The Faculty Senate voted not to endorse the tobacco-free DU initiative on Friday.

The Senate did vote, however, to endorse better enforcement of the current smoking restriction, which bans smoking within 25 feet of university building entrances.

“We applaud the efforts of the students who have worked on this proposal. We understand that this has involved a great deal of work and that it has been undertaken to improve the health of the entire community, but we can’t support the full proposal,” said Faculty Senate President Michael Levine-Clark.

Levine-Clark said the Senate may be in favor of efforts to encourage DU community members to quit smoking.

A concern that arose at the meeting was that the current tobacco policy is not regularly enforced, so the new policy is likely to be unenforceable as well.

Another worry was that a tobacco-free campus would send smokers into the surrounding neighborhoods. The Senate proposed the idea of having smoking zones on campus instead of prohibiting tobacco throughout the entire campus.

The Faculty Senate vote comes at a time when the supporters of the initiative are out in full force campaigning for the issue.

A 10-member student task force is asking students, staff and faculty to sign a petition saying they support a tobacco-free DU. The task force is also working to garner support from student organizations on campus.

The task force, headed by juniors Joel Portman and Dan Morgan, hopes to get 2,500 names on the petition. At this point they will approach the AUSA Senate with the proposal in hopes of gaining the Senate’s backing. There were 1,527 names on the petition as of Friday afternoon.

Initiative supporters want to be able to show significant student support for the measure before their meeting with Chancellor Coombe on March 16. The task force does not need Faculty Senate or AUSA endorsement, but it would like to have the backing of these two organizations to show the Chancellor that there is support from student and faculty leaders.

Portman and Morgan think the majority of students favor the policy but are not outspoken in their support.

“Our thought is most students support this, but they aren’t as vocal about it as the ones who oppose it,” said Portman. “It is the vocal minority against the silent majority.”

The proposition was rejected when it went up before the Senate last quarter.

Some AUSA senators agree that the initiative would be good for student’s health but have concerns about how the policy will be enforced.

“Fundamentally, I do support a tobacco-free campus,” said Senate vice president Antoine Perretta, though he has questions about the actions that will be taken to enforce the policy.

Sophomore performing arts senator Dillon Doyle thinks the policy would bring with it positive health benefits, but shares some of Perretta’s concerns about enforcement of the policy.

“How do you enforce a smoking ban? Currently we don’t enforce the smoking policy already in place,” he said.

If the initiative does pass, Perretta believes adapting to the policy would take time but would be possible. “It would be a slow process, but eventually people would get used to it,” he said.