Several students on campus feel as though the time has come to curb secondhand smoke inhalation, and they want their favorite bar owners to know about it.

In a campaign started by Penn State Students for Tobacco Awareness, which began Saturday night and continues through April 30, students will hand out postcards that other students can address to a specific bar owner downtown in regard to making their bars smoke free.

The project is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Office of Health Promotion and Education at University Health Services on campus.

The group unsuccessfully tried last fall to mount a campaign for a single night each week in which all State College bars would go smoke free. Linda LaSalle, a community health educator working with the students on the campaign, said the drive is about awareness among bar and tavern owners.

"We're trying to let students know that they have a voice," LaSalle said. "We met with a couple of bar owners and found that they aren't really aware that a lot of students want smoke-free bars, so this is to let students know that they can [by writing postcards]. We're then going to collect the cards and share them with downtown tavern owners."

LaSalle said she believes the owners' main concern about making a bar smoke free is a loss in business.

"Bar owners are worried that if they are smoke free, no one will come, but with this campaign, we want to let them know that people will still go," LaSalle said.

Hal McCullough, owner of Café 210 West, 210 W. College Ave., said he has seen unfavorable economic results in places that have banned smoking.

"My primary concern is that I've seen, in the states that do this, that a number of tavern-style restaurants and bars are the ones that take the biggest economic hit from the new laws," McCullough said.

Julie Kohley (junior-biology) is part of a core group of students implementing the campaign. She said the goal of the petition is not to alienate smokers.

"There are health concerns for both students and community members who go to bars," Kohley said. "These apply to both smokers and nonsmokers. Smokers not only harm themselves, but others as well. We're not attacking them with this campaign, but rather providing information to them."

McCullough said that by wanting to rid bars of smoking, smoke-free campaigns are infringing upon smokers' rights.

"I don't have a problem with having certain areas smoke free at all, but smokers have just as many rights as nonsmokers," McCullough said. "I understand where nonsmokers are coming from, but certain establishments have customers that really enjoy smoking."

McCullough said the fact is that certain arbitrary laws have already caused problems for smokers. "I think with the way that a lot of the laws are, and way that the government is coming down on a lot of these laws, that there should still be certain areas for [smokers] to be permitted to do what they enjoy doing," McCullough said.

Even so, LaSalle said that if many of their main customers wanted smoke-free bars, owners would be compelled to make changes. "I think that with a large quantity of students saying that they support smoke-free, [bar owners] would have to listen, because these are their customers, and they should listen to the student voice first," LaSalle said. "Ideally, we would like to have all the bar owners collectively and cooperatively agree to go smoke free for the community."