Starbucks had a moment in the media spotlight when a store called the cops on two black men accused of loitering: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/us/starbucks-philadelphia...

In response, they updated corporate policy so that you don't have to buy anything to occupy a chair: https://www.eater.com/2018/5/21/17375806/starbucks-no-purcha... https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2020/use-of-the-third-pl...

Predictably, every chair is now occupied by a sleeping homeless person.

So now their choice is to either remove all the chairs, or potentially be mean to someone, and receive a firestorm of criticism. You can see which one they chose.

See also how MTA has removed all the benches from its stations, for the same reason: https://hellgatenyc.com/train-stations-should-have-benches