Smokers can no longer light up on the 120-acres of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in the city's Fruit Belt, but, they can step out into the street and puff away on the public property. However, WBFO & AM-970's Mike Desmond has learned that may not be for very long.
The new smoke-free rule kicked in on the 4th of July Holiday for the entire medical campus, banning tobacco use.
Campus officials say the rules will be enforced, with Wednesday as the first real test of when many return to work after the holiday.
There is the problem of public property, streets, sidewalks and even the strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk which might attract a desperate puffer, perhaps one of the 12,000 campus employees or the million-annual visitors.
Medical campus officials are also worried that smokers will simply walk across the street into the residential Fruit Belt and leave those butts behind on the ground or the street.
Planning Director Michael Ball tells WBFO & AM-970 News there are talks underway with City Hall.
"On ways that we can also expand the tobacco-free zone to include sidewalks and public streets as well, so that at the end of the day we will have an entire neighborhood here and the medical campus is a neighborhood that will not tolerate tobacco use,' said Ball.
Ellicott District Common Council member Darius Pridgen said says the campus is working with him to get smoking banned on city property, a joint effort.
"If we could legally limit smoking on the public right of way...creating a zone," said Pridgen.
Pridgen said he has been told by city lawyers that they can go through legal processes to expand the no-smoking ban and it's in the works. Lawyers told Pridgen there are ways to ban smoking on public property.
Pridgen said the medical campus is making clear it wants to keep smokers from drifting into the surrounding communities and leaving cigarette butts behind.
"Of course our neighbors will be concerned," noted Pridgen.
