No smoking in establishments with retractable roofs either!
A draft law by the Turkish Ministry of Health envisages a ban on smoking in Turkey and in those parts of cafes and restaurants that have retractable roofs, the online publication “Sözcü” reported.
A BTA mid-January investigation shows that this “door” in the legislation is often used as an opportunity for establishments to circumvent the ban. Another common practice is hiding ashtrays shortly before the inspectors appear and taking them out after they leave.
According to information from the Anadolu Agency, the planned changes are part of a package of measures related to the fight against addictions. Among them are smoking, digital addiction and obesity.
Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu stressed that the changes will make mobile teams monitoring compliance with the smoking ban more active, and anti-smoking and nicotine addiction clinics will expand their scope of activity.
“In this way, we will achieve better results in the fight against tobacco addiction. We are preparing legislative changes related to indoor smoking. I hope that we will soon bring this to the agenda of the Mejlis. With the approval of the President (Recep Tayyip Erdogan), we should achieve much better results on this issue,” Memisoglu said.
The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are also working on a joint bill that will cover foods and their sugar content. It is also planned that family doctors and health centers will be more active in implementing policies to combat obesity and in encouraging people to eat healthy and lead an active lifestyle.
Illustrative Photo by lil artsy: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-smoking-cigarette-2827798/
