Condom Vending Machines Find Place on SDSU Campus

Condom machines will be purchased by the Associated Students Council of San Diego State University and placed in 10 restrooms at the university’s Aztec Center, avoiding a lease arrangement that would have required the signature of President Thomas Day, who dislikes the idea of dispensing machines.

University spokesman Rick Moore said Thursday that the Associated Students will buy the machines for $1 each and sell the condoms for 50 cents, donating a 12-cent profit to a student health service campus education program on AIDS.

The students will also drop immediate moves to secure machines in restrooms throughout the campus, a plan Day opposes, in favor of lobbying trustees of the California State University system for a systemwide policy permitting widespread placement.

Ordinarily, the Associated Students lease machines from vendors for the student center, an arrangement that requires Day’s signature under terms of the management lease that the student organization has with the university, which owns the center.

Day has said he would not sign such a lease for condom machines because he finds the idea of such dispensers “tacky” and an “intrusion” into student lives, given conflicting philosophical views of whether condoms themselves are a satisfactory response to stem the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Moore said that Day could live with an arrangement that would not require his approval of a contract. “This allows the students to accomplish their goal of (wider condom dispensing) without violating the terms of their lease” with the university to operate the center, Moore said.

Day believes that students already have adequate access to condoms through the campus bookstore, student health services and at off-campus drugstores.

The Associated Students group has argued that easier access, especially at night when many stores and the bookshop are closed, would contribute to safer sex habits.

The student group still plans to ask the statewide California State University Board of Trustees to adopt a policy allowing condom machines to be placed in restrooms throughout the campus system.

Day has refused to allow such widespread placement unless the trustees adopt a systemwide policy.