Do you cringe as you scurry past a haze of stoge smoke? Are you disgusted by piles of cigarette butts but think they’re not your business? Maybe you savor a whiff now and then or, perhaps, you need your daily fix. The spectrum of perspectives on tobacco use is broad, but if you’re living in Ithaca, smoking is working its way to becoming a thing of the past. Or, at least, that’s what the program Tobacco-Free Tompkins is looking to make it.
Funded by the New York State Tobacco Control Program, T-Free Tompkins is a campaign with many facets. The program asks businesses to voluntarily post stickers to identify an outdoor space such as a seating area or an entryway as a ‘T-Free Zone’ or a smoke-free zone. It also asks if businesses would display only publications with no tobacco ads, provide information on tobacco cessation, reduce tobacco signage, decline funding by tobacco companies or any combination of these and other options.
“The Tobacco-Free Zone is an all-encompassing program that really includes all these different ways to fight smoking,” said Ted Schiele, coordinator of T-Free Tompkins. “It mostly tries to get the community and business employers to recognize the importance of fighting tobacco addiction.”
At this point, there are no legal consequences to smoking in a T-Free Zone, according to Schiele. Instead, the program relies mainly on the public to self-monitor.
“I think it’s a good program because it’s flexible, and meant to raise visual awareness,” said Susanna Baldwin ’08, who worked with T-Free Tompkins this past summer. “It’s not enforced and it’s not something people will naturally combat. It’s a community effort for public health.”
Despite Cornell’s own university smoking policy, which restricts smoking indoors and within 25 feet of academic buildings, the Department of Natural Resources in Fernow Hall is registered as one of these T-Free Zones.
“The T-Free Zone is not any different from university policy, but I thought it was important that people know that the community of Natural Resources is choosing to be a T-Free Zone and that we support T-Free Zones,” said Barbara Knuth, senior associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and former department chair of Natural Resources.
About 50 or so organizations and worksites have formally registered in Tompkins County as T-Free Zones, but many others display “T-Free Zone” stickers, according to Schiele. In Collegetown, Jason’s Grocery and Deli, Collegetown Pizza and Dino’s, a restaurant and bar, have signed pledges to be tobacco-free.
“The businesses in Collegetown were really responsive, very positive,” Baldwin said.
Other than Fernow Hall, no other buildings at Cornell are T-Free Zones, but university policy applies.
“Our university policy sets forth restrictions similar to what the T-Free Zones hope to accomplish in all of Ithaca and Tompkins County … ‘clear, smoke-free entranceways’ … so that when you come out of a building you don’t walk into smoke,” said Janis Talbot, a health educator at Gannett Health Services.
Currently, all Tompkins County offices are T-Free Zones. According to Schiele, City of Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson has directed that there be T-Free Zones at the entryways of all city buildings as well. A proposal is still in the works to make parks, playgrounds and other outdoor areas in Ithaca smoke-free, Schiele mentioned.
“Ted Schiele came to me and approached the city about developing tobacco-free zones. The committee was very interested in moving forward with this and in fact we’re looking to develop local legislation to restrict smoking completely,” said Robin Korherr, City of Ithaca Alderperson on the Environment and Neighborhood Quality Committee.
According to Korherr, the committee is currently exploring the legalities of such a local law. It would make smoking illegal.
All these measures may sound a bit harsh, but the consequences of tobacco use are harsh, too.
“Cigarettes kill half the people who use them and costs people a lot of money. A lot of these people with Medicaid, which is state taxpayer funded, who smoke are on their deathbed … and people who smoke are in the hospital a lot more, at the doctor’s office a lot more, at work a lot less … Everyone pays for chronic disease in some way,” Schiele said.
He emphasized that cigarette smoke is a major cause of chronic disease and certainly the most preventable.
“Smoking has been portrayed as a cultural norm for so many years. People still believe it’s none of their business if people smoke or not, and the reality is, it is their business. It’s a public health problem, just like someone getting on a plane with an incurable form of tuberculosis. It doesn’t have the same fiery end as a drunk driver, but it does over a period of time kill people,” Schiele said.