Branches of Starbucks in New York City have now turned against one of the sector’s least favourite class of customer – the ‘campers’, the ones who open up their laptops, sometimes order a coffee and sometimes do not, and proceed to dominate a table for several hours.

It is one of the major factors in the big debate over whether café-bars should offer free wi-fi or not – is it a service which every customer expects these days, or is it an invitation to have the venue filled at busy times with unprofitable tables?

In New York, several Starbucks sites have now adopted a strategy against the ‘laptop loungers’ – they have covered their power outlets, forcing customers to use their laptop batteries, rather than the company’s power supply. That, it seems, is effective in moving the ‘campers’ on after a short while.