Coffee house has right to charge overstaying fee

[phantomfiddler]

Right on ! I had an a*r*s*h*o*l* come in to my place , take up 5 seats with all his gear, ask the waitress for the password, and get free internet for 5.5 hours on one 25 Bht bottle of water ! Down with the parasites

[Jingthing]

Just having a casual business related chat is one thing but when you sales meetings and contracts being signed come on now get a room!

[nithisa78]

Why not do it this way?

You see a business meeting happening.

Staff goes up and says business meetings allowed but you must pay this fee per hour IN ADVANCE.

So pay the one hour fee right now ... or leave, and if you go over one hour, pay again.

Thank you!

They could also block spaces for future bookings, paying in advance of course.

Do it at one of the Malls. No such problem. I just over tip, even at the Malls.

[English 1]

Well I have never heard of this situation before but I fully support the Cafe.

Customers should only stay for a reasonable time after finishing their Food and/or Beverages.

To set up a Business meeting attended by 4 persons is a Liberty.

To make a charge lawful they probably need to have a notice clearly in view.

[English 1]

Well I have never heard of this situation before but I fully support the Cafe.

Customers should only stay for a reasonable time after finishing their Food and/or Beverages.

To set up a Business meeting attended by 4 persons is a Liberty.

To make a charge lawful they probably need to have a notice clearly in view.

[oneday]

Good ruling...as long as the charges are CLEARLY displayed at the place of business and/or sufficient warning is given.

A business has the right to charge whatever they want for whatever. If people don't like it then that business will go out of business.

Capitalism 101.

[Baerboxer]

Coffee shops should not be involved in determining what people are talking about on their tables. Rather, they should enforce minimum purchase requirements. If I'm in a coffee shop, I order at least 1 drink per hour that I occupy a table. That seems a reasonable requirement per person or they could impose a minimum baht per hour per table order requirement. The coffee shop doesn't care what is being done at the table, as long as it isn't disturbing other customers and so long as the table is generating adequate revenues.

An hour for one coffee is WAY too long. Twenty minutes max (or maybe 30 at slack times).

And are you going to apply that to bars to? Get rid of all the Indians sharing one beer?

Twenty minute per alcoholic drink, 10 for soft drinks.

And restaurants. The minutes will be calculated on the size of meal, number of courses or price?

What will you do - get a time printed ticket on entry and be penalized if you are overtime when you leave.

It's annoying when schoolkids crowd all the seats; and when you get some farangs spread out with their laptops, power plugs etc occupying the space of four whilst making one small coffee last hours. But very hard not to go to far the other way. Relies on common sense which is a rare commodity these days.

In this instance, the manager played fair, but the customer still had to complain, presumably as he felt affronted someone dared challenge what he wanted to do.

But who decides what's fair and reasonable, what is the acceptable times ? Hopefully no one suggests social media.

[Baerboxer]

Just having a casual business related chat is one thing but when you sales meetings and contracts being signed come on now get a room!

I agree. Hardly the most conducive place to conduct a real business discussion.

Have you noticed how many "financial advisers" are keen to suggest meeting in coffee shops?

[Oil Baron]

Right on ! I had an a*r*s*h*o*l* come in to my place , take up 5 seats with all his gear, ask the waitress for the password, and get free internet for 5.5 hours on one 25 Bht bottle of water ! Down with the parasites

Jeez! Are you serious? I think we're on the same wavelength here. I'm surprised you didn't chase him. Hand him his water with a smile, whilst showing him the door. Parasites indeed.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Oil Baron

[Kannikapor88]

These ridiculous overpriced Coffee Places on every corner - its coffee for Gods sake ... But if people gonna have a business meeting why go in a Coffee house - mind boggling ...

[slapout]

Just for argument sake, take turns having business meeting at various employee residense, rent office space that has conference room, reserve resturant room large enough for meeting after table has been cleaned off, or go to the park and set on the grass in a round robin circle, conference calls are useful at times,as are '' all in favor say aye''

thier must be a multiplitude of trainee managers, manergers, HR personel. with addittional solutioms ask the local village folk they could have the problem defined and sorted while your looking for a table to plot your fat a.. down at. wakes/funerals have lots of chairs /tables/drink and food/ you might consider that route , but do leave a little in donation box.

[MockingJay]

If this would root out the real freeloaders once and for all I would be fully in for this, yet I have doubts if this ruling will have any effect at all. Cafe staff and owners should grow balls and be taught and allowed to tell freeloaders to bugger off in a friendly, but insistent way that leaves no room for interpretion.

Edited July 18, 2015 by MockingJay

[JohnThailandJohn]

The way most people use coffee shops they should just charge by the hour and make the coffee free.

[konying]

These ridiculous overpriced Coffee Places on every corner - its coffee for Gods sake ... But if people gonna have a business meeting why go in a Coffee house - mind boggling ...

I guess you do not know much about coffee?

[Headgame]

This is a good one.

Not enforcing an overstay charge has worked reasonably well for Starbucks throughout the world.

Coffee houses have always been gathering places just like the corner pub. Maybe some don't understand the concept of welcoming customers to their establishment. It always works out in the long run if you have customers. It's the not having customers that causes problems for businesses.

[SaamBaht]

The tutoring gets really annoying, as it often gets real loud. I do get irritated when one student takes up a huge area with books and computers and papers and tablets and stays forever.

[balo]

I admit that I sometimes sit inside a coffee shop for more than 2 hours surfing on my laptop. Often I buy coffee 2 times if I sit for hours. I would avoid coffee shops in the future if I knew they would charge me 1000 baht per hour. Too strict if you ask me , they only sat there for 2 hours.

[fish fingers]

Its really annoying when you want to sit down and one person with one coffee is hogging a whole table for an hour with bags of shopping, waiting for whoever.

Not sure how you solve this problem tho. I suppose when its busy you have cd implement an hr's grace max after the first order then its up to the staff to free the table up.

Edited July 18, 2015 by fish fingers

[Artisi]

The tutoring gets really annoying, as it often gets real loud. I do get irritated when one student takes up a huge area with books and computers and papers and tablets and stays forever.

Simple solution, join them at the table and order a coffee, make a few louder than normal pretend phone calls - they will soon get the message (maybe).

[Artisi]

Right on ! I had an a*r*s*h*o*l* come in to my place , take up 5 seats with all his gear, ask the waitress for the password, and get free internet for 5.5 hours on one 25 Bht bottle of water ! Down with the parasites

Jeez! Are you serious? I think we're on the same wavelength here. I'm surprised you didn't chase him. Hand him his water with a smile, whilst showing him the door. Parasites indeed.

Disconnect the wi-fi after 30 minutes or so - easy solution, you might upset a few customers but most of those are probably free-loading anyway.

[Artisi]

Pathetic business practice. I'll be laughing at their faces when their company goes bust in less than two years.

With free-loaders clogging up the place and maybe paying for a bit of coffee, the company is already heading down the track of going broke anyway.

Owners should have the right to charge for renting their space at their discretion, in quiet times they can turn a blind eye - in busy times it should be made clear there is a charge for long term space rental.

Can you sit in an internet shop all day using their connection for a miserable payment - no way, it's rightfully time limited.

[wwest5829]

Fortunately I have found a coffee shop (two locations in malls) who offer free wifi so, while the wife is shopping I sit, drink coffee and cruise the Internet or read a book on my iPad. I do understand when the business is being taken advantage of and there is demand for seats by their paying customers. Hmm, I also can see some benefit to having seats filled as an advertisement of the business popularity...it all depends doesn't it?

[djjamie]

The new 24 hour coffee house in Khon Kaen has free loaders too. Not that it matters as the place is usually empty.

I have come in the morning to comment on TVF while enjoying a coffee and have come back in the afternoon to comment on TVF again and the same people are till in the same seats..

Usually students and I don;t blame them. The place is bright, open and air conditioned and students living in 2000 baht a month rooms would enjoy this environment.

However if running a business it is not conducive to stimulating a profit and encourages others to do the same.

On Bangkok road in KK there are 1000's of students and with the coffee shop only seating 50 maybe it would not be a great to have the place full of students that buy one coffee every 8 hours.

[chingmai331]

Must post credit card number prior to service. Rent the table, buy the coffee. Check out when finished, sign receipt. Each merchant decides cost per hour per table. Why let the spongers, whether HISO or lazy expats, hog the tables and WIFI waves at not cost?

[Thakkar]

For most businesses, the most difficult part is getting the customer in the door. Once they're in and you fail to make money off them, the problem is in the way you run your business, not the customer.

Anything that smacks of penalisation, as in the example of this news story, is a bad businesses move. It subtly antagonises even the customers who don't stay long. It makes your business look unfriendly to all the other customers (which is most of your customers) who aren't abusing the place. As the much-aggrieved business owner you might think that surely these reasonable people would understand why you have to do this, but why should they? They have their own life problems; they don't care about your problems.

There are many subtle ways to discourage free-loading. Charging, or even threatening to charge 1000 baht an hour isn't one.

If you want to know how, please buy my book: The Secret Art of Subtle Arsehollery.

T

[Lissos]

Many seem to have outed the 'core' problem but have not suggested the solution to it. The core problem really is space (lack of it) and seats (lack of them) rather than students, teachers or expats, due to pokey little cafes being the norm now. It is corect that traditionally coffee houses were not 'down and go' but places where people spent many hours (even the night).

In Greece today, most of the male population over 60 seem to practically 'live' in the Cafe Neo, nattering with each other or just watching things go by for hours and hours on end, nursing that Coffee and Glass of Water. From what I've seen, they make one last a loooong looomg time in these places.

I think that the suggestion that they buy something every hour would cause a 'real' revolution over there. In Egypt, similar, smoking Sheesha. If it gets busy, they place chairs and tables onto the street to adapt to demand.

Old paintings of 18th century coffee houses in London show that hey were big halls, easily accomodating many people for the hours and hours on end of political discussion and newspaper reading over coffee that went on. What we are seeing now is the rise of pokey little 'designer' cafes with four to five tables max and a model of wanting pit stop customers not staying long.

Don't want wi-fi using students and expats?

Don't offer Wi-Fi in a pokey little cafe with four tables then. Or, charge separately for Wi-Fi (a trap I walked right into in Bangkok not long ago but then again I was in Banglamphu at the time, and 'assumed' that my purchase of a rather overpriced coffee in an air con room would mean I could catch up with mail comfortably, until being told it was a per minute charge if I wanted the password. scheming bas***ards...lol). Cafes need to get with the program, the reality that they always were places of long stay, and in the modern world with the internet some people want to bury their head in a study book or tablet for a few hours 'while' simultaneously in a social setting, and it gives cafe owners business. If they need more income but hope to offer a social atmosphere / refuge of sorts, provide more seating.

If they don't (or can't) do that then yes perhaps it us time to end grumbling on the quiet and make it clear upon purchase that common sense with usage time is expected. Some people have that, some don't. I have it. If I'm in a Cafe with a friend in the UK and we've finished our coffees, are still chatting but the place suddenly gets busy and I see customers in the queue looking around for where on earth they are going to sit then I suggest we move on and free up the seats / tables so as not to be selfish.

Or, we buy another round. For people studying with a book or internet use though, it is very easy to lose track of how much time they've been at it.

[Broeno]

So Thai hospitality means now "welcome, but better come with a lawyer".

[theguyfromanotherforum]

I can't believe how many tards are supporting a coffee shop here. It's a coffee shop and overpriced bad coffee gives you the right to sit. I agree that some customers are annoying and selfish, but a whole purpose of a coffee shop is to be a meeting place. Someone is taking longer than usual to drink their coffee? Sorry, but that's the cost of doing business. And 2000 baht charge is ridiculous. It's 360 baht for 2 hour foot massage. Holiday Inn Express is 1500 including breakfast. A coffee shop like this will be closed soon due to boycott. It's pure arrogance.

[whaleboneman]

Right on ! I had an a*r*s*h*o*l* come in to my place , take up 5 seats with all his gear, ask the waitress for the password, and get free internet for 5.5 hours on one 25 Bht bottle of water ! Down with the parasites

unplug the router

[neeray]

Coffee shops should not be involved in determining what people are talking about on their tables. Rather, they should enforce minimum purchase requirements. If I'm in a coffee shop, I order at least 1 drink per hour that I occupy a table. That seems a reasonable requirement per person or they could impose a minimum baht per hour per table order requirement. The coffee shop doesn't care what is being done at the table, as long as it isn't disturbing other customers and so long as the table is generating adequate revenues.

The purchase of "one coffee per hour" is not sufficient revenue to cover the coffee shop's overhead.