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• SONGÜN: Turkey's smoking ban changes habits, inspires innovations  

I panicked when I was first assigned to this story even though it was not a risky assignment like covering a flood, a May Day in Taksim or a street clash between pro-Kurdish protestors and the police.

My assignment was to cover Turkey's smoking ban that came into effect July 19 by violating it to see if it really worked. The problem was that I had never smoked, not even tried, not once. . . .

One teahouse owner's innovative efforts were admirable. He found a way to smoke inside without violating the ban via a homemade mechanism with two hoses that reached outside and enabled smoking in enclosed areas. Maybe it was not the first innovation, but I found it to be the most intriguing. Suat Karakaya, owner of a teahouse in Istanbul for 15 years, drilled two holes in a window and passed two thin hoses through each. A lit cigarette is attached to the end of one hose outside the window while the customer smokes from the other end in the comfort of the establishment. The offending cigarette never needs to come inside. The second hose is for the smoker to exhale the smoke back outside.

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