Dracula goes dry as new drink rules bite

Istanbul: Guests at the Istanbul premiere of a new vampire film were among the first victims of new curbs on alcohol that have raised secularist fears Islamic strictures may be encroaching on everyday life.

The rules, announced earlier this month by the tobacco and alcohol watchdog, tighten up license requirements for serving alcohol, impose restrictions on alcohol marketing and limits sales to designated areas in stores.

But the move has revived secularist accusations that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government is interfering in people's lifestyles and imposing Islamic values.

The Ankara Bar Association -- part of a judiciary that has become a last bastion of Turkey's secularist old guard -- said it had lodged a challenge to the new regulations in the country's top administrative court.

"The aim of these regulations is not the public good, but to impose a new lifestyle on society," the Ankara Bar said in a court petition, obtained by Reuters.

The restrictions appeared to take hold at a comedy horror film loosely based around the Dracula story, "Sacred Demijohn Dracoola," which held its premiere on Wednesday evening.

The film's producer Senol Cengiz told Reuters the cinema had asked them not to serve alcohol for fear that they would be fined, and saw such measures further polarizing Turkish society.

"The government has promised more freedom and democracy but their actions have been signaling a contrary attitude," Cengiz said.

"It would be okay if we could believe these measures are really taken to protect kids, but it seems these are efforts to restrict lifestyles," he said.

"DRINK TILL THEY BURST"

Secularist opponents of the government have long accused it of seeking to undermine Turkey's secular principles and impose conservative values through a hidden Islamist agenda.

Such accusations draw an angry response from Erdogan, who denies any infringements on people's freedoms since his AK Party first came to power in 2002.

He retorted that "people drink as much as they want. They drink till they burst."

Liberal on economic issues and conservative on social policy matters, the AK is depicted by some members as a Muslim version of Europe's Christian Democrat parties.

Government officials have denied that the regulations are designed to limit freedoms but that they are to discourage irresponsible consumption.

State Minister Faruk Celik said the changes were aimed at harmonizing Turkey's regulatory framework with those of the European Union and protect the youth, and shouldn't be regarded as legislation driven by the ruling AK Party.

"Our goal is not to limit anyone's freedom," Celik told journalists late last week. "Our main purpose is to remedy the present situation, which has not been bound by any rules."

He said that with an election looming, opponents were trying to stigmatize the AK by raising fears of an Islamist agenda that doesn't exist.

The restrictions will also bring an end to sponsorship of sports teams by drinks companies. Among those affected will be the leading basketball team Efes Pilsen, sponsored by the drinks company Anadolu Efes.

There are concerns in the sector that the new rules will hit sales in Turkey, where alcohol consumption is well below levels elsewhere in Europe.

According to the most recent data from the OECD, per capita annual alcohol consumption in Turkey is 1.4 liters, compared with levels of around 10 liters in western Europe.