There are generally only 3 things that disturb me at the chessboard, and most likely everyone else aswell.

1. Young kids, they usually stay quiet inside the hall, but someone in the kibitz room they can make quite a ruckus, they usually quiet down after being told once though.
2. Fat people, you all know what I'm talking about. The one that makes a noise all the time, when he's breathing, when he's moving his piece, when he's getting up, sitting down, moving. Everything demands a noise from him.
3. Old people, they sometimes have a habit of playing with his loose teeth's, has a foot flip flopping up and down on the floor and so forth. And either they are just assholes, or they are just to senile and deaf to hear what they are doing.

So my proposal to bring the proper etiquette back into chess is to ban the overweight and elderly players.

Laramonet wrote on 11/16/11 at 09:18:50:

Complicated topic, I know. There is no perfect solution. Competitive chess is a sport. It's one of the core principles of sports to decide as many matches as possible "on the playing field". If you decide to make it possible to change a result after the game you open Pandora's Box. People will start to see it as a second chance to score points.

In case of said player, you could make an announcement immediately before the start of the match that "due to recent events" you would like to remind everybody that "the following things are not allowed and won't be tolerated ...". Then this guy can't say he wasn't aware, and you can skip the first couple of sanction steps, for example go to a time penalty immediately. It has to e announced though, because you must treat all players equally.

Regarding sending a player out:
I don't know how the rules are where you live, but here the referee has full control of the whole playing area. He can send every spectator out (You are a player as long as you are actively playing in your game. After that you become a spectator.) if he deems it necessary. He could theoretically even call the cops to have them enforce it, although I doubt anybody really would do that.

If he continues to behave like an idiot, it will finally come down to the team to clean the mess up. So you will simply have to stop nominating him, no matter how strong a player he is.

Hi Gorath,
      While not being able to fault your logic, it does have the drawback that other players in the room, playing on after the offenders game has finished, have to suffer the disturbance if he refuses to leave the playing room. In my role as captain, and therefore joint arbiter, I did ask the offender to stop making a noise while his game was in play. Then after his game had finished, other players, as well as myself, asked him to stop disturbing us. At this point, following the logic you put forward, there is no possible sanction on him. I did get to the point of asking him to leave but ultimately, there was no comeback on him. Several games were affected by his arrogant, selfish behaviour and because his game was finished, there is no penalty. Since then he has received my full opinion, backed up by the club and the threat of default backed up by the league. However, I hope he won't but if he should behave in exactly the same way again, with the logic you describe, he will again suffer no penalty on the night. Therefore, he'll be free to disturb and potentially ruin another evening. Hopefully the concern expressed around it should mean that if he does, some further sanction would take place (ban or non-selection for a period). It still strikes me as unfair to the rest of the generally well behaved players that another match would have to be affected before anything can be done.

I encountered two significant cases of disturbing the opponent and the people on the boards nearby this month:

1.) A player offered a draw 8 times when it was his opponent's move(!). This means he interrupted his thought process. I have no idea why the victim didn't call the arbiter. The offender wasa very experienced player. I'm sure he did it on purpose.
I informed the arbiter about the situation after the 4th time. So he unofficially knew what was going on and intercepted the offender when he saw him doing it again for what turned out to be the 8th time. The arbiter made him understand that he will stop this immediately.
Totally unexcusable, but also wrong behaviour by the victim. He should have politely reminded him to wait for his own move to offer a draw the first time. The 2nd time he should have called the arbiter.

2) During a team match an older man playing on board 1 repeatedly made noise. I suppose he himself simply didn't hear it. It was one of those typical nervous reactions people do unconsciously: While he was thinking he had his feet sort of folded into each other and one of them was moving back and forth quickly. He was wearing leather shoes, so a clearly noticeable rubbing noise was created. 
I was sitting only 1 meter away and was drawn out of concentration in a critical position. I notified the arbiter, but TBH it was more a reflex. I was thinking about what to do when the arbiter came to my board. 
The arbiter verified my claim (I was right) and after his move asked the gentleman out. He explained the situation, but the Russian based player didn't see the problem.
15 minutes later he did it again. I stood up, touched his shoulder. It happened to be his opponent's move, but this was no factor. I also would have interrupted him now. I kindly explained it again and asked him to please stop it. In hindsight I'm surprised I talked to him so politely. I would have expected me to remind him in clear words that he is close to second warning by the arbiter if he doesn't stop making that noise.
He shrugged my complaint away but made sure not to create the noise again. The whole incident cost me at least 10 minutes.

I think the food obsession is getting obsessive now ! I'm sure they'll manage to eat and drink without disturbing the opponent.
I played again last night, captaining our B team, again with the same guy in it. However, this time he was quiet, almost sheepish, throughout the evening. Our club secretary had backed up my email, with one to all club members. This guy apparently responded by citing all kinds of instances of poor behaviour by email. He could not however answer the secretary's reply that two wrongs don't make it right.
The league committee have all agreed about the defaulting of a persistent offender. It is not clear what would happen if the offender's game had finished. My contention is that his game result may stand for grading but that his team would lose a point for the match purposes. Part of the committee agreed, the other half would want to consider the exact circumstances. Still, as Smyslov_Fan's tag line suggests.....

Thanks, I guess I could have looked up "chinese raisin" myself. 

Regarding the pic of the table: it's not clear from the picture that the players took the food from there to the board. But the tin with the raisins is clearly at the board while the game is in progress.

Well spotted, fling! You can see Hou Yifan's silver cup of chinese raisins on the board next to her in the first picture. 
Btw, what makes Chinese raisins so special? Are they made from grapes?