Though Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities enacted a campus-wide smoking ban two weeks ago, Penn State officials said a similar ban is out of the question at University Park.
"The University Park campus is 16,000 acres and it would be impossible to try to enforce a total ban," university spokeswoman Jill Shockey said earlier this week. "At this point, there are no changes in the foreseeable future."
The state-owned universities have enacted the ban in response to the Clean Indoor Air Act, signed into law by Gov. Ed Rendell in June. The act, which prohibits smoking in most public places in the state, went into effect Sept. 11.
Among those public places are facilities which provide education, according to the act. Presidents from the 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) have interpreted such facilities to include their entire campuses, PASSHE spokesman Kenn Marshall said.
"The conclusion reached was that the language in the act did, in fact, call for a smoking ban on our campuses -- indoors and out," Marshall said.
Though the act does not make any provisions for an outdoor smoking ban, it does include a clause stating the owner of a public or private property may personally ban smoking on the property.
Penn State, a state-related university, interprets the law to apply only to indoor spaces, Shockey said.
"We have been in compliance with that for years," she said, adding The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has been smoke-free since 2007 and smoking is banned in the university's hotels.
Smoking is also prohibited in university vehicles and "any outside space adjacent to a facility whose configuration ... [would] allow smoke to enter," Shockey said.
Joe Schwork, the leader of Project SmokeLess, an anti-smoking group that works to make Penn State a smoke-free university, said the state-owned universities' decision will result in healthier, cleaner campuses.
"There may be some resistance now, but four years down the line, it may be a good situation," Schwork said.
Marshall said the smoking ban has met mixed reactions at the state-owned universities. While one group of students at Clarion University passed around a petition in support of the ban, students have launched protests at Kutztown University, Clarion University, Shippensburg University and California University of Pennsylvania, he said.
The state Department of Health is required to enforce the ban, Marshall said, adding enforcement at state-owned schools has mainly been "more of an educational thing."
"The act does spell out the penalties; there are fines that can be levied," he said. "The Department of Health is responsible for enforcing the act. I'm not sure how we would work with them. It's still a very new law."
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