Over many years, local McDonald’s, Bloom and Pete’s coffee shops have become sanctuaries for high school students to study, socialize or relax.

Once school ends, many local shops are swamped with students seeking a quiet place to get some work done and blow off some steam.

Harmless, right? But not to some coffee shop owners.

More often than not, these study sessions that are intended to be for a couple hours turn into evening-long social hours.

Shop owners express frustration with the fact people pay a few dollars to utilize a space that comes with furniture, air conditioning/heat and restrooms, for hours on end.

Recently, the coffee giant Starbucks was in deep water after the police were called on two African American men in a Philadelphia shop for utilizing the space without making a purchase.

This recent event among many others has gotten people thinking: “How long is it OK to stay at a coffee shop?”

The answer should be as long as you want – with some special circumstances. You buy something, just for the sake of helping out the business. It’s only fair you help them out with some of the costs you are helping them incur by using their space.

The bottom line is that these establishments should let customers take as long as they want – as long as there’s space.

Companies should reserve the right to put time restrictions on customers in the event of a busy day.

When some people have been sitting at the same table for hours on end and new customers have nowhere to sit when they arrive is when this phenomenon becomes a problem.

I know I’m not alone when I say that everyone should have the right to be in these establishments for as long as they want, so long as everyone else gets a chance to utilize the space.

There is nothing worse than getting to a Starbucks only to find that every table has been filled for hours on end, giving no chance for others to study and relax as well.