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• Smoking ban arrives with the new year 

Restaurants and bars will ring in the new year by asking smokers to snuff their cigarettes, but the city has no plans to enforce its new smoking ban.

Beginning Friday, Galveston's smoking ordinance -- one of the strictest in the state -- bans smoking in restaurants, bars and private clubs, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars club, on patios and in outdoor seating areas, including the sidewalks outside venues along The Strand and Postoffice Street.

While some restaurant and bar owners said they plan to obey the city's ban, the Galveston Police Department said the ordinance is among the last on its list of laws to enforce, city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said.

Cahill said the police department sees the ordinance as a symbolic gesture; while the city council had good intentions when it approved the plan, it's "unreasonable for the police department to give (the ban) its undivided attention," she said.

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