After deliberation, the Associated Student Senate acknowledged that forcing students into a cleaner campus would resort in backlash and confrontation—an issue nobody on campus wants to deal with.

The senate, which has been working to build a stronger relationship with the student body, has agreed to throw out the previous proposal of banning smoking at City College and will instead be focusing on a campaign for a cleaner campus.

“Making it a completely smoke-free campus is something that they have tried to do in the past but was unsuccessful,” said Amy Collins, student program advisor. “The campaign is to show students that the smoking areas are not as neat and tidy as we would like them to be.”

Plans to distribute pictures of unsanitary smoking areas to encourage students to pick up their trash are being strongly considered. This, they hope, will encourage the students to take care of the littering issue on their own without having to receive intervention from the senate.

While sitting in a smoking area, Mark Mansfield, a 46-year-old English major, pointed to the six surrounding ashtrays, which had cigarette butts littered around them.

“Every area is a trash pit,” said Mansfield. “People need to respect the [school] and not drift away from [it].”

Many students are beginning to take a look at the school through the same lens. Gordon Coburn, assistant professor of drug and alcohol counseling, agreed the littering on campus has become unacceptable, irresponsible and unsanitary.

“Smokers think they can flick their butts anywhere,” said Coburn. “They need to take responsibility.”

According to Coburn, faculty members have taken a similar stance. But, although smoking has contributed to filth piling up around campus, smokers deserve a designated area and a smoking ban would be a mistake. In addition, he emphasized that smoking areas where to close to walking paths and non-smokers.

Although the Student Senate has yet to make any definite plans at this time, students will surely be seeing a change in campus cleanups soon.

Lorenzo Lepori, Hannah Smith, and Joshua Thomas contributed to this story.