I’m a junior marketing student. I spend a lot of time in Barsema Hall. Every time I leave the building after class, there is a congregation of eight to 12 students standing just outside the entrance to Barsema smoking cigarettes.

If you want to ruin your health by smoking cigarettes, that’s fine, but don’t force me to breathe your smoke. It’s rude, I don’t want to breathe it and it stinks. What makes it more enraging is that this occurs directly between two signs indicating smoking near Barsema is only permitted out by the lake. On top of that, the university has an ashtray right in between the two signs. NIU, where is the enforcement?

Not only do you allow students to smoke in non-smoking areas, you allow students to smoke in an area where every person entering and leaving Barsema has to smell it. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t see Parking Services lurking in parking lots looking for cars violating NIU’s asinine parking requirements, so why isn’t someone also at Barsema ticketing those who blatantly disregard posted signs?

Looking past the common sense in enforcing these non-smoking areas, if the university is so strapped for cash, why isn’t it capitalizing on those who have no consideration for people who choose not to smoke?

Since NIU is out to catch people breaking every little rule, why isn’t anyone watching an area where the rule breaking negatively impacts everyone around?