Edmonton Sun
(Alberta)
Friday, December 10, 1999
Principal's smoking drive snuffed out
By CP BADEN, Ont.
A rural school in the Kitchener-Waterloo area won't be exempted from the province's tobacco law to allow smoking on its property - despite the principal's efforts.
An exemption for Waterloo-Oxford District secondary school would violate the intention of the Tobacco Control Act, which is to help people stop smoking and discourage them from starting, Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer said yesterday.
When school "smoke pits" were banned under the act in 1994, students adapted by clustering on sidewalks in front to light up.
But Waterloo-Oxford, the region's only rural high school, is surrounded by farmland and borders on a highway. It does not have a sidewalk in front.
Students there have no place to puff except on the side of the busy road, where they risk being hit by a car, says principal Brian Rainville, who said he requested the exemption for safety reasons.
Rainville said he was not surprised by Witmer's response.
Witmer suggested that the high school work with the local health department to come up with a creative solution.
In some jurisdictions, schools are leasing a small amount of land to the municipality so that area becomes public property.