Seattle's City Council has passed an emergency measure to ban free Wi-Fi access within city limits, following testimony from experts and fire officials regarding their investigation of last week's explosion at the popular "Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit" coffeehouse. The measure takes effect immediately; individuals or businesses found to be operating unregulated Wi-Fi access will be subject to misdemeanor charges, confiscation of Wi-Fi equipment, and fines of up to $5,000. Seattle will also create a Wi-Fi Testing Foundation (WTF) to assess and regulate Wi-Fi access within city limits. The WTF will consider a proposal in which users of Wi-Fi would be required by law to limit their use in coffeehouses to email and text-only Web sites (or Web browsing which images turned off).

Lead fire investigator Cindy Aerie noted that while the official investigation was not yet complete, all evidence indicated the explosion was caused by the owners' re-locating one of the establishment's two high-capacity espresso machines to make room for more seating. The machine's new location was at the center of an invisible "Wi-Fi hotzone" within the building, where transmission traffic from wireless Internet users and hardware both inside the coffeehouse and from nearby homes and businesses focussed and excited water molecules in the air and within the coffee machine's boiler.

"Apparently there was no way the owners could have known the danger of the situation," said Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.

According to Aerie, "It was as if the owners placed the coffee machine inside a low-power microwave oven for several hours." Investigators believe that after hours of normal use combined with exposure to the Wi-Fi radiation, the coffee machine's water tank exploded from unexpected internal steam pressure...