Galveston Mayor Jim Yarbrough isn’t worried about Texas beaches reopening to the public on Friday. He’s worried about where people will go after they leave the beach.

“If Houston people want to come and congregate on the beach and do their thing and go back to Houston, with or without whatever they might have contracted, that’s fine,” Yarbrough said. “But the volume of people that come, they’re not just going to the beach and getting in their car. There’s restaurants, there’s gas stations, there’s grocery stores … it’s all the little dominoes and ramifications of people coming to Galveston.”

Galveston had begun a soft reopening of its beaches on Monday — open from 6 to 9 a.m. to pedestrians — that is now null and void as part of Texas’s phased reopening when the state’s stay-at-home order expired at midnight. The Texas General Land Office, which governs beach access across the state, informed coastal cities like Galveston that they no longer had the authority to close beaches due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The city of Galveston announced the land office’s decision in a news release Wednesday, noting the agency’s guidance “rescinding its approval for local governments to close beaches due to COVID-19.” The order effectively opened all of Texas’s coastline to the public beginning at 12 a.m. Friday.

The basis for the land office’s green light to open beaches was Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order encouraging outdoor activities “so long as necessary precautions are maintained” to minimize transmission of the virus and in-person contact with people who are not in the same household.

Abbott announced Monday the first phase of the state’s plan to strategically open the state’s economy after the stay-at-home order he issued expires Thursday night. Beginning Friday, all retail stores, dine-in restaurants and movie theaters are allowed to reopen with limited capacity. The state continues to recommend that individuals follow federal guidance of maintaining at least 6 feet distance from other people not in the same household.

However, Abbott’s report on reopening the state omitted beaches, which left local governments awaiting a decision from the land office as to whether they have jurisdiction over access to the coastline.

The land office, which did not respond to a request for comment, had empowered coastal cities and counties to make decisions on beach access on March 17 in the wake of Abbott’s state of disaster declaration.

Regionally, cities and counties have been split on granting beach access during the coronavirus pandemic.

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The city of Galveston closed its beaches on March 29, but began a partial reopening on Monday for pedestrians who wanted morning exercise. Galveston County kept beaches on Bolivar Peninsula open, save for a four-day closure over Easter weekend. The city of Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island also kept its beaches open to the public. Elsewhere, Brazoria County kept its beaches open to pedestrians but restricted all vehicle access.

While information about the nature of the coronavirus continues to evolve, some scientists believe that beaches are not necessarily havens from potential infection. A leading atmospheric chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography told the Los Angeles Times that the virus could be light enough to float through the air much farther than we think and that stiff coastal winds could carry viral particles.

Galveston locals have been eager for their beaches to reopen, with some complaining that keeping them closed would increase crowds adjacent to the beach, such as on Seawall Boulevard, one of the island’s main thoroughfares. Tents were reportedly being set up on the seawall beaches Thursday ahead of the official opening at midnight.

Peter Davis, the chief of Galveston’s beach patrol, said during the three and a half weeks that the island’s beaches were closed they would sweep, on average, 160 people off the beach during the week, and up to 240 on the weekend. But on Saturday and Sunday combined, his patrol officers moved just under 3,500 people away from the beach, including 2,500 on Sunday alone.

Davis acknowledged on Monday the possibility that the governor could supersede the city’s partial reopening.

“We wouldn’t be able to do this controlled measure, gradual loosening approach like our emergency management wants to do here,” Davis said.

While Yarbrough said enforcement would be “minimal,” the Galveston City Council passed an ordinance Thursday mandating social distancing rules on beaches, outdoor venues, and entertainment venues. Violators will be subject to a $500 fine.

For Galveston locals and visitors nervous about going out in public, Yarbrough has a simple message: Stay at home.

“If you’re riding your bike or walking and the crowds are too big, leave, go away, go in another direction,” he said. “You go to a restaurant that you don’t think is following the rules, you can file a complaint with us and we will do our best to respond.”

nick.powell@chron.com