Mayor's Firm's Sales Dip Dooms Rival Market

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Sözcü Newspaper, 5 December 2017)


The once-thriving market is now shut down...

In Pamukkale district of Denizli province, an entrepreneur named Hacı
Yılmaz wanted to open a 'Sosyete Pazarı' (social market) in a 4,000
square-meter area of the Deliktaş neighborhood.  On 15 September
Yılmaz obtained a work permit from the Pamukkale municipality,
which is run by the ruling AKP party, and spent 1.5 million TL (about
$400,000) to ready the site.  The market's opening was attended by
District Chief Şükrü Görücü.

However, the inexpensive textile goods offered by vendors at the market
retarded sales of the textiles produced by Gürlesin Holding company,
owned by the family of Pamukkale Mayor Hüseyin Gürlesin (!).  On 4
October, municipal inspectors visited the market and found that "food
products not included in the work permit" were being sold and that
spots in the market were being rented to other vendors.  When these
'transgressions' were not remedied the market was shut down after an
inspection on 21-22 October.


...while the mayor's family business remains open (hmmmm).

Yılmaz filed suit and the Denizli Administrative Court ordered the
market to be reopened on 3 November.  But the same court then ruled
14 days later that the market should be shut down again, which it was
on 24 November.  Yılmaz has now taken his case to the Izmir Regional
Administrative Court.  In the meantime, Yılmaz, who is in debt for the
1.5 million TL he spent to prepare the market site, suffered a heart
attack and is currently under treatment in a hospital.  His son Oktay
Yılmaz declared that "the market was opened and the mayor's store's
sales fell so the mayor had our market shut down."