
Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules - tomsaffell
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/airbnb-is-suing-hometeown-san-francisco-to-block-rental-rules
======
holografix
Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing
economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing,
your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a
service.

Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself
just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive
then Airbnb?

Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income, Airbnb is still on a
legal gray zone.

This won't last forever. Uber drivers will unionise, tenants who live around
Airbnb hosts will pressure the government for legislation and so will hotel
providers.

Uber is pivoting to logistics. What's Airbnb doing? Wouldn't surprise me if
they soon build their own hotel.

~~~
spikels
Sharing may not be the best name but there is clearly value to be gained by
using valuable assets like cars, housing and spare time more intensively.
What's fundamentally wrong with this?

~~~
geebee
Well, this is the angle that airbnb likes to push, that people are renting out
a "spare" bedroom that wouldn't otherwise be used, or are renting out their
place while they're on vacation. In other words, there is no displacement,
there is just efficiency.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working out that way - housing that was
used for permanent residence is now getting converted into airbnb rentals.
People are now acquiring properties in order to have a "spare room" \- ands
those "spare rooms" would absolutely be occupied by a long term resident if
they were not being used as short term hotel-like rentals. For instance,
people are now using the anticipated income from a spare kid's bedroom to
outbid a person who would have otherwise used that bedroom for, well, a kid.
Kids cost a bundle, and they don't pay anything like a well heeled tourists
for the right to occupy their bedrooms. In a place like SF, where everything
goes to a bidding war, a family with the extra costs of kids has very little
hope going up against an investor who plans to convert the house into a hotel.

BTW, I absolutely agree that some of this really is efficiency (spare rooms,
people on vacation). But at this point, I think it's pretty clear that airbnb
is driving displacement and conversion on a large scale.

It is immensely reasonable (yes, in my opinion) for cities to pass laws that
ensure a proper mix of housing, including housing for families with children.
These laws are not obsolete just because someone wrote a Rails app where you
can type in an address and click a "Create Hotel" button.

I overwhelmingly agree that SF needs to build more, but I don't think this
basic reality will change. SF's population of children has plummeted in my
lifetime, from about 22% to below 14% now. Airbnb is hardly the only factor,
but I believe it is making the problem worse.

~~~
ap3
Look, no one has a right to live in a particular city. You can buy or you can
rent, and if you can pay then you can stay.

To your complaint about people factoring in future rental income - what about
people betting on future price increases like during the housing bubble?
Should people not do math?

As to your last stat, maybe kids just grow up and then more adults moved in to
work in tech - would that explain the pct drop or are you blaming airbnb?

~~~
matthewowen
Sure, no-one has a right to a particular city. But cities do get to set zoning
laws, and do get to say things like "no, you can't turn houses into quasi-
hotels". If you don't believe there should be zoning laws or restrictions on
use, make the case for that. Otherwise, this is a pragmatic question of how we
best shape cities to balance individual liberties against people's reasonable
expectations of quality of life.

------
swehner
First amendment, for sure.

I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other
short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email
the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The
City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From
[http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-
regi...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-registered-
hosts-pay-fines/))

So "their" "free speech rights" are "violated" because they have to post
registration numbers.

~~~
ggreer
It's nothing so silly. As a counterpoint to the Examiner's piece, please read
Airbnb's post about the proposed law: [https://www.airbnbaction.com/an-update-
for-our-community-in-...](https://www.airbnbaction.com/an-update-for-our-
community-in-san-francisco/)

Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated
content. The city also wants Airbnb to hand over users' personal information.
Both the EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology think that these
requirements violate federal law. (Though EPIC thinks otherwise.)

~~~
ot
> Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated
> content.

Airbnb gets paid for the rentals, not for the listings. Also, they actively
control the content (try putting an URL in the listing). Mistaking Airbnb for
a publishing medium for user-generated content seems disingenuous at best.

~~~
bduerst
I think it's a false dichotomy to say they're either/or - why cant't they be
both?

If they're actively controlling user generated content, then it's obvious they
benefit from better content.

------
mc32
When does Campoes term out anyway?

There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities
to regulate business within their jurisdiction.

As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to
renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and
cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise
illegal. It's not confiscation, but it also kerbs your ability let your
property as you wish --and I say this as a renter who arguably would benefit
from this politician's policies.

PS move HQ to Brisbane and take the corp taxes with you.

~~~
sp332
But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless
parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to
the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer
neighborhood.

~~~
cstejerean
Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting
involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

~~~
paulmd
Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with
transient populations.

For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a
tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal
occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The
problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since
antiquity. Skeezy/short term motels have a reputation for a reason, and are
regulated for even better ones. You yourself may be a perfectly upstanding
citizen who just couchsurfs for a weekend to check out a cool area, but others
are not.

It's unreasonable to expect neighbors to file daily lawsuits against their
neighbors to keep a modicum of peace. It's a known problem and it's perfectly
reasonable to preempt it by either requiring a formal lease with a minimum
term of a month or more, or requiring more identification/scrutiny of the
clients and some formal standards of the rentiers.

Analogously, it's perfectly fine for banks to scrutinize large cash
transactions. Some of them are legit, some of them are tied to crime. But you
need to look and be sure because it's high-risk activity. If you don't want
that level of scrutiny, send a check/transfer/CC payment and your reputation
will speak for itself.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...secondary vice (drug dens /solicitation of prostitution/craigslist
orgies/etc)._

Since we are regulating what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom,
shall we also bring up the possibility of homosexuals engage in sodomy?

If that's somehow off limits to regulate, what distinguishes it from the
private bedroom activities you bring up?

~~~
brainfire
Your parent post is talking about the (already illegal) negative effects that
follow from the presence of a transient population.

------
twinkletwinkle
No legal expertise, but the thing that struck me is Campos' extremely flawed
analogy. If we want to make comparisons to rental cars, the hosts are the
rental companies. There is no third party platform to compare to AirBnB.

~~~
gorkemyurt
how about something like Getaround?
[https://www.getaround.com](https://www.getaround.com)

~~~
kelnos
I was thinking the same thing -- this law is more like a hypothetical law
requiring people who rent out their cars (not the renters themselves) to
register with the city, and requiring Getaround to police that registration.

------
kelnos
So basically SF wants companies like Airbnb to do their police/enforcement
work for them. The city should be going after the unregistered renters
themselves. Sure, that's potentially harder, but I can see that it'd be a
burden to order a company to do it for them.

~~~
reza_n
Who would pay for all this extra enforcement? My guess is that a large portion
of this short term rental income is untaxed. Can't have both sides, no
regulation and no tax. I pay my share when I rent a hotel. (Apologies if
airbnb renters are paying the appropriate city, state, and federal taxes).

~~~
mrgordon
Airbnb takes the appropriate local taxes automatically as part of the booking

------
Spooky23
Airbnb is an unlimited well of bad PR. They need to start whacking people with
a clue-stick.

~~~
randycupertino
They'd probably do well to just fire their PR person. This is one of the most
unprofessional responses I've ever heard from a company to a reporter:

> We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad
> was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"

A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to
whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are
you seriously writing on this?"

Nulty did not respond to another follow up email.

[http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-
aggress...](http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-aggressive-
pro-airbnb-ads-appear-on-muni-shleters)

~~~
kafkaesq
_They 'd probably do well to just fire their PR person._

No, it's not "the PR person" who's at fault.

One way or another, these decisions (and the mentality and ethos that drive
them) always trickle down from the top.

------
techtosser1
They must be extremely dependent on these commercial operators listing
multiple units, else they wouldn't be fighting this so hard.

It kind of makes their whole "helping the middle class" shtick even more
nauseating.

------
ben_jones
Regardless of how strong Airbnb's legal standing is or isn't, they are the
definition of a company who believes it better to ask forgiveness then
permission. I believe that maxim is all fine and good when you're a person who
cares about the well being of others, but when it's a corporation whose only
goal is profit or growth it has the potential to be extremely detrimental to
society.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Depends on your point of view. It's also detrimental to society if every new
idea has to prove its viability while following the rules written for (and
often purchased by) the previous generation of technology. It'd be a lot
easier to get stuck in local maxima that way. Some ideas would never get
traction, because getting the rules changed requires power and traction in the
first place.

~~~
aaroninsf
I would submit that this maxim does not well apply to the business model of
AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and the like.

They do not IMO represent an interesting application of technology. Just the
profits of exploiting lag time between what is possible, and what is
'burdened' by consumer and labor protections.

I.e.: the industries they have moved into are highly regulated for pretty
transparent reasons. Their MO works well until the regulators catch up.

~~~
bpodgursky
Seriously?

Uber had not proven how much of a quality-of-life improvement it was for
users, there is absolutely 0% chance that any city councils would have
reformed taxi laws and made explicit exceptions for them, sight-unseen.

They are only BARELY at the point where their critical mass of users can force
city governments to give them a legal path (see: de Blasio in NYC), and even
that doesn't always work (see: Austin).

~~~
Steltek
A quality of life built on relabeling employees as "contractors" to avoid
paying them a fair wage with appropriate benefits. But yes, the medallion
system was also very broken.

------
tedmiston
> David Campos, a supervisor who has been harshly critical of Airbnb, called
> the ordinance a "modest piece of legislation," according to the San
> Francisco Chronicle, adding "If you are a rental car agency, you have to
> make sure the person that you rent that vehicle to has a license before you
> rent them a car. That is exactly what we are asking the short-term platforms
> to do here."

This analogy is obnoxiously flawed.

rental car agency:consumer != (airbnb:host or host:guest)

~~~
epmatsw
Genuinely curious why the agency:consumer::host:guest is flawed. (agency|host)
temporarily allows use of their property by (consumer|guest) in exchange for
money.

~~~
jhchen
Driving a car is a complex and potentially dangerous activity, hence the
license. A license to rent a place to sleep makes no sense.

Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that
car accidents __kill __30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB
should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal
activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level. A more appropriate
analogy is perhaps a fishing license.

~~~
dap
Licenses aren't just for ensuring competence (as in the case of driver's
licenses). Sometimes, they're to make sure that the government knows about the
people doing it (as in the case of car registrations), either to collect tax
or to be able to find people associated with an activity. And sometimes they
exist to limit the number of people who can do something (as in the case of
liquor licenses in many areas).

In this case, it seems like SF wants to "license" rental activity in order to
tax it, and it wants to tax rental activity in part to limit it. Zoning could
do this, too, but a tax is more flexible on an individual basis.

This is especially meaningful in a city in the midst of an affordable housing
crisis.

------
mikeryan
Would love to hear an opinion on this one from a legal mind, the case does not
seem strong for Airbnb from my laymen's couch.

------
bpodgursky
Free speech rights are a stretch here. I wonder if you could make a viable
case for the 3rd amendment though (to my knowledge it has never been done).

Strictly interpreted, the 3rd amendment prevents the government from being
able to force homeowners to quarter soldiers. If you think about the real
intent of the bill though, it's obvious that the mindset is "you are free to
use your own house without government interference."

Realize that at the time, HUGE numbers of homeowners informally had a room or
two for boarders to supplement their income. It would have been considered
ridiculous at the time for the government to say you couldn't lend a room out
for money, which is probably why this interpretation was not formally
codified.

It's a stretch, but amendments have been interpreted in more creative ways to
accomplish personal-freedom goals (think, right to privacy -- interpreted as
an implied constitutional right, but not mentioned anywhere).

~~~
snappy173
>Strictly interpreted, the 3rd amendment prevents the government from being
able to force homeowners to quarter soldiers. If you think about the real
intent of the bill though, it's obvious that the mindset is "you are free to
use your own house without government interference."

that's a real stretch. that would nullify all zoning ...

~~~
bpodgursky
Maybe? But then again, the 2nd amendment doesn't allow nuclear weapons, as
interpreted by the Supreme Court.

Would be easy to interpret it as, the right to use residential properties for
lodging purposes (hotel, apartments, B&Bs) cannot be violated, without letting
you set up industrial operations.

~~~
afarrell
What does "easy" mean here? It is easy to say, "the third amendment really
means that A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
does not conflict with the First or Second Amendments." In fact I just did.
However, to actually believe that original meaning of the third amendment as
believed by the people who negotiated it was to prohibit the federal
government from banning boarding houses strains credulity. It similarly
strains credulity to believe that those who negotiated the 15th amendment had
a genuine meeting of minds over their belief that the due process clause
implied that states and municipalities could not regulate boarding houses.

Dot get me wrong: If it wasn't for Airbnb I probably wouldn't be married and I
too share a geeky desire to see the 3rd amendment used in anger.

~~~
int_19h
Well, I doubt that the people who wrote the Commerce Clause would have dreamed
up Wickard v. Filburn in their worst nightmare, either, yet here we are. So,
at this point, the majority of federal laws are based on an interpretation of
the Constitution that strains credulity far more.

------
abannin
Kinda surprised that no one is debating jurisdiction here. Why federal and not
state courts? Are federal judges more friendly to this type of case?

~~~
wvenable
Isn't it federal law that they are using to defend against this?

~~~
abannin
Yes, but there is a tactical decision at play here. AirBnB seems to believe
that it has a better chance of winning on privacy and user-generated content
issues then state/local laws.

------
underbrowny
This is the biggest problem of sharing economy. To solve this problem we have
to make new system not to fight with established system.

------
notliketherest
I love to see individuals and companies step up and fight against the
psychopaths that run San Francisco.

~~~
youngButEager
100% agree.

The "control them, tax them, make them lick our boots, what can they do?, they
can't do anything about it" mentality is heavy in the SF city leadership.

Believe it or not, some people -- lots of people, actually - are 1000% okay
with that. Too many in SF, that's for sure.

Campos wants:

\- to be seen as someone who helped the City make more money from the fines
and registration requirents

\- to appease the vast majority of renters in San Francisco who feel that no
owner has a right to their property, the City must be in control -- Campos'
voting bloc consists of that group

The problem with objectively dictatorial behavior from government is no one
has the guts to stand up to them.

EXCEPT AirBnB!!!

GO AIRBNB !!

Britain just told Merkel and Hollande (who are the real string-pullers in the
EU) to scrap off and die.

Tyrannical behavior from people "who tell you what to do and you can't do
anything about it" usually ends badly for the perps.

See Nicolae Ceausescu for example. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-
XNTVgDW0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-XNTVgDW0)

Sometimes people who abuse their power do not lose it gracefully.

Many of us are watching what becomes of Maduro in Venezuela. The entire
population there is out of food and rioting and eating dogs and cats.

