The Brown Camel, which for 95 years has attracted smokers and is a symbol of Turkish blend has turned its back on Turkey, where on Monday a law banning smoking in public places came into force.

The law for now extends on the closed areas such as educational establishments, public transport, taxis, shopping malls, whereas the restriction on smoking in the cafes and restaurants will be applied by July 2009. In psychiatric hospitals, retirement homes and prisons smokers are allowed to smoke in the special areas.

Banning smoking seems to be unthinkable in a smoking-fashion country, such as Turkey, where hookah still is one of country’s most popular methods of relaxing and where the vast number of smokers (40 percent of population, about 25 million people) beget in Europe the common expression “to smoke like a Turk”.

Health campaigners welcome the ban, pointing out that smoking related illness cost Turkey up to $2.7 billion a year. Besides the campaign is supported by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has championed the new law through parliament.

The law passed by Parliament in March envisages a $4,000 fine for establishments defying the ban and $40 fine for individuals.

Such restrictions are widely applied in Europe where smoking is banned in cafes and restaurants in a number European countries with Ireland to be the first European country to impose a comprehensive ban on smoking in public places in 2004.

Armenia also tries to make steps toward combating smoking, but lags behind the Europeans. In 2005 Armenian Parliament finally adopted the “Law on Restriction of Tobacco Realization, Consumption and Usage” which was twice rejected by lawmakers, some of whom are the republic’s biggest importers of tobacco. The law is to be implemented in three phases in the country, where is estimated over 60 percent of men are smokers.

The Armenian law on tobacco does not require restaurants and cafes to have non-smoking zones. Narine Movsisyan, the Director of the Armenian Public Health Alliance tobacco control policy
project says that according to the law the special areas should have been created in public areas, such as in cultural, educational establishments, governmental offices. "But there is yet not a word about the necessity of creation of non-smoke areas in restaurants," she says, believing its to be a serious shortcoming of the law.

In some Yerevan establishments, though, owners voluntary separated areas for smokers. The management of "Eastern Cuisine" restaurant on Komitas Avenue 4 month ago separated an area for smokers. " Of course we did it for our clients, to make their stay here more comfortable, both for smokers and non-smokers," says Tigran Vardanyan, manager of the restaurant.

Sos Gevorgyan, the director of the cozy cafe "Sherlock Homes" on Baghramyan says he is also planning to separate a zone for smokers. "I would love to make the whole place as non-smoking," he says , "but if I do so I will lose all clients, because a great number of them are smokers. Here is not such a big area, some 100 sq.m, but I think it will yet be enough to create a smoke-free zone."