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New rules for Starbucks! Items or traffic police station 1 hour away from your seat?!

Published: 2026-04-06 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/04/06, ▲ Click to pay attention| Daily Boutique Coffee Culture Magazine Coffee Factory has always been a headache for many chain brands for consumers to occupy their homes for a long time, especially for Starbucks, which uses "third space" as its selling point. Therefore, in order to avoid the seats in the store being occupied by customers for a long time and affecting the turnover rate of the store, some netizens paid attention to it.

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Long-term occupancy by consumers has always been a headache for many chain brands, especially for Starbucks, which uses "third space" as its selling point. Therefore, in order to prevent the seats in the store from being occupied by customers for a long time and affecting the store's turnover rate, some netizens noticed that Starbucks seems to have introduced a new rule to improve this situation.

According to photos taken by customers, a notice was posted in a Starbucks store in China Taiwan, which listed two precautions for customers to cooperate, stating that if a customer leaves his seat for more than one hour, the clerk will record and record the entire process., and move the personal belongings left on the seat, temporarily keep them or hand them over to the police for disposal as appropriate.

After the post was released, it quickly attracted the attention and heated discussion of many netizens. Customers who visit the store frequently said that Starbucks, which provides comfortable seats and a quiet atmosphere, has always been a gathering place for office workers and student parties. Once they need to temporarily leave their seats for something, they will put their laptops, schoolbags, etc. on the table or chair, indicating that the location is currently in use.

However, some customers who use personal belongings to occupy the place may simply throw it away and disappear, causing other consumers who need seats to have to look at the empty seats and sigh and complain on social media about the poor store experience. Moreover, the willful behavior of the occupants not only affects the normal operation of the store and lowers the turnover rate, but also forces employees to distract themselves from looking at the personal belongings on the vacant seats for fear of accidents such as theft of property in the store.

Therefore, after learning that the brand had introduced the new rules, many people were very supportive of this and believed that this move might protect the dining rights of other consumers."Finally, every time I go, I think it's a library" and "20 minutes away from the seat is already too much, another hour? "," The person ordering drinks has no seat, but the seat is filled with bags and computers. It's really time to take care of it."

Some people even called on other local chain brands to "learn from Starbucks" and introduce regulations to restrict consumers 'long-term occupancy based on various circumstances to improve the dining environment in the store.

However, in July last year, Starbucks introduced rules such as holding seats for 15 minutes and staff members taking the initiative to assist in assembling tables when full seats are available. However, regular customers reported that these measures had achieved little actual results and that occupancy in the store had not decreased.

Based on this, some netizens are not optimistic about the new rules announced by Starbucks soon, and directly pointed out loopholes,"How does the clerk determine that a customer has left his seat for more than an hour?" In addition, some people believe that Starbucks employees may move important belongings such as bags and notebooks without the permission of the owner, which may cause complaints from customers or trigger conflicts between employees and customers.

In response, some media asked Starbucks about the situation. Employees interviewed said that the official new regulations will be implemented in all stores starting from April 1, and store staff will inspect the guest area from time to time. If a customer is found to have left the seat for too long, a note will be posted on the table and the current time will be recorded. If it is noticed that the customer has not returned to the seat for more than an hour, the new regulations will be dealt with.

Picture from: Internet

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