Removing Chips for Late Entering Players
According to the World Tavern Poker Rules & Guidelines, TD's are expected to remove chips from players arriving late to the game.
From the Rules directly:
The player forfeits a Small & Big Blind for each blind level played, as well as any pre-registration bonus chips (they start with the base chip stack).
This means if a player arrives during 100/200 blinds, the TD takes a base chip stack (usually 10,000 chips) and deducts 300 chips before seating them. If late arrival occurs at the 200/400 level, 900 chips are deducted (and so on). Late-arriving players do not receive any bonus chips reserved for early arrival or registering online.
Under no circumstances should a TD remove an arbitrary amount of chips from a player's base stack prior to seating them.
In the rare event of players finishing the first game while the TD gets the second game started: Once those players are ready to be seated for the second game, TD's should not take chips from a player's stack under "late arrival" rules since the players are already at the venue and are simply finishing the first game.
Finally, TD's should never put "dead" or "blind" chip stacks out for players yet to arrive (or yet to be seated) for a game. Always wait until the player arrives to hand them their chips. The same applies when players are finishing up the first game when a TD has started the second game. Players coming from the first game should not have chips "blinded in".