I am not an attorney, and therefore have limited knowledge of Indiana common law, but I doubt seats in coffee shops can be claimed via “squatters’ rights.”
Unless a person who is Wi-Fi leeching on a laptop in a coffee shop (usually while nursing a single, small, café macchiato all day) can prove the seat was abandoned, and unless the squatter is willing to sit there continuously for a minimum of 10 years while paying property taxes on the seat, he or she has no case for ownership.
If I am correct in this legal research, all the internet squatters, who are forcing charge-card-in-hand customers to drink their skinny vanilla lattes standing up, will soon be evicted — maybe even prosecuted and placed in public stocks on the courthouse lawns around the state.
The situation here in Columbus is not dire at this point, but if the coffee shops in places like Bloomington, Carmel and Indianapolis are any indication, caffeine addicts may soon be doing espresso shots in alleys rather than waiting for a place to sit down.
In February, the owners of one popular café bistro in Indianapolis became so incensed over the tsunami of Wi-Fi freeloaders crowding out paying customers that laptops were banned from the shop 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. In addition, anyone bringing a laptop into the bistro at any time is now required to purchase a minimum of $5 worth of drinks or food each hour.
If these new rules come into vogue, millions of laptop-toting workers across the country could be forced into renting expensive offices and paying for high speed internet. Millions of students might end up in the college library or forced into dormitory rooms to study. And millions of people who just want to cruise the internet or comment on their friends’ idiotic Facebook posts will have to wait until they get home.
As sad as such displacement will be for some, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says private property shall not “be taken for public use without just compensation.” I am not sure how the Supreme Court will eventually rule on the issue, but I am fairly certain James Madison had the problem of turning privately owned coffee shops into public computer labs in mind when he wrote the original draft.
Of course, many Americans don’t seem to see either the squatter invasion or the possibility of brew battles between café owners and internet leeches as any sort of a national emergency.
I understand that. The old traditional American coffee shop/diner had its charm. Many Americans — particularly outside urban areas — not only prefer the traditional coffee shops but look down their noses at the newer variety as overpriced havens for “city elites.”
I have many friends who have never waited in line for the first Pumpkin Spice or Eggnog Latte of the season. To them, coffee is a “cuppa joe” served in a squatty, cream colored ceramic mug with a chip on one side next to a faint smudge of lipstick the dishwasher missed. They say the coffee is delivered right to their booth by a waitress (not a server) who has a plastic nameplate inscribed “Betty” pinned to her apron.
Betty serves the coffee for $1.25 with unlimited refills — although some days the coffee is a bit scorched from sitting in the carafe keeping warm since breakfast.
On the plus side, no one has a laptop and no one sits in the cafe all day hogging the seats while she sends reports to the home office or he writes an essay for Composition 101.
In fact, Big Joe the cook wouldn’t think twice about tossing a squatter out into the parking lot — not only for having a laptop but for ordering a café macchiato.
Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. His weekly column appears on the Opinion page each Sunday. Contact him at editorial@therepublic.com. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
