Think twice where you light your next cigarette.

With temperatures continually dropping, smokers around Fanshawe College are huddling together to stay warm in frigid temperatures, making life a little harder on passerbies.

Following Spring Break, Campus Security will be patrolling the campus to ensure smokers are only puffing away in designated areas.

According to Ed Pimentel, Manager of Security Services at Fanshawe College, violators of the smoking policy will be made aware of the policies set forth by the college on where smoking is prohibited.

According to Section 3.2.3 in the college's Code of Conduct, “Campus Security Services is responsible for the management of minor violations, assistance with resolving immediate misconduct, investigation of all violations...and assistance with the enforcement of sanctions.”

Campus Security at Fanshawe has the right to formally make violators aware of the smoking policy on campus and will act accordingly if violators insist on not listening.

“We (Security) will if necessary...document the person's name for future reference, but we will only do this if for some reason we are having issues with the violator,” said Pimentel. “If we do have issues or if there are multiple incidents involving the same violator we have options.... if a student, our student code of conduct will apply and/or the incident can be deemed a violation under the Trespass to Property Act of Ontario and the person may be subject to arrest and a fine if the situation warrants. This of course would be the extreme but possible.”

Visitors to the college must comply with the same rules students follow and will face the same consequences if caught smoking outside of designated smoking areas, Pimentel said.

“For an employee, it would be a contravention of our policy and internal measures would be taken for correction...under the Trespass to Property Act,” Pimentel said.

Although every incident will be evaluated on its own merit, Pimentel said security has the right to enforce the smoking policy on campus.