Coffee shop / waiting room franchises. Whose space is it?

[digitaltoast]

Putting aside whether or not I should even bother to acquaint with someone so annoying, can you settle something for once and for all?

A friend has been banging on for ages about how some people dare to come into waiting room with coffee shops and just sit and take "his" seating space up. Here's a bit of one letter he recently wrote to a franchise.

I regularly visit Puccino's on [a railway station] and buy a coffee and a croissant and like to sit on the stools and look out the window at the cold, coffee-less commuters. But some of them rudely come in for the warmth but don't buy anything! Sometimes these freeloaders take up valuable seating space. Occasionally I have had to stand with my coffee and croissant when seats are occupied by people stealing your space.

As I always understood it, the coffee shop franchise gives the right to vend coffee in a public area, not to take that whole are over for the exclusive use of the coffee shop. Any idea if this is correct? At least I can stop him banging on and on about it (although it would be interesting to know anyway!)

 

[Barn]

Putting aside whether or not I should even bother to acquaint with someone so annoying, can you settle something for once and for all?

A friend has been banging on for ages about how some people dare to come into waiting room with coffee shops and just sit and take "his" seating space up. Here's a bit of one letter he recently wrote to a franchise.



As I always understood it, the coffee shop franchise gives the right to vend coffee in a public area, not to take that whole are over for the exclusive use of the coffee shop. Any idea if this is correct? At least I can stop him banging on and on about it (although it would be interesting to know anyway!)

I guess the rules depend on the terms of the lease but at London Bridge there is a sign on the doors to some of the platform coffee shops stating that passengers may use the area with no obligation to purchase.