Students for tobacco reduction meet resistance

Patricia Street was rid of its tossed cigarette butts Sunday.

It would have been rid of the students picking them up, too, if some business owners had their way.

Two teachers and a group of about a dozen Grade 7-10 students wearing white paint suits and ventilation masks cleaned up discarded cigarettes and tried to educate people about tobacco laws on Patricia Street and Connaught Drive.

Using a rope, they also measured a five-metre radius around some business entrances and marked a chalk line on the sidewalk to demonstrate how far from doors people must stand while they smoke.

Kim Wallace, an Ecole Desrochers teacher who accompanied the students, said she’d like to see more RCMP enforcement of the provincial Tobacco Reduction Act because business owners are often reluctant to do so.

Instead, someone at the Athabasca Hotel called the RCMP to report the students after they drew a line outside their door.

Const. Erica Laird responded and suggested that the group should have informed the municipality before embarking on their task.

“As soon as we left, someone was outside cleaning the sidewalks,” Wallace said. “I think what the police should have been doing is going to the Atha-B and saying ‘You should be enforcing the law’.”

General manager Darcy Carroll refused to comment.

The kids are members of two BLAST (Building leadership and action in schools today) teams working on a tobacco reduction strategy. Some had the words “Butt Cleaners” scrawled in black ink across their backs, and they carried a scaled-down wooden coffin to drop the butts into.

“We’re trying to raise awareness about how bad it is for you,” said Andrea Thomas, a Grade 9 student at Jasper Jr./Sr. High School. She added that cigarettes kill 130 Canadians a day.

The paint coveralls were meant to represent hazardous material suits and the masks were to fend off odours.

“It’s disgusting, you can smell the cigarettes as you’re picking them up,” Wallace said. “The person carrying the coffin had to wear a mask the entire time.”

The BLAST teams were also promoting the new law that restricts business owners from displaying cigarettes for sale, which comes into effect July 1. And they’re planning to propose a bylaw prohibiting people from smoking in cars with children.?

“It’s a box full of toxins, and who would do that to their kids,” Wallace added.