Energized by a citywide smoking ban, Kansas University health advocates are hoping to find new ways to deter smoking on campus.

Plans include calling for an end to cigarette and other tobacco sales at the KU Memorial Unions.

“You have to walk your talk,” said Rachel Rumple-Comerford, assistant director of student housing and co-chair of the Wellness Committee. “If we want to promote a healthy and well environment for the students, faculty and staff that work here, you wouldn’t be able to walk down to somewhere on campus and purchase cigarettes.”

The recommendation was part of a report presented earlier this summer by the committee, one of 12 commissioned by Marlesa Roney, vice provost for student success, designed to set priorities for her office.

Also on the agenda for the next year are appointing a group to revise the university’s smoking policy around building entrances, and working with community organizations to advocate increasing taxes for tobacco products.

Currently, buildings are required to have at least one entrance with a 20-foot no-smoking buffer around it. But Melissa Smith, manager of health education at Watkins Health Center, said the policy often was ignored and wasn’t enforced. Even when building supervisors find violators, they can’t hand down punishments.

“We have found just walking around that even though the policy is there, there are sometimes smoking pots right next to the door and sometimes even attached to the building,” Smith said.

But the proposal to ban tobacco sales from the Kansas and Burge unions may be the most ambitious of the proposals. The change likely would take a vote of the Memorial Corporation Board.

“It’s partly the message we’re sending, and partly it’s limiting access,” Smith said. “If you have to borrow a car to go get cigarettes, maybe you won’t go to the effort.”

A Kansas University committee is recommending new limitations on campus smoking, working with the community to advocate for an increase in cigarette taxes and discontinuing cigarette and tobacco sales at the Kansas and Burge unions. Two freshmen smoke outside the Kansas Union during a break in their orientation session Monday.

But David Mucci, director of the unions, said he wasn’t convinced the change would decrease smoking. Mucci said the unions sold about $100,000 worth of cigarettes a year, and an approximate $25,000 profit on those sales went to the unions’ operation.

“I don’t believe those people will stop smoking because there’s no cigarettes,” he said. “That (money) is right to the bottom line. Those are dollars that are essentially shoved off campus.”

Mucci said he would prefer to leave cigarette sales in place while educating people about healthy lifestyles.

“We tend to treat students as adults who make their own decisions,” he said. “The question is what is our role. Is our role to be the determiner of all healthy development? I think our job is to provide an array of choices our customers want.”

The committee’s recommendations are being reviewed by Roney’s office, with a final report on priorities due by the start of the school year. Classes begin Aug. 19.

Though the campus recommendations aren’t tied to the July 1 ban on smoking in indoor public places in Lawrence, Rumple-Comerford said the timing was good for progress.

“There are obviously some big conversations that are happening in the Lawrence community about smoking, both direct smoking and secondhand smoke,” she said.

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