NEW BRAUNFELS — City Council gave preliminary approval on Monday to a controversial rule prohibiting disposable containers — bottles and cans — from the ecologically sensitive Comal River.

The first reading of the proposal, amending an existing ordinance, passed by a 5-2 vote. Another ordinance, which would prohibit tubers from taking an extra inner tube on floats down the river, failed 4-3.

Residents who spoke against both proposals said the council was going too far.

“On a day when the Dow went down 630 points, you're taking a shot at the economy of this community,” say Jay Patrick, who said the rules would create health problems because on days of 100-plus degrees, tubers wouldn't be able to take enough water with them to stay hydrated for three hours. “Let's call it what it is. It's a backdoor alcohol ban.”

He said the city should be renamed “New Ban-fels”

Councilman Richard Zapata and Mayor Gale Pospisil said tubers could load liquids into permanent containers for trips down the river. Councilman Steven Digges said the issue is litter, not just litter stemming from disposable drink containers.

The arguments came four years after the city's last major attempt to control river behavior. State law prohibits glass and Styrofoam from rivers but doesn't allow the city to ban alcohol. The city can control container size, however, and has limited the size of ice chests and banned large containers for beer and small containers for Jell-O shots.

It's the latest installment in the city's more recent campaign to control crowds and keep the river clean during one of its busiest — and rowdiest — summers on record. The river has been so packed with tubers, police have had to shut down river access twice and routinely stagger admission to the river through the public access point at Prince Solms Park.

And the behavior of some tourists has been among the worst on record. A police officer was attacked by a drunken tuber in June. The entire police force, racking up more than 7,000 hours of overtime, has worked every weekend, writing more citations and making more arrests for drugs and alcohol than in previous years.

Cleanup crews have removed thousands of pounds of trash from the river and the cost has reached $200,000, but city officials say they can't keep up with the trash being dumped by tubers.

Pospisil, speaking before the meeting, said residents have been complaining about visitors misbehaving and trashing the river.

“It's a money issue,” she said, “but it's more than that.”

The city has grown enough to fall under more stringent federal storm-water runoff regulations. In addition, Pospisil said, a dirty Comal River means the city might be in violation of the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Plan, a regional agreement to protect endangered species.

New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce President Michael Meek questioned the logic and timing of the rules.

The city and the business community had been discussing the litter and drinking issues all summer and had agreed to formulate new rules during the off-season, Meek said before the meeting. One of the most popular suggestions was the implementation of an admission fee for river access next summer.

While container restrictions are viable options, Meek said, they should be a last resort.

More damning, he said, is the negative publicity that would result from passing the law during the last weeks of the summer. Pospisil said the rules won't affect this season. The second readings of the proposals are slated for Aug. 22, to be followed by legal notification. That means it wouldn't take effect until after Labor Day, the unofficial end of the city's tourist season.