Not sure how I feel about this. If you do not fight for freedom it gets taken away from you one at a time and recently several at a time. The choice to allow smoking should be the bar owners. The choice to pay for health care or no should be everyone’s. I could go on and on. One thing is for sure, it will be interesting if several more killings happen in Turkey and the smoking ban is overturned. Who manages to get these enforced anyway when no one really wants them? how do these laws get passed? It costs everyone a fortune.

From Alarabiya

Man shot dead in Turkey over smoking ban

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A new law in Turkey forbids smoking indoors (File)>

ISTANBUL (Reuters)

A restaurant owner in southwest Turkey was shot dead after he tried to prevent his customers from smoking to comply with a new law on the use of tobacco indoors, Hurriyet daily said on Thursday.

A fight broke out after Hidir Karayigit, 46, ordered a group of customers to extinguish their cigarettes when they began smoking at his “meyhane,” a traditional restaurant that serves alcohol, in the town of Saruhanli, Hurriyet said.

” They either shouldn’t have outlawed smoking or they should have outlawed alcohol along with smoking “
Saruhanli Mayor Veli Yalcin
One of the customers shot Karayigit four times after he took away the group’s cigarettes, said witness Hamza Havutcu, Karayigit’s business partner who was also shot and wounded.

Turkey’s government on July 19 introduced a nationwide ban on indoor smoking, including bars and restaurants, despite the fact that half of Turks aged between the ages of 15 and 49 smoke; one of the highest rates in the world.

“I’m deeply saddened that the first smoking-ban murder occurred in our town,” Saruhanli Mayor Veli Yalcin told Hurriyet. “They either shouldn’t have outlawed smoking or they should have outlawed alcohol along with smoking.”