Snack Attack
Students Should Be Allowed To Eat in the Library
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I must vent.
As a student of Concordia and an occupant of our library during cram sessions, I feel the need to discuss how irritating the library staff is when it comes to reinforcing the food/beverage regulations.
It is totally understandable to tell a student “no food” or “no eating” if someone pulls out a cheeseburger and poutine live in the 4th floor silent zone. I get that it would totally distract everyone by the noise, smell and garbage.
However, circulating the premises and nitpicking at the smallest Ziploc bag of cookies or Tupperware container of fruit is really irritating and unnecessary. I understand that people can be pigs and leave their stupid wrappers and coffee cups lying around. But this is a library, so I doubt that it looks like a cafeteria by the end of the day. A cleaning staff ensures that the library’s kept tidy on a daily basis. If we’re not making messes in the first place, what are we even paying them for?Doesn’t the establishment understand that eating snacks while studying is helpful and productive? Since they’re so adamant that we use nothing but water bottles and eco-cups, these regulations are simply inconvenient to students in the zone. Who wants to have to break concentration to get up and leave the library just to have a snack?
En plus, there has been a crackdown lately on coffee cups. Security is at the front entrance, monitoring students as they enter, checking what type of mug their coffee is in.
Coffee is inseparable from the student lifestyle, and a substantial amount of students drink coffee while studying. Those that do not own eco-mugs but want to study in the library with their coffee have to wait until they drink it before entering, or have to chuck their freshly purchased coffee because they aren’t allowed in.
One could say that it is the students’ fault, because the rules are clear and they shouldn’t try to enter the library with their coffee in the first place, right? Paper cups aren’t allowed because they could make a mess.
Yes, well, maybe we should be giving our student body the benefit of the doubt, regardless of eco-mug or paper-cup. I think we have enough respect to avoid spilling liquids anywhere. If you think about it, more likely than not, if we were to spill coffee, it would land on our books before anything else. So we’d be ruining our property before theirs.
I don’t see the need for such strict enforcement. If the library’s allowed to charge a $10 late fee, then we should be allowed our coffee and snacks.
We’ll keep it tidy, we promise.
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