The Residence Hall Association is preparing to pass a verdict on the fate of the cigarette machines located in the NIU residence hall lobbies.

The ongoing decision of whether to keep the machines in the lobbies is filtering through the individual hall councils, RHA President Greg Post said. Each hall council will give its input to the RHA, who will make the final decision.

“There has been no real feedback as of yet,” Post said. “But a decision should be made within a week or two.”

The issue first sparked when the DeKalb City Council passed an ordinance last January restricting the placement of cigarette machines to alcohol-soliciting establishments, offices, factories and other places not open to the general public.

NIU’s residence halls were asked to voluntarily comply with the ordinance, said Donald Buckner, associate vice president of Student Affairs.

When the situation was brought to the attention of NIU’s administration, it was handed down to the RHA in order to make a decision on whether to comply with the ordinance, Buckner said.

“NIU, because we’re state property, is not necessarily subject to city ordinances,” Post said.

“Students in the residence halls are almost all over 18, which makes this a different situation,” Buckner said.

University Legal Counsel George Shur agreed that the students play a big part in the debate.

“The question is whether or not this is what we want to have at Northern as a matter of policy,” he said. “The referral is with the people most affected—the students.”

After the students and the RHA have made their final decision, NIU will review its legal ramifications, Shur said. If the students decide that they do not want the machines, “then the point is moot,” he said.

Judd Baker, director of the Holmes Student Center, said the cigarette machines gross around $56,000 a year and NIU receives an 18 percent commission, or $10,080.

Post said if the cigarette machines are removed, they might be replaced with other machines which will better serve the students and bring in more revenue.

Student opinion on what the fate of the machines should be is mixed.

“I don’t care,” said Pei-hsuan Liang, a graduate student in the College of Education and a non-smoking Neptune resident. “The machines can stay here so somebody can buy cigarettes. I just don’t want anyone smoking them beside me.”

But Iskandar Maulud, another non-smoking Neptune resident, disagreed. “I’d like to see them go because, hopefully, people will have to go somewhere else to get them, and maybe they’ll smoke them there,” he said.

Shana Kurash, president of Gilbert Hall Council and a “soon to be non-smoker,” said “for the matter of convenience, I don’t think smoking residents will appreciate walking half a mile to a store in 40 below zero weather.”

However, John Northrop, a resident and floor representative for Douglas Hall Council, viewed the situation from a different perspective, noting the safety record for students walking through campus late at night.

“I think there’s a security issue that’s being overlooked right now. Namely, that people who want cigarettes during the late hours are going to head out and get them if the machines aren’t here,” he said.