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Coffee Houses Now Hot-Spots For Muggers
Muggers, gang bangers and other such predators have found hot-spot coffee house customers and their expensive laptop computers to be easy prey. San Francisco news media even reported the stabbing of a 40-year-old finance manager during one such robbery. In fact, recent years' total number of laptops snatched was less than twenty per year in the bay area, but at the current rate - authorities expect to see no less than seventy stolen in 2006. Criminal behavior experts consider the trend to be a natural evolution of predators. They tend to gravitate to areas of easy or street level access to items of high value - where security is low and potential victims are left vulnerable. And these thieves are having no problem finding target rich areas. Shiny new high end vehicles lining up and down the street and sprawling across large parking lots usually indicate a nearby coffee shop. Areas around coffee houses have never commanded the high level of security that banks, jewelry stores or night clubs call for. This exposes the caffeine consuming, connection seeking customers to these crafty criminals all the more. But if you think the days of gathering at your local coffee shop to surf the Web at broadband speeds while enjoying your favorite caffinated beverage are over, think again. The switch from hot-spot Internet connection to WiFi is panning out to be a long and bumpy road. Once you sift through the salesmanship of the various marketing campaigns, Verizon is turning out to be the only major player significantly active in the market, with Sprint displaying negative momentum. And even the Verizon reps are sketchy when they describe areas where the public will experience service expansion in the near future. <--> |
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