A cafe in the San Francisco Bay area is taking a stand: On the weekends, during the month of February, wireless access will be shut down and no laptops allowed.
Sal Bednarz, owner of the Actual Cafe near Golden Gate Park has decided to try this social experiment in an effort to spur his neighborhood customers to get to know each other a little bit better. He founded the cafe to create more of a meeting/social space for his community and wants to try this out to see how folks respond. Since it's not inspired by trying to move customers through and keeping seats free (like what caused a number of NYC-area cafes to outlaw laptops during certain hours last year), it will be interesting to see if this does influence folks into talking to each other more, engaging and taking back the space from those using the cafe as an office outside of the office.
If you're in the area and have a chance to check it out or participate in Bednarz 'experiment,' please comment and let us know your thoughts!