Web, with a side o’ joe

Coffee shops struggle with charging for access

Steve Marcus

UNLV doctoral student Andy Harper is among the legions who use Internet service provided at no cost by many coffee shops. At the It’s a Grind store pictured, Harper says, he was told after he had been going there for weeks that he could be charged merely for taking his laptop out of its bag.

By Joe Schoenmann

Mon, Mar 17, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Steve Marcus

A sign advertises free Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, Internet service at the It’s a Grind franchise at 8470 W. Desert Inn Road in Las Vegas.

The coffee shop as social hub isn’t new. In Las Vegas there still are places for locals in morning sweat pants to gather to chitchat about the latest news, child care regimens and the like with others who look just as meticulously carefree.

But the coffee shops of today, although the change has been slow, are places older generations might not recognize.

The convenience of laptop computers and the availability of cheap wireless Internet connections have changed the coffeehouse. It is unlikely to ever change back to the days when shops were known for the quality of their beans, not the breadth of their broadband.

“People carry around their laptops; they want to be constantly connected,” says Monique Gonzales, 27, in charge of community relations for Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf franchises in Las Vegas. “It’s 2008. How can you not accommodate your customers with Wi-Fi?”

“Wi-Fi” is shorthand for wireless fidelity. Wi-Fi devices convert hard-line Internet connections into signals that can be picked up by properly equipped laptops and other electronic devices.

But here’s the counterquestion, and one that megacoffee-slinger Starbucks seems to have a handle on:

If so much business is being done in the local coffee shop, if the stores are increasingly becoming hubs of communication and socializing in our strip-mall-lined world, don’t these stores have the right to demand that customers buy something to use that Internet, those tables and chairs? Are policies changing to require payment for free wireless connections?

That question never dawned on Andy Harper until he was told never to return to an It’s A Grind franchise in Las Vegas because he hadn’t purchased enough coffee.

Harper, 37, a sociology dissertation away from getting his doctorate at UNLV, is a standard fixture at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf across Maryland Parkway from UNLV. Only recently had he found the It’s A Grind on Desert Inn Road and Durango Drive. Although the store did a lot of drive-through business, he liked it because the inside was quiet enough to get lots of work done.

He had been going there for a few weeks, Harper said, when the owner told him he had the right to charge Harper $4 “just to take my laptop out of the bag.” Harper was stunned. On a daily basis, he would spend $3 or more for a drink, leave a tip, and if he stayed more than a few hours, he always got more coffee.

“I was a little bit alarmed,” Harper said.

He called the franchise’s corporate office in California. (Spokesmen from the office did not return a call from the Las Vegas Sun. The owner of the It’s A Grind also did not return a call for comment.) The corporate people commiserated, told him the company policy was to offer free Internet access and sent him a $10 gift certificate.

“What’s funny is, I had actually recommended this place to a lot of other people,” Harper said. “Now I’m going to tell them to stay away.

“I would have spent hundreds of dollars on coffee at this place in a year’s time. Now I’m taking it somewhere else. I’m a student and poor, and I’ll go where the Internet is free.”

The point of which always brings Harper back to the same question: How can any business that offers free wireless Internet not offer it for free?

Starbucks is keenly aware of the ubiquity of the Internet and Wi-Fi’s importance to its business. In February, the company announced it would be teaming with AT&T to provide cheaper wireless service at roughly 7,000 Starbucks in the United States, including more than 100 in the Las Vegas Valley. Its current service with T-Mobile costs customers about $30 a month for a year or $40 if paid month to month.

Under its new deal with AT&T, patrons with Starbucks Cards will get up to two free hours per day. Qualifying AT&T customers also will get free access. Others can pay $3.99 for a two-hour session, and monthly membership will cost $19.99.

To those used to free Wi-Fi, maybe that doesn’t seem fair.

But just look around. It’s 9:15 a.m. Wednesday at the Starbucks on Paradise Road, just north of Flamingo. Seven people are sitting at tables, five of them gazing into laptop screens like barflies at tabletop video poker machines.

A day earlier, at the Coffee Bean across the street from UNLV, insurance salesman Fred Craddolph, 46, was doing business with Oscar Giurcovich. A portable printer attached to Craddolph’s laptop printed the insurance deal they had just hammered out.

“I got to go where my customers are,” Craddolph said, surrounded by a dozen or more people also on their laptops. More than a few were playing poker online. Another played Scrabble.

All over Las Vegas, wireless waves are beaming information to laptops at coffeehouses, where money is being made and lost.

Thursday morning, at a Starbucks at Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard, environmental consultant Erik Lundgaard, 33, and his employee Larry Carter occupied a table, their laptops wirelessly linked into the company server.

“It’s an office, really,” Lundgaard says. A 3-inch rectangular piece of plastic juts from his ear to let him take calls while using his hands to type on a keyboard. Almost every day, Lundgaard said, he meets other businesspeople at one of the Starbucks in the valley.

All of which leads back to that question: Should coffee joints charge for use?

Even the question makes Gonzales laugh.

“Who would even charge for wireless access, when you can get it so many other places these days?” she said. “How can you not provide this to people who are paying up to $5 for a beverage?”

It’s difficult to imagine going into any coffee joint — or the countless other businesses in Las Vegas such as Panera Bread, the Freakin’ Frog, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Main Street Station, some McDonald’s franchises, reJavaNate Coffee Lounge — and simply surf the Web without ordering something.

At the Starbucks on Paradise and Flamingo, lobbyist Josh Griffin is sitting with MGM Mirage’s government affairs expert, Rob Elliot. Griffin carries his laptop all over Las Vegas because he knows the coffee shop is the best spot for him to do business.

“Offices tend to put you in this ‘across the table’ kind of thing,” Griffin said. “The atmosphere of a coffee shop makes the conversation flow a lot better.”

So, why not have these meetings in a bar?

“Who says I don’t?” Griffin said, laughing. “But come 5 o’clock, I have a family and kids and stuff to do. I get stressed sitting at a bar because I’m constantly looking at my watch, knowing I have to get going.”

As the two talk strategy about some upcoming legislative issue, men in ties and women in power suits do the Wi-Fi walk.

They walk in, push aside chairs and look under tables, then move to the next table until they find a seat close enough to an outlet for them to plug in their laptops.

And the coffee? They’ll get around to that next.

Discussion: 16 comments so far…

By BC

3/17/08 at 8:20 a.m.

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It's hard for a business to provide free internet access to a patron that takes up a table for 3 or 4 hours after a $4.00 purchase.
By buzzbomb

3/17/08 at 8:56 a.m.

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These coffee shop owners have high overhead to recoup and deserve a return on their investment. For the price of coffee you should occupy a table about 20 minutes. Check your email & move on. If you're writing a novel go to a public library. Need a meeting room? They are available for RENT at many Las Vegas hotels.
By RPJ

3/17/08 at 9:20 a.m.

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I live in Las Vegas, but the coffeehouse I visit in Laguna Beach has it all figured out. They use a password for their free Wi-Fi, and when you buy something, the receipt generates a unique password for an amount of time commiserate with your purchase. End of story.
By Its_A_Grind_Coffee_House

3/17/08 at 2:32 p.m.

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My name is Marco Prestia and I'm the owner of the "It's A Grind Coffee House" in this article's picture, with Mr. Andy Harper standing outside. This person used to frequent my place of business, sitting down and ordering nothing (zero) while using his computer for many hours at a time, and completely missing the concept of free Wi-Fi, which of course is for our patronizing customers. This is the core of this article and discussion, and also the reason why Mr. Harper got upset and now is trying to make his little mess. It would be like for a restaurant having free salad buffet and somebody would go in and just have the salad, using the restroom and leave. For days and days.
A small business like mine cannot afford to be taken advantage of by people like this. Once in a while Mr. Andy Harper would purchase a small drip coffee ($1.59) but most always he would purchase nothing (zero), meanwhile taking up the space of patronizing customers. Finally when I confronted Mr. Andy Harper and explained to him the limitation of our space, he made big vocal scene stating that our sign says "free Wi-Fi", as well as using profanities towards myself and staff and in the presence of other customers, on camera and video taped. This activity made everybody uncomfortable so I was left with no other recourse than to ask Mr. Andy Harper to leave or I would call the police. After all that has been published in this article, Mr Harper failed to inform everybody that after the police were contacted he ran out of my store as fast as he could!
Currently it is hard enough in our economy for a small business to exist without an article like this one based on a personal perception from someone who could no longer take advantage of my business establishment. If he were, as he claimed to be, a paying customer, what kind of business person would ask him to leave?
Our Wi-Fi is available 24 hours 7 days a week for our patronizing customers, so please come and experience our quality of service and exceptional products.
This kind of article could have possibly in a minor way impacted my business, that's why I'm correcting it here, stating the facts, wishing that the Las Vegas Sun will give me the chance to respond on the paper with another article on the subject.
By ppatent

3/17/08 at 2:54 p.m.

Suggest removal

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, offers, "Free" use of their WiFi, in there 7 neighborhood location.

Town Center and 215, Charleston and 215, Maryland Parkway(across from UNLV), Rainbow and Patrick, Rainbow and Flamingo, Lake Mead and Tenaya and The District store located at Green Valley.

WiFi access is a way of life, and coffee shops should provide this service, free of charge.
By balabos

3/17/08 at 3:06 p.m.

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So, Marco, what you are REALLY saying is it isnt really FREE Wi-Fi. Maybe you should change the sign?
By Its_A_Grind_Coffee_House

3/17/08 at 3:20 p.m.

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balabos
have you ever been to any mexican restaurant that advertises "free salsa bar"? I have. Try to go there night after night after night,eating their salsa, using their table and chair, drinking tap water only and buy nothing. You see my point? Any decent person should have the common sense to read in between the lines of that "free salsa bar".
By RonSmith

3/17/08 at 4:30 p.m.

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Marco,

Thanks for taking the time to state your side of the story. It sounds to me like your actions were perfectly correct, given the circumstance. I have been to your coffee shop in the past, as I live close by, and the service has always been exceptional.
By Sandman

3/17/08 at 6:34 p.m.

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These people whining about not getting free unlimited Internet at a coffee shop -- while spending virtually nothing at that establishment -- are hilarious. "B-b-but it says FREE on the sign!" they say. Yet anyone with two brain cells to rub together realizes the implication is that the service is free for paying customers, not freeloaders, beggars, or the guy who buys a cheap roll of mints and expects to stay connected from 9 to 9.

Check in to any decent hotel and you'll be able to take advantage of a free continental breakfast, typically consisting of coffee, juice, danish, cereals, breads, and fruits. But walk in off the street daily and try to make off with those items and you'll be cited for shoplifting or more likely told to get out and not come back.

Want to use free Internet without having to buy a coffee? Go to the library.
By darkhorse

3/17/08 at 8 p.m.

Suggest removal

Get use to being poor with a PHD in Sociology. Try to run a business and not getting a taxpayer funded job Mr. Harper. Good Luck!
By buzzbomb

3/18/08 at 9:08 a.m.

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Sadly, Marco when you work with the public there will always 2-3% who will unfairly take advantage.
Rather than change the free wi-fi sign you may wish to add a second sign - NO LOITERING. By definition a customer is someone who buys something.

Not only does Andy Harper feel entitled, it appears that he is vindictive too!
By xmichaelx

3/18/08 at 10:18 a.m.

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I know Mr. Harper from the Coffee Bean near UNLV. He's a smart, professional guy. He's not a freeloader, nor does he use profanity.

Mr. Prestia's character assassination is childish -- period -- and his comment that "I could charge you for taking out your laptop" shows a control freak living in his own little world. Nothing in his response does anything to make me think that he is anything other than what Mr. Harper portrayed: pathetic and unprofessional.

Mr. Prestia also says: "Currently it is hard enough in our economy for a small business to exist without an article like this one based on a personal perception." Yet he doesn't even try to dispute that, in fact, one does not get free internet with purchase at his store -- instead one gets hassled. There are literally hundreds of coffee shops in Vegas doing just fine, many offering free internet. If the one Prestia runs is struggling, perhaps it's not the fault of a single person using a service that he takes pains to advertise.

No more It's a Grind for me.
By Its_A_Grind_Coffee_House

3/18/08 at 12:04 p.m.

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xmichaelx:
I never said "I could charge you for taking out your laptop". That is a pure lie. You are entitled to your own opinion about me even if it's based on somebody you know from the coffee bean. As far as I know Mr. Harper is a 37 years old student, that yelled profanities in my store, he's a freeloader and has used Mr. Joe Schoenmann, the writer of the article, not for journalism but to try to get even with me on a personal basis, but with no success at all, judging from all these comments and comments of customers in my stores.

FYI my store on Desert Inn is not struggling at all, it is actually very successful. What I wrote about existing in the present economy was referred to the present general situation.

Marco Prestia
By Anumber1

3/18/08 at 1:52 p.m.

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Mr. Harpers' professional student career leaves him too much time on his hands, but a shortage of pocket money. A JOB would solve both problems. Surely, someone in Las Vegas could use a Fabio impersonator.
By terryinvegas

3/18/08 at 8:48 p.m.

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Well to be honest, I'm relieved to read these comments. Earlier when I spoke with Marco about this thread, I was sure I would find it full of freeloaders complaining about how its false advertising or something. I'm glad that most people realize that it isn't free internet.That it was bought and paid for,for you to use during your visit to the coffee shop. It is a convenience to be able to have a meeting, catch up on some paperwork or surf the net for a bit and then be on your way. Free internet is not an invitation to move in!!If you need access to the internet for more than a couple of hours a day to conduct business than rent an office. If you have to be online 4-6-8 hours a day to do school work,then call Cox!! You are being inconsiderate of others who need a place to sit and drink their beverage or someone else who needs to use that outlet.This shouldn't be a first come-first serve situation.Its about everyone getting a turn!! In other words...don't were out your welcome!!!
By big_picture

3/27/08 at 6:15 p.m.

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I'm amazed to read that all comments so far have made it a "Harper Vs Presto" match, while NOBODY, not even the writer, Mr Schoenmann addressed the larger issue at hand here.... We are all born and brought up in corporate America, and none of us in our conscious state can ever question the fact that NOTHING comes for free- I'm sure even Mr Harper, especially with his knowledge in sociology ever doubted that. HOWEVER, the question here is if a FRANCHISE owner is allowed to disregard the rules of the corporation that his franchise belongs to and implement his own rules. If the corporation has clearly made a choice to NOT have a minimum price set, then did they consider franchise owner's standpoint while doing this? Internet in coffee shops is a new phenomena, and I think what this article has brought forth is the 'kinks' in the system, albeit at the expense of the daily user- the customer and owner both.
So far as the mud slinging goes, I notice that Mr. Harper has not participated. I wonder if this is out of choice or just ignorance of online forums (unlikely since he seems to be rather fond of the internet !) . But as for Mr Presto, I would love to see him put his money where his mouth is and dare him to post his video taped recording here so that we have more than his words alone before we start accusations on anybody. And if Mr. Harper ever reads this, I would ask him to show us his receipts if he still has them. But I DEFINITELY dont want to be the internet groupie who failed to see both sides of the situation and encouraged a cock fight where none was needed.