It's not just Westwood. Reader John Holton writes from the Atlanta suburbs:
Borders seems to be getting rid of the comfy chairs and places to sit in
general in all of their stores. We live in Cobb County, Georgia (hardly an
area with a huge homeless population) and the only place to sit is in the
café (though they have left the benches in the periodicals section). Makes
it kind of tough to check out a few chapters of a book you might be
interested in buying. Maybe they've decided that they don't want to be the
community gathering place anymore.
Reader Bruce McFadden is thankful for small favors:
I share your upset at the disappearing Border's comfy
chairs. At least they let you plug in your laptop now (if you can find
one of the approximately two outlets in the Cafe upstairs) -- they used
to claim plugging in a laptop was a fire-hazard. When I asked when the
last time was a laptop actually caught fire, they looked at me like I
was a terrorist.
Here's the problem with the comfy chair revolution: It raises customers' expectations. The extreme case (so far as I know) is the woman who made a huge media fuss a few years ago because a clerk in the Westwood Borders told her not to breastfeed her baby in one of the comfy chairs. The store apologized, but I guess they don't have that problem any more.
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