At the time, I had all tables with people sitting at them. The round table had 6, one 4-top had 4, another had 3, and another had 2. The two top was occupied. The long 6-top had one elderly person at it that usually sit there.
Yesterday, I was working. We had just had a huge rush (on a Thursday afternoon, people pouring out the door, wtf?), and I had one table out of them finally pay and leave. Cool. The avaliable table was a four top. I had a group of nine walk back into my section when I was taking tickets at the register. I wtf'd as I didn't have a table available for them. I went back there, and they had taken up the avaliable 4-top, two of the seats on the table next to them (literally sitting at the table this poor couple is at. Apparently they 'offered' the spot, but who in their right mind says "OH YEAH WE'LL TAKE YOUR HALF-TABLE ASDFGHJKL"). They had also cannibalized chairs from another table (I think the long table for 6)
All in all, they had 9 people at a table and a half, and even if that WAS ok, the area would only seat 6.
I stopped and said "I'm sorry, we can't have you seated like that. It violates the local fire codes" (Which it does, along with making it impossible for me to serve them anything.) They start saying "SO YOU WON'T SERVE US?" or somesuch garbage. My memory can be horrible when it comes to other people's dialogue. I tell them that it's out of my hands, but if they want to wait a few minutes, I'm sure we could find them a seat. One of them turned to me and said "So you want us to walk out!?" And I said "No, but if you'd like to wait, I'm sure we'll have space" So they gurglesnarled and walked out. Sure, I lost a big table, but I found out later from our cook that they tried to do the same thing last week and walked out, too.
Sigh.