Last Monday the inevitable happened.

Around 1:30 p.m., the MacEwan Student Centre fire alarm sounded, alerting students to a situation that's been smouldering for years--a fire broke out in the Black Lounge. The fire, most likely caused by careless smoking, shows utter disrespect and serves as a long-overdue wake-up call.

Almost anyone can attest to the Lung's filthiness (in both solid and gaseous forms), but only its patrons can testify to the juvenile and contemptuous attitudes of some of its users. Ask almost any smoker, and they'll relate numerous incidents of smokers simply tossing lit cigarettes of the floor, leaving the carpet pock-marked with burns, while still others carelessly toss lit matches into packed garbage bins. This is a flagrant disregard, not only for the service provided to them by the building managers, but shows a serious lack of self-respect. After all, what kind of animal enjoys creating and living in its own filth?

Yet through the years, the situation only worsened as smoking lounge after lounge closed on campus, diverting campus smokers to that last bastion of freedom: the Lung. And while it has existed as the only smoking lounge on campus, we've seen a potentially disastrous situation come to fruition.

This is not to say some patrons of the Lung don't appreciate the idea if not the actual space; the Lung serves as a place to smoke on a winters day other than outside on the frozen plain. Others, sadly, act like spoiled children making an offensive mess with little regard for others, let alone the cleaning staff which service their Id-frenzied habits.

Perhaps the persons responsible for the mess should watch the night staff clean up the spilt pop cans and the fast food ground into ancient upholstery. Better yet, make them scrape the gum off the floors and vacuum up the cigarette butts of the masses for little more than minimum wage.

But that will never happen. And these same smokers, who are responsible for the mess and fire, will complain the loudest when construction crews gut the lounge later this summer. But why should the SU continue operating the lounge for these people to destroy? The Lung no longer has a purpose beyond serving as a prime example of the ugliest carpets and attitudes on campus.

Close the Lung! Force these people to get apartments and if they bitch, refer them the make-shift sign hung on the Lounge door:

"Closed... due to raging inferno, caused by fucking idiots!"