Moorpark and Oxnard College are both non-smoking campuses, but Ventura College is lagging behind.

Every day, students can be seen smoking outside the Library & Learning Resource Center. However, under Ventura College’s current smoking policy, there shouldn’t be any smoking within 20 feet of a working door or the window of a building.

This lack of enforcement has motivated the Associated Students of Ventura College into action.

The Associated Students, with assistance from the Health Center, is working on developing a program named Smoking Task Force, a committee of faculty and students to come together and review the current smoking policy.

“We are working on it,” said Raymond Morua, Associated Students senator. “We hope to become more like Moorpark and Oxnard.”

Both Oxnard College and Moorpark College have banned smoking on their campuses and only allow smoking in parking lots and designated smoking areas.

Students at Ventura College have gone to Morua and the Associated Students to complain about the smoking, resulting in the group taking action.

Nobody follows the current policy, according to Morua, and the campus police, who are supposed to enforce it, are never around.

Some Ventura College students don’t like the smoking and believe that those students who want to smoke should be provided with a designated area.

“I think [smoking] should be a good distance from the door, in a designated area for them,” said Kathleen Shaneyfelt, 18, undecided.

Other Ventura College students aren’t pleased with the smoking around campus.

Veronica Huerta, an 18-year-old psychology major, is upset with what she sees.

“It bugs. It’s gross,” she said. “I don’t like when they pass by smoking and you catch the smoke in your face.”

The Associated Students knows of the problem and is working to find a solution that is fair to both smokers and non-smokers.

“We don’t want to alienate them, hopefully we can get them a section,” said Morua.