of the PCCPD tied when trying to impose fines is that the state law outlines where smoking is to be barred, but it leaves the issue of implementation up to each municipality to create an ordinance that police could use in levying fees.

The city of Pasadena has passed an ordinance banning smoking from public venues such as restaurants or public gatherings, but as far as state-run facilities such as PCC, there is no such ruling.

"I was hoping that [Pasadena] would have a code, since, being in Pasadena, we could have fallen back on that," said Lt. Brad Young of campus police.

The campus cannot solve the issue itself either, according to Lt. Young:

"We're just a community college. We don't pass laws or create statutes, we enforce the preexisting penal code laws, vehicle code laws and other codes but they're pre-existing. We don't create those and we don't have the authority to make laws."

The result of these entanglements is that there is no real way to ensure that the policy is enforced by the campus and since its introduction six years ago, campus police has issued no citations.

"The difference between college policy and law is that I can't arrest you for college policy. You can get in trouble with your boss, but that's about it," said Lt. Young.

What spurred the "no-smoking" policy to rear its head once more was Health Services and the campus' reaction to both the Outdoor No-Smoking Law passed in October by Pasadena and endorsement from Associated Students.

The campaign was a reminder to staffers and students alike that the school was aware of the local laws and its standing policy on smoking.

"[Health and Service's] real goal was to educate and inform so that's what they tried to do is when this was enforced," said Gutierrez.

"I can see how people might think a citation is like a parking ticket but that's not the case," he said.