More than 60 smoking areas have already been removed from UNM’s campus — or, at least, 60 stenciled signs for a “UNM Designated Smoking Area.”

Pug Burge, head of UNM’s Smoke-Free Environment Committee, said the red spray-painted signs appeared around campus after the Aug. 1 implementation of the tobacco-free policy.

Burge said the signs are not committee-approved, and UNM Physical Plant employees are removing them.

Burge said she doesn’t know who’s behind the stenciled signs.

“It’s really disappointing, though, that people don’t have a little bit more pride in their campus,” she said.

Win Hansen, co-chair of the UNM chapter of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, said the social satire of the stencils serves a purpose.

“As far as the person spray-painting ‘UNM Designated Areas,’ I approve of that,” he said. “That’s what art should be. Art should be cultural commentary and societal commentary. Yes, I understand it’s graffiti, but a lot of art is considered bad when it’s made. It still has a reason for being made.”

Hansen said the administration should address problems with the smoking policy if they want to stop the graffiti.

“I think that if they really want to address the person who’s making it, they should address the underlying issue of it,” he said. “Punish him for spraying something, that’s fine, but address the underlying issue so that he doesn’t have a reason to go out and spray this particular thing again.”

Burge said she doesn’t understand why someone would spray-paint the signs around campus.

“You know, it’s hard to know exactly what it means,” she said. “You know, is it just the latest thing to kind of rebel against whether you’re a smoker or a nonsmoker? It’s hard for me to draw any conclusions of that.”

Hansen said the signs mean that UNM has made a mistake with their smoking policy.

“It’s kind of hypocritical for them to crack down on people who are marking smoking areas when they didn’t do it themselves, after sending everybody to them and then threatening to punish them if they were caught smoking outside of them,” he said. “That’s hypocritical to the bones.”

Burge said the person responsible for the stencils should clean them up and work on cleaning up cigarette butts on campus as well.

“It’s just pretty sad to be defacing campus and the place where you go to school or work,” she said. “People would never do that in their homes. Why would they do it somewhere else?”

Hansen said he doesn’t think that spray-painting is the best way to voice concern over the smoking ban, but he understands why someone would do it.

“I agree that that’s not the right way to bring your message across,” he said. “But I think that discounting everything he does simply because of the way he does it is kind of asinine as well.”

Student Rebecca Van Vleck said she understands why someone would be angry about the smoking policy, but she doesn’t think spray-paint is the best way to address the issue.

“I think it goes both ways. I see why people would get angry about it, especially smokers,” she said. “But if they say ‘peace and love,’ that’s still vandalism on public property. Now UNM has to pay someone to clean it up.”