Patrons working on laptops are a fixture of coffee shops, and with electric outlets and free wi-fi, shops aren’t exactly discouraging students and, uh, professional bloggers from hanging out there. Until now.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a small coffee shop in Brooklyn, Naidre’s, is throwing out laptop users during peak lunch hours unless they eat while working.

You don’t want to discourage it, it’s a wonderful tradition,” says Naidre’s owner Janice Pullicino, 53 years old. A former partner in a computer-graphics business, Ms. Pullicino insists she loves technology and hates to limit its use. But when she realized that people with laptops were taking up seats and driving away the more lucrative lunch crowd, she put up the sign. Last fall, she covered up some of the outlets, describing that as a “cost-cutting measure” to save electricity.

She has a point. It’s possible to stay and work for hours after buying a single cup of tea. Perhaps not great for business. One can’t blame the owner of a dining establishment for making her own rules, but let’s hope this trend doesn’t spread to my own satellite offices.

No More Perks: Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users [Wall Street Journal]

(Photo: ercwttmn)

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