Ban will cause high unemployment

Implementation of smoking ban in Turkey will hit hard more than 450.000 businesses and can cause unemployment for hundreds of people.

The future of coffee houses, restaurants, bars, and cafes seems to be very dark, for the reason that half of their workers will lose their jobs if the government approves the law that will prohibit indoor smoking.

Sale of cigarettes and tobacco products constitutes the biggest part of revenue for many of those places and suspending of these products will result in reducing of profits. This situation will force the owners to reduce the personnel in order to maintain the balance between sales and incomes.

In Turkey there are around 450,000 coffeehouses, thousands of restaurants and bars that worry about their future, as many of them don’t have a ‘plan B’. They still believe that the government will allow smoking if the bars or restaurants are equipped with air-conditioner that will permanently ventilate the rooms.

The draft bill will ban smoking in all public places and it doesn’t matter if it is a public or private institution. Also, the businesses that have more than one employer are obligated to open special areas for smoking.

The draft is still under discussion and the final decision hasn’t been yet announced.