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It’s a scenario every student, at-home worker and would-be novelist in the city knows well: heading to one’s favourite café, ordering a coffee, maybe a pastry, pulling out a laptop, connecting to the café’s free Wi-Fi, and typing away until the day’s assignment is complete — hours and hours later.

Some cafés, like Café Olimpico on St-Viateur St., had enough of all their tables being hogged by workers on laptops. So, about a year ago, they covered all their plugs.

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Turnover at the small café had become more and more of an issue over the years, explained Vincenzo Spinale, a barista at the café. Customers would take up four-person tables and plug themselves in for the day, ordering only one coffee.

He says the situation has improved since they covered the plugs. Customers can only work as long as their battery lasts — a few hours at best.

Café Olimpico wasn’t the only Montreal café to adopt this method.