Turkey extends smoke ban to bars, restaurants (WBOC/AP)

Associated Press - July 18, 2009 6:53 PM ET

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Bar and restaurant owners in Turkey are planning protests Sunday to mark a new smoking ban.

Last year, Turkey implemented an indoor ban for public spaces like offices, and as of midnight, it's been extended to bars, restaurants, village coffee houses and hookah bars.

As the deadline passed, some people defiantly kept puffing away, but others retreated to outdoor courtyards.

Bar owners are afraid the smoking ban is going to further hurt business already damaged by the global recession. The government says people will still go to bars and the ban will just help them quit smoking.

The health ministry says last year's ban has already lowered Turkey's smoking rate by 7%.
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more: http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10749601





The nicotine pushers have lost Italy, France and now Turkey! Good thing they've got that growing market in East Asia to see them through.

Turkey??? Smokers are truly fucked. Instead of banning cigarettes, why can't we just ban Republicans? That are so much more lethal and it would actually make more sense.

but telling you to set fire to the damned things outdoors is prudent.

One imagines that the hookah bars wouldn't be affected by the ban on indoor smoking.

Smokers have lost Ireland, too. Ireland!