GALVESTON — Only a few people eating lunch at The Press Box, 2401 Postoffice St., on Friday had smoke curling up from ashtrays next to their plates.

The absence of smokers was unusual, said owner Rudy Betancourt, who estimated 70 percent of his customers smoke.

“Drinking and smoking go hand in hand, and I seldom get complaints about it,” he said.

But in a few months, Betancourt’s smoking customers might have to eat their lunch outside — if the city council passes an ordinance banning smoking in all public places.

On Thursday, Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas told fellow council members she wanted them to consider adopting the smoking ban at their July 9 meeting. No one objected.

Although Betancourt was one of the island business owners who fought attempts to get the ban adopted in 2006, he won’t be fighting it this time.

Council members obviously have their minds made up, so why bother protesting? he asked.

Galveston’s elected officials are only following suit after other cities that have adopted bans in the last three years, he said.

While Betancourt thinks the ban is inevitable, he doesn’t like it.

“I just don’t think the government should get involved in my business,” he said.

More regulations are the last thing island businesses struggling to recover from Hurricane Ike need, said Diane Flores-Cowart, owner of Crow’s Southwest Cantina, 2408 The Strand.

“We’re having a hard enough time as it is,” she said. “They should be concentrating on things that will help us recover.”

Too many rules will keep visitors off the island, which is not what business owners need, Flores-Cowart said.

But since the storm, several island restaurants have gone smoke-free on their own, and some of the ban’s most vocal opponents have switched sides.

The tide has turned, said former Councilman Joe Jaworski, one of only two council members who voted for the ban in 2006. It was apparent then that a majority of island business owners thought smoking was important, he said.

“We weren’t ready as a city,” he said of the ban. “But things have changed.”

Jaworski was one of four people who attended Thursday’s council meeting to speak in favor of the ban. Only one person criticized the ban as too much government intervention.

The proposed ban would prohibit smoking in restaurants and bars. The city’s legal department is researching how to define private clubs so the ban could be enforced in them as well.

The ban’s recent proponents said they would support it only if it didn’t create any loopholes for businesses to allow smoking and have an unfair advantage over the competition.

In counties where selling alcohol is illegal, restaurants get around the rules by calling themselves private clubs and charging those who want to drink $1 for a membership. Some fear a similar system could be used to circumvent the smoking ban.

Under the proposed ordinance, smoking would be allowed in outdoor seating areas.