http://66.225.205.104/SO20100101.mp3
The new tobacco-free policy at Central Piedmont Community College goes into effect January 2 on all campuses. WFAE's Simone Orendain has more. All the buildings of Central Piedmont Community College in the Charlotte region have been smoke free for many years. But in the fall, the college's board of trustees approved a policy to make all of the campuses 100 percent tobacco-free. CPCC spokeswoman Jessica Graham says the banned list is pretty much all-inclusive. She says, "That would include cigarettes, cigars, pipes, dips, anything that contains tobacco or is considered a tobacco product." No smokeless tobacco, chewing tobacco or snuff, either. Graham says students, faculty or staff who are caught using these products on campus would first receive a warning. Then if they continue to use tobacco, she says discipline according to the college's code of conduct will be applied to students, while employees would have to answer to supervisors and visitors would be sent off campus. Last summer, CPCC President Tony Zeiss wanted to know whether the city of Charlotte would be able to designate a stretch of Elizabeth Avenue as a no-smoking area. Elizabeth Avenue runs through the middle of its main campus near uptown. According to e-mail communications between City Attorney Mac McCarley and Zeiss, the city does not have that authority.