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AUDIO: Smoking Ban Takes Effect In Turkey  

All Things Considered, July 19, 2009

Turkey, a land where smoking is a national pastime, doused tradition Sunday and banned smoking in restaurants, bars, and cafes. Turkish newspaper columnist Asli Aydintasbas talks to NPR's Guy Raz about reaction to the ban.

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History up in smoke as Turkey extends smoking restrictions  

The expression "smoke like a Turk" seems destined for the rubbish bin of history after Turkey introduced Sunday some of the toughest anti-smoking legislation in Europe.

Smoking has been banned from all closed public areas, bars, cafes and restaurants, and even extends to patrons sitting outside cafes. Anyone caught puffing away in a non-smoking area faces an on-the-spot 45-euro fine, while cafe owners face penalties of up to 2,500 euros.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an avid anti-smoker, has instructed the country's governors to rigorously enforce the ban. He has even called for officials who fail to do so to be punished. The new law is being seen as the final nail in the coffin for one of the country's most ancient traditions.

Turkey has one of the highest rates of smoking in the world, and the legislation is expected to cause troubles for cafes, bars and restaurants in cities like Istanbul, where the hospitality industry is bracing for a hit to profits.

Cafe owner Suleymain Aktas told Deutsche Welle his business was already suffering due to the economic crisis, and that the smoking ban would add salt to the wound.

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Turkey drags its smokers outdoors 

The Ottoman sultan Murat IV used to stalk the streets of Istanbul in the 17th century ordering summary executions of smokers, who were then viewed as immoral, un-Islamic and potentially seditious.

From Sunday, hard-smoking Turks face another ban, this time on lighting up indoors in cafés, bars and restaurants, expected to be pursued with equal vigour, although less drastic penalties, by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, their ascetic prime minister.

If successfully enforced, it will be a revolution in a country that puffs through more than 100bn cigarettes a year, making it the world’s eighth-biggest cigarette market, and where half of all men are smokers, well above the European average.

The ban will hit hard in traditional village tea houses, where retired and unemployed men spend their days clicking backgammon pieces in a tobacco haze. It will also force the country’s nargile – or water pipe – aficionados outdoors.

“We’ll have hard times,” said Deniz, a 31-year-old who runs a tea house in the unadorned basement of an Ankara tower block. “My customers say they’ll smoke, they can’t give up. But if I get a 5,000 lira ($3,300) fine, I’ll have to close down.”

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• Turkey Extends Smoking Ban to Bars and Restaurants (Update1) 

About 35 percent of adult Turks smoke, including more than half the men in the country of 72 million, according to figures from the Health Ministry in Ankara. That compares with about 26 percent of EU citizens who smoke regularly, according to a European Commission study published in March.

Turkey’s government collects about $8.5 billion a year in taxes on tobacco products, and spends about half that amount treating smoking-related illnesses, according to Toker Erguder, who runs the World Health Organization’s tobacco-control project in Turkey.

The perception that Turks are inseparable from their tobacco is enshrined in several European languages in which the phrase “to smoke like a Turk” denotes heavy consumption.

“Smoking is one of the most pressing needs of a Turk,” the French novelist Theophile Gautier wrote after a visit to Istanbul in 1852.

The Turkish cigarette market may shrink about 5 percent as a result of the ban, Hurriyet newspaper reported today, citing an executive at British American Tobacco Plc’s unit in the country. BAT and Philip Morris International Inc., the world’s largest publicly traded cigarette maker, are among companies that make cigarettes in Turkey.

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Turkey extends smoke ban to bars, restaurants 

It's just after midnight at Ankara's EskiYeni (OldNew) Bar and customers are feting «The Last Night of Smoking.» A majority have lit up and are swaying to the rhythm of cigarette-themed 60s and 70s Turkish songs.

Technically, they are breaking the law. At midnight Saturday Turkey extended a ban on indoor public smoking to include bars, restaurants, village coffeehouses and hookah bars. Some smokers have left the bar for its courtyard to light up, but most are carrying on smoking inside.

The ban came into effect despite protests from bar and coffeehouse owners who fear it will ruin businesses that have already been hit hard by the effects of an economic crisis.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-oriented government barred smoking in offices and public transport and other public places in May 2008 in an effort to reduce the country's high smoking rates and the effects of secondhand smoke on people's health. Bars, restaurants and cafes were given a grace period that ended at midnight Saturday.

"To smoke like a Turk" is an expression used in many European countries to describe heavy smokers and the government says more than 100,000 people die annually in Turkey from smoking-related illnesses.

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Turkey bans smoking in bars, cafés and restaurants  

Turkey brought into effect a ban on smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants on July 19 2009, extending a ban issued in May 2008 on smoking in offices, public transport, shopping malls, schools, hospitals and other public places.

The ban brings Turkey into line with most European Union states, but while Turkey is an aspirant EU member, it says that the ban is being imposed for health reasons.

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• Turkey extends smoke ban to bars, restaurants 

Patrons of a usually smoke-filled hookah bar stepped outside to light up Sunday as Turkey extended a ban on indoor public smoking to bars, restaurants and coffeehouses.

The ban in this nation of smokers came into effect at midnight Saturday despite protests from bar and coffeehouse owners who fear it will ruin businesses that have already been hit by the economic crisis.

"The country woke up this morning having carried out a cigarette revolution," an editorial in the newspaper Radikal read.

"Smokeless life has begun," was the headline on the Milliyet paper.

In Ankara's Sakarya street — famed for its fast food outlets, bars and beer halls — owners staged a brief protest saying many of the businesses there risked bankruptcy.

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WHO officer applauds smoking ban 

By the time you have finished reading this sentence, within only a few seconds, two more people in the world will have lost their lives as a result of smoking-related diseases.

Fortunately, Turkey has become a model for those trying to fight against this avoidable but significant factor in death worldwide, according to Dr. Toker Ergüder from the World Health Organization (WHO). When traveling in the francophone parts of Europe, you may hear the saying “fumer comme un Turc” (to smoke like a Turk) much like the English phrase “to smoke like a chimney” to describe someone who smokes too much. . . .

In an interview with Sunday's Zaman, Ergüder said there has been an immense transformation in Turkey concerning the state's approach towards tobacco products and their deadly effects on users. “With this huge change in the way Turkey undertakes its collective campaign to reduce tobacco usage in the country, it has become an example not only for developing countries but also for developed ones, too,” he said, commending the state's policies.

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Smoking ban finds wide support among public 

In a response to the Health Ministry's calls for smokers' support for the upcoming blanket smoking ban in public places, Turks, including café owners, said they understand the reasoning for it and support the new legislation.

A simple survey done in the streets of the Turkish capital showed that the public is looking forward to seeing the smoking ban in force. Surprisingly, the owners of the coffeehouses that are going to be affected by the ban are also willing to go along with it. They have already converted their shops and stores to non-smoking places. Alaeddin Işıklı, 37, the owner of a patisserie, said that he saw the ban as a very beneficial event that would take Turkey one step further into the modern world. “We support the smoking ban, of course. It is very obvious that smoking is a harmful addiction to everybody. Of course we have some concerns about the decrease in the number of customers, but it has to be done in order to have a healthy Turkey,” he said.

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Turkey extends smoke ban to bars, restaurants 

It's just after midnight at Ankara's EskiYeni (OldNew) Bar and customers are feting "The Last Night of Smoking." A majority have lit up and are swaying to the rhythm of cigarette-themed 60s and 70s Turkish songs.

Technically, they are breaking the law. At midnight Saturday Turkey extended a ban on indoor public smoking to include bars, restaurants, village coffeehouses and hookah bars. Some smokers have left the bar for its courtyard to light up, but most are carrying on smoking inside.

The ban came into effect despite protests from bar and coffeehouse owners who fear it will ruin businesses that have already been hit hard by the effects of an economic crisis.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-oriented government barred smoking in offices and public transport and other public places in May 2008 in an effort to reduce the country's high smoking rates and the effects of secondhand smoke on people's health. Bars, restaurants and cafes were given a grace period that ended at midnight Saturday.

"To smoke like a Turk" is an expression used in many European countries to describe heavy smokers and the government says more than 100,000 people die annually in Turkey from smoking-related illnesses.

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Lights Out: Turkey is Next to Ban Smoking  

A sweeping new law takes effect on Sunday, banning smoking in bars, cafes, pubs and restaurants across the country, the world's fourth-largest tobacco producer, where 22 million people -- including half the adult male population -- puff away on a regular basis.

The ban has strong political backing from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a fervent anti-smoker who launched the campaign against smoking in 2007 by saying it was as important as the fight against terrorism, no small charge in a country which has fought a bloody two-decade war against Kurdish separatists. (See pictures of cigarette ads.)

Part of the reason Turkey adopted the new legislation was to comply with requirements set out by the European Union, which the country is seeking to join. But the law also dovetails with the Islamic-rooted government's deep distaste for tobacco and alcohol. None of Erdogan's ministers smoke, and previous governments had been trying to introduce similar laws for years, only to be stymied by strong pressure from tobacco lobbyists. Turks spend almost $25 billion a year on cigarettes. (Read: "New Turkish Law Curbs Military's Power.")

The government's zeal to get people to stub out their cigarettes is not without historical precedent. Shortly after tobacco was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in 1601, Sultan Murat IV banned the use and sale of tobacco -- on penalty of death -- after clerical decree. That ban, however, was repealed a little over a decade later, and smoking quickly became a status symbol, "one of four cushions of pleasure," according to one historian. . . .

But in other places where smoking was once a national pastime, compliance with the ban is high: 97% in New York City, 98.5% in Italy and 94% in Ireland, according to the U.S-based Global Smokefree Partnership. "There will be a transition period, which lasts several months, while people realize the cultural norm has shifted," says The Union's Ratte. "But we have the example of France to go by. Nobody thought it was possible, but after the cut-off date, the norm changed overnight." (See a video on the end of the French custom of smoking in bars and restaurants.)

Turkey's new non-smoking law makes it only the second developing country after Uruguay to institute a comprehensive ban. That is significant -- according to the World Health Organization, developing nations will account for 80% of the world's tobacco-related deaths over the next decade, as smoking rates in developed countries fall and tobacco companies step up their presence in other markets to compensate. "People in the region are watching Turkey closely," says Ratte, who is due to take her anti-smoking campaign to Egypt next. "It could become a regional role model, like Ireland was for Europe or New York for the rest of the U.S."

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VIDEO: Turkey gets set for smoking ban  

Turks are gearing up to join the club of countries banning smoking inside bars, cafes and restaurants.

Turkey's prime minister has compared cigarettes to terrorism. That may be harsh but, from midnight on Sunday, those who flout the law could face a fine of 32 euros.

The government is keen to cut the number of smoking-related deaths, estimated to be 100,000 each year. With smokers making up around 30 percent of the population, including nearly one in two men, the aim is to reduce the total number to around 20 percent.

However, for many cafe and bar owners already hit by the economic crisis, the prospect of going cold turkey is unwelcome.

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Turkey smoke ban extends to bars 

Turkey has extended an existing ban on smoking in public places to all bars, cafes and restaurants.

The ban has come into force despite opposition from some bar and cafe owners who fear losing business.

It comes after the government banned smoking from most enclosed public spaces in May last year in an effort to improve the nation's health.

Turkey has more than 20 million smokers but polls suggest 95% of people support the ban.

"We are working to protect our future, to save our youth," said Health Minister Recep Akdag.

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• Zero tolerance for smokers starts today 

Jul 19, 2009

As of today, the use of tobacco products is prohibited in indoor cafes, bars and restaurants across the country in the final phase of a determined government plan to reduce the public health risks posed by smoking.

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In one of the 10 countries in which two-thirds of all tobacco is consumed globally, Turkey's Law No. 4207 on the Prevention of the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Tobacco Products now prohibits smoking in all indoor public areas, requiring that buildings have an appropriate outdoor space if they wish to allow smoking. Inspectors are also to perform surprise checks on businesses that smokers frequent to ensure the law is being enforced.

The introductory phase of the smoking ban prohibited smoking in all facilities of education, entertainment, health and sports as well as on public transportation -- including taxis -- as of May 19, 2008. Today, that ban has been extended to include restaurants, coffeehouses, cafeterias and bars.

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Cold Turkey 

bus discovered “certain dried leaves” in 1492, Ottoman sultan Murad IV became one of the world’s first rulers to ban smoking. . . .

But, as the 52nd country goes smoke-free, tobacco companies need not worry. They are banking on the developing world, where 70 per cent of all cigarettes are lit. Even if a few Turks kick the habit, India has a 10th of the planet’s smokers, despite introducing a ban last year. And China remains a free-for-all, with a lung-busting third of all puffers.

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