Turkey's New Prohibitions Lead To Underground Alcohol Market
Many Turks are finding ways around the new restrictions on the sale of alcohol.
Burak B. checks out his watch obsessively minutes before it hits 10 p.m. “The long night is about to start,” he says as he puts his helmet on in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, where the latest anti-government protests erupted last week.
Formerly working as a day-time pizza delivery guy with his own motorcycle, Burak B. is now in the ranks of an underground economy that has just begun to flourish.
When off-license liquor stores were banned from selling alcoholic drinks after 10 p.m. on Sept. 9, many restaurants and bars took it as an opportunity to use couriers late at night to deliver drinks to the homes of their reliable customers.
