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Lights
on is lights-out for smokers
High-tech tactics used to fight smoking (Herald
Bristo Courier – September 24, 2004)
Virginia
High has taken high-tech aim at smoking on campus,
and observers say a sensor system has helped clear
the hallways of smoke
The cigarette
smoke wafting through the halls of Virginia High
School last year made some teachers feel like
second-hand smokers. This year, they’ve
kicked the habit – with the help of some
new technology.
The school
system spent about $5,000 on a high tech system
that alerts administrators when someone smokes
on school grounds. It was installed over the summer.
“We
were vigilant in checking the restrooms, but we
felt like we had to do more,” said Principal
Ina Danko. “We decided to get tough.”
Virginia High
teachers, like those at many other area high schools,
have struggled with how to catch smokers. By the
time the smoke circulates into the classrooms
and hallways, the culprits have finished and moved
on.
The new alert
system involves sensors placed in bathrooms and
in other areas throughout the school. Now when
someone smokes, flashing lights in hallways and
outside bathrooms reveal the smoker’s location.
Now when someone
smokes, flashing lights in hallways and outside
bathrooms reveal the smoker’s location.
The sensors
also send messages to multiple pagers carried
by hall monitors and administrators. Without delay,
school officials know where to find the source
of the smoke.
We had to
keep our doors shut last year because there was
so much smoke in the hall”, said English
teacher Ashley Maloyed. “This year, I haven’t
smelled it at all. I was a little skeptical at
first, but it works.”
Junior Lacey
Smith hates the smell of cigarette smoke and said
it often gives her a headache. The pungent odor
bothered her last year, she said, but not anymore.
She hasn’t smelled smoke in the hallways
yet.
Senior Sara
McVey agreed. “It disrupted the classes
because teachers had to leave to check bathrooms,”
she said. “I can’t smell it in the
school like I could last year. I’ve noticed
that it has been down tremendously.”
“This
has been the only thing that I have seen that
has been successful in stopping smoking on campus,”
said Dick Austin, a Virginia High history teacher.
“I can’t praise it enough.”
Smoke
detectors finding a voice
The News-Herald, Cuyahoga Edition – February
3, 2004
A decade ago, Michael Kaufman
was traveling in an elevator with a senior executive
of a commercial bank where he worked as a computer
programmer.
The executive lit a cigarette
without any consideration for others in the elevator,
Kaufman recalled.
“The risk of telling
the executive not to smoke was greater that that
of inhaling the second-hand smoke.
“I felt that someone
should do the dirty job of telling him (not to
smoke),” Kaufman said. So, the Beachwood
resident came up with the idea of voice messages
warning people not to smoke in undesignated areas.
The smoke detecting device
Kaufman developed became a success, prompting
him to quit his bank job 10 years ago, and start
Vproducts dba Cigarettesmokedetector.com Inc. to market his innovation.
Since then, he has developed
several variations of smoke-detection alarms.
“Schools and colleges
are the biggest customers,” Kaufaman said.
“Doug Wetherbolt,
dean of students at a vocational school in Ashtabula
County, is pleased with Vproducts dba Cigarettesmokedetector.com’
system. Since it was installed, smoking in the
school has dropped dramatically. “We use
it as a deterrent.”
Before installing the Stealth
Smoking Enforcement system, the school notified
its students about the new anti-smoking surveillance.
Until then, the security staff patrolled every
nook and cranny to discourage smoking on school
premise. The smoke alarm eliminated foot patrol,
which cut cost.
Disney
Could Jump on This Idea By Offering A Jiminy Cricket
Line
(The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 1999)
Imagine a smoker lighting up in a hospital hallway
or public bathroom, and suddenly hearing a disembodied
voice from above: “Please extinguish your
smoking material. This is a non-smoking area.
Thank you.”
If a Cleveland entrepreneur has his way, scenes
like this will become reality starting next month
with “SmokeBuster,” a talking smoke
detector. Michael Kaufman, a 35-year old former
computer programmer, says the device is ideal
for restaurants, schools and other places to enforce
nonsmoking rules tactfully. “It’s
better that a sign,” he says. “But
it’s not the smoking police.”
Still, the message is up to the establishment
installing it. “It can be as polite or obnoxious
as you want,” he says.
“SmokeBuster is far more sensitive than
regular smoke alarms and can sniff out just a
puff or two.”
“It does not take much smoke to set it
off,” says Larry Chervenak, president of
Chervenak, Keane & Co, the consulting firm.
Detector
smokes out cheaters
(Rocky Mountain News – April 14, 1994)
A supersensitive electronic alarm can catch people
sneaking a puff in non-smoking areas of buildings
and admonish them with a recorded message.
Michael Kaufman, developer of SmokeBuster, said
the alarm is 100 times more sensitive than ordinary
smoke detectors.
The battery-powered unit costs as little as $149.
Kaufman got the idea for the product 10 years
ago when he failed to complain to his then-boss,
who was smoking on an elevator, but wished there
was a machine there that would do it for him.
