Having just reserved a hotel for my inlaws and having worked in hospitality for the better part of a decade, I can predict with absolute clarity what is going to happen: 1) A municipality with an income shortage and a large hospitality industry is going to be lobbied by a hospitality trade group. 2) That municipality is going to go on a fact-finding mission to determine how pervasive AirBnB is and estimate how much hospitality tax is being avoided through the use of "unlicensed bed and breakfasts." 3) The district attorney of that municipality is going to hit AirBnB with a discovery motion to reveal the addresses of all AirBnB hosts within the city limits for the period of discovery. 4) The district attorney of that municipality is going to sue AirBnB for the taxes owed and enjoin every AirBnB host under conspiracy charges. 5) Here it gets muddy - you can either squeeze the individual hosts to get them to pay taxes or you can get them to flip on AirBnB to up the ante towards penalties and civil charges. 6) Every other municipality with any AirBnB presence watches the outcome and when AirBnB inevitably settles, they'll be on it like piranhas on a bleeding pig. Yeah, you're "beating the system" but "the system" is paying for its convention centers and buses and tourist attractions and infrastructure using the taxes paid by licensed hotels. Most cities aren't going to give the first shit about having someone stay in your spare bedroom every now and then so long as you're licensed and paying taxes. Not licensed and paying taxes? Uh oh. Based on the article, I'd say New York is cresting out of (2) and lining up on (3). Expect San Francisco, Los Angeles and New Orleans to follow shortly. After that, expect hired gun law firms to start soliciting every tourist town from Juneau to Encinitas for similar work, using templates and prior experience. In 2008, the average hospitality tax for a night at a hotel was $12.39. As of June, AirBnB has booked 10 million nights. That's a hundred and twenty four million dollars in taxes avoided. There's gold in them thar hills.
Surely an easy way to the bottom of this, given that AirBnB already collects a fee from hosts, is for the city to tax that fee. Unless, of course, they actually care about why hotels are licensed and regulated, in which case, fan hits shit. But as long as they just want money, isn't taxing internet businesses is starting to the norm? California finally passed enforcement on the sales tax for amazon this year.
"Tax" is certainly the big impetus. "Regulate" is the other. Every hotel, motel, bed'n'breakfast and hostel within a city's jurisdiction has to play by the rules; I'm sure they're more than a little miffed that AirBnB allows homeowners to completely skip out on that. Just like Uber is currently facing an existential threat from jurisdictions that established hack licenses for a reason, AirBnB is about to face an existential threat from jurisdictions that regulate overnight hospitality for a reason. In both cases, the companies were founded by people who didn't know the first thing about their future industries but knew that by sprinkling a little webby goodness on it VC funds could be had. The Amazon thing is interesting. It wasn't so much that California decided to start enforcing things, it's that Amazon decided to start paying tax.
Unless the person staying there is unruly or breaking a real law, I don't think this should be enforced. That said, if Airbnb knows that they are providing a service that is illegal in many places they need to make that very clear.
Agreed, but even if they haven't been unruly I still think the 'transient hotel' thing is reasonable to not want in your building. I know my neighbors wouldn't exactly feel comfortable if they knew my apartment was being rented out by strangers every month. I think the owner's interest in preventing anything before it happens makes a lot of sense. I live in a 44 unit apartment now. Biggest in my life. And I'll tell you, we've had the lobby x-mas tree stolen. We've had randoms coming in off the street. There is a familiarity with a building and its denizens that one gets when they live in an apartment complex. And with that comes an immeasurable amount of security which is often imperceptible, but valuable nonetheless. This is something that I would have never thought about without my new apartment living experience, but just think back tng to when you lived on Madison. Would you want your neighbors to be renting to different people each weekend? I don't know. Most likely you would meet some cool people and everyone would be copacetic. But for an owner? Not a great idea. Seems to me that the lessor should put words down in the lease that allows for this type of thing to happen. Perhaps limit the amount of rentable days per year, or even just have it in writing that you've signed off on allowing people to do so. Really, it could be beneficial to them, because the apartment could take a cut of the profit. Which gets me to thinkin'. AirBnB should be soliciting apartment buildings, and setting up check-in counters in condo lobbies to become the standard in transient living accommodation.
Especially in a situation where an apartment building might have layered security levels -- everyone can get in the lobby, anyone who lives in building B can get in building B, but only those who live on the third floor can get to the third floor -- and part of subletting your rooms to someone would involve giving them access to certain private areas. That's really the only argument I can see that would make this rationally illegal. I may be missing something.Agreed, but even if they haven't been unruly I still think the 'transient hotel' thing is reasonable to not want in your building. I know my neighbors wouldn't exactly feel comfortable if they knew my apartment was being rented out by strangers every month.