Freshman Council Votes To Prohibit All Smoking In One Part of Union

The Freshman Council voted last night to prohibit smoking in the small back dining room of the Freshman Union but will not enforce the prohibition until a special committee of the Council considers the issue further.

Debra L. Cohn '81 submitted the resolution saying the eighty per cent of the freshman class that does not smoke should not have to inhale the irritating and unhealthy smoke of the minority of smokers.

The smoking problem is not a major one, but it is serious enough to warrant action, and this resolution will provide people who are bothered by smoke with a place to go, Ruth M. Milkman '81 said.

"The proposal that was passed is so tenuous," Geoff Nicholson '81, moderator of the Freshman Council, said yesterday, adding that the committee to which the resolution has been sent will probably recommend a better proposal.

"There were too many opinions at the meeting and too little time to discuss them," Mark Zupan '81, a member of the committee evaluating the resolution, said. "The committee will definitely come up with a better alternative--something that will inconvenience the least number of people."

"Smoking should be restricted to where air flow is the least," so the smoke doesn't circulate throughout the Union, Lee C. Rubin '81 said. The present resolution subjects a greater number of non-smokers to smoke, she added.

If smokers are restricted to certain areas, non-smokers would be forced to eat in that area when the other dining rooms overflowed, exposing these unfortunate non-smokers to even heavier concentrations of smoke, Milkman said.