
NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400 - swallsy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585377-93/ny-official-airbnb-stay-illegal-host-fined-%242400/
======
cletus
I've had this argument with several people. Their position is that "it's my
house/apartment, I should be able to do what I want with it" (even when
renting they use this argument).

My argument is that this is not and has never been true. You can't, for
example, run a tannery in your apartment.

What's more, as a resident (and especially if I were an owner) I wouldn't want
my building being a de facto hotel. An endless stream of people coming and
going, having building keys and so on.

I don't believe this ruling is anything new. I believe short stay (<30 days)
like this was always illegal in NYC.

A friend of a friend lives in a building where the super was soldering a pipe
and managed to burn the entire building to the ground (gutted the inside that
is).

Imagine the scenario if an AirBnBer does this with say a cigarette?

Or what if someone is assaulted by such a person?

Residency laws exist for a reason. Honestly, AirBnB just seems like a massive
liability time bomb waiting to go off.

~~~
radiusq
Your argument is completely shallow and void of reason..

> You can't, for example, run a tannery in your apartment

Why not? Whats your argument?

>What's more, as a resident (and especially if I were an owner) I wouldn't
want my building being a de facto hotel.

If I owned a building then I set the rules/laws. This is about property
rights, not about what you think is right or wrong. If I want to turn my home
into a transient hotel then I should have the right to do so. Existing
residents should abide by my rules under the current terms of their lease.

>Imagine the scenario if an AirBnBer does this with say a cigarette?

And what if an existing resident did that? Whats your point?

You completely leave out any actual reasoning to support your statements. A
very shallow argument.

~~~
aegiso
It was less an argument than a statement of fact. These are the laws.

If you want to argue what fundamental rights should or shouldn't be afforded
to a property owner, HN probably isn't the place. This stuff has a long and
complicated political history, which I humbly encourage you to learn more
about.

~~~
greghinch
Laws which are not set in stone. The point is that services like Airbnb can be
the impetus for changing the law to make more sense for modern times. When
these laws were created, something like Airbnb was impossible, so how can you
think they took the concept into account when crafting them?

------
nlh
Few things that should be pointed out here:

1) First off, most uses in the city have always been against the rules -- it's
been a known issue.

2) from TFA: "this law is only actionable as a secondary offense. For example,
if the police show up after a noise complaint and then find you renting out
your place, only then are you in extra trouble." So it's not going to stop
most hosts in their tracks.

3) AFAIK, there is still a small subset of AirBNB rentals that are within the
rules -- if you have a 2+ bedroom unit and live there as your primary
residence, you are allowed to rent out your second+ bedrooms.

Happy (and eager) to be corrected on any of the above if I have the wrong
understanding.

~~~
tptacek
Also worth mentioning that it's probably never been safe for renters to let
out their places on Airbnb, as boilerplate leases universally restrict
subtenants to those approved by the landlord.

~~~
nsxwolf
I looked into adding Airbnb-friendly language to my lease for my rental
property, but I am not a lawyer and any lawyer I could hire to work on the
language would probably be breaking new ground.

I had a friendly chat last year with someone at Airbnb about them possibly
taking the reigns on this, but I don't think anything ever came of it.

It might go a long way towards getting friendlier relations between landlords
and Airbnb.

~~~
tomkarlo
Why would a landlord (at least in a low-vacancy area like NY or SF) ever
accept such an amendment to the lease?

~~~
w1ntermute
They could do it in exchange for charging an even higher rent?

~~~
nsxwolf
Or maybe a share of the payment, and a more direct relationship with the
security deposit.

I was really trying to think of ways it affects me as a landlord and property
owner. I really don't care what people do in the property as long as it's
legal and causes no damage, but I want to be protected and considered as well.

Right now we are just completely cut out of the entire process, and there's
little incentive for us to NOT take a hostile stance.

~~~
nsxwolf
Responding to w1ntermute below: You're right, and that's what I had toyed with
looking into. The problem is I use a boilerplate lease like most landlords -
because it's been tested for years in "production" if you will.

You take a great risk in making even small modifications to existing language
without a lawyer review. Writing all new language is even riskier and
considerably more expensive.

Since I don't want to spend this money, my default position is I will simply
reserve the right to crack down on any Airbnb activities I become aware of.

Airbnb could use their own lawyers to help out with this conundrum and gift
the resulting work product to landlords.

~~~
saraid216
Offer the renter a split in lawyer fees?

~~~
nsxwolf
No, create an Airbnb-friendly lease boilerplate.

~~~
saraid216
I was under the impression that the reason you hadn't done this already was
lawyer fees.

So... find a tenant also interested and split the lawyer fees?

------
reuven
I can't say that I'm at all surprised. Moreover, I would expect to see more
judges, as well as legislatures, pass such rules. I've discovered (full-
disclosure: through consulting work with a site similar to AirBNB) that many
vested interests -- typically hotels and real-estate organizations -- don't
want such sites to operate. Until and unless the legislators are convinced to
change the rules by a popular, grass-roots demand to allow it, things won't
change so fast.

And you know what? I'm not sure if they should.

My family has used VRBO ("vacation rental by owner") to rent apartments in
Paris, Amsterdam, and Budapest over the last three summers. We loved the
experience, and would never even consider going to a hotel in the future, for
all of the reasons you can imagine -- we save money, cook our own meals, and
feel at "home" in a foreign city. It's a marvelous feeling.

But that marvelous feeling is probably less-than-marvelous for a city's
permanent residents. When we stayed in Paris, we were told that short-term
rentals there are illegal partly because housing is in short supply, and is
thus astronomically expensive. Forbidding short-term rentals, in theory, can
increase the pool for annual rentals, thus bringing the cost down. (We were
also told that rental law was 100 years old, but was only now going to be
enforced. Amusingly, we were also told that the French justice minister lived
in our building...)

Plus, I don't know if I would want an apartment in my building to be occupied
by new people each week. We have enough trouble with the neighbors we know.

Bottom line, AirBNB is a brilliant idea, and many people clearly love it. But
I don't think that they, or we, can expect laws to change immediately to
accommodate this new idea. And when the laws do change, we can probably expect
them to still impose some restrictions, or even taxes, on the homeowners.

~~~
yardie
There are so many problems with housing in Paris that I feel that short term
rentals are only a small percentage of a percentage of a contributing factor.
Even if short term rentals were forbidden it still wouldn't put a dent in the
costs.

I do agree with you on the constantly new people problem. I recently found out
that the reason the front door to my building is broken is because one of our
neighbors is a prostitute and the johns were letting themselves in and buzzing
random doors to get the second door unlocked. Since we aren't a hotel the
burden of safety and security has been placed on her neighbors.

------
rwhitman
Illegal hotels are actually a legit problem in NYC. I'd have to dig up the
article but I've read about shady landlords evicting residents and turning
entire apartment buildings into Airbnb hotels. Its big business, my friend
pays his entire rent with Airbnb.

Real estate is at an extreme premium and hotel space is scarce. There are a
lot of scammers and shady people in this city so its only natural that Airbnb
will be abused (I've even been sucked into an Airbnb-based con job in NYC
myself).

I think the issue isn't so much that this law is on the books, its that they
haven't updated the legislation to accomodate people who rent on Airbnb
safely.

~~~
nawitus
>I'd have to dig up the article but I've read about shady landlords evicting
residents and turning entire apartment buildings into Airbnb hotels.

Why shouldn't landlords have the right to turn their buildings into Airbnbn
hotels? (Assuming that the landlord pays taxes as usual, and the evicted
residents were evicted under the rental agreement).

~~~
seren
I assume that hotels have to comply to additional regulations (safety,
hygiene, etc) and taxes. In this context, an AirBnB hotel would be a de facto
hotels, without all the legal constraints. So this is not fair, to your
competitors.

~~~
invisible
So it is OK for people to live there (health-wise) but not OK for people to
stay there temporarily? I mean, if there are 200 people in a building and it
burns down does it really matter if they were there temporarily or
permanently? Bizarre.

The only way justification I could see is that if it were not hygienic, there
is a chance of a outbreak of a virus happening (but that is no different than
the metro or a flea market).

~~~
pavel_lishin
> * if there are 200 people in a building and it burns down does it really
> matter if they were there temporarily or permanently?*

It absolutely matters, and your scenario is a very serious one. Permanent
residents know where the fire exits are, and which hallways are dead-ends.
Temporary residents may not even be aware which windows open onto a fire
escape.

~~~
robrenaud
Given that deaths by fire in NYC were in a record low in 2012, when AirBNB
rentals in NYC were presumably at a record high, maybe the lack of fire
regulations aren't actually that big a risk.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/nyregion/58-fire-deaths-
in...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/nyregion/58-fire-deaths-in-new-york-
city-in-2012-record-low.html)

------
gline
I'm conceptually in favor of airbnb and its peers. However, in NYC there's
definitely an odd dynamic right now - renters are the main proponents of the
service, because they can turn around and re-rent their apartments and recoup
some of their housing costs (I know some people who are turning a net profit),
but I'm pretty sure this is short-sighted. NYC is underserved by hotel rooms
(maybe for zoning reasons?), so hotel space trades at a premium to residential
space. If apartments become eligible to earn income as "hotel rooms", it's
landlords, not renters, that will ultimately benefit - the rental market will
reset at a higher rate and we'll all be forced to rent out our apartments when
we're not around to make up the difference. I see this already in the form of
friends renting larger apartments or paying higher rents because they expect
to benefit from airbnb income; that behavior has to be driving up rents. Half
my building (literally) is for rent on airbnb, as well as a third of the
building next door.

This may be 'net beneficial' economically but I'm pretty sure most of the
benefit will ultimately accrue to property owners, not renters.

And of course, although owners may come down hard for liability reasons if
they find out about airbnb operations in their buildings, they have every
incentive to turn a blind eye: if they can plausibly claim they didn't know
and blame the tenant, surely their liability is at least somewhat reduced and
in the meanwhile they benefit from rising rental income.

------
rsingel
So Business Insider is summarizing a post from Fast Company, which itself is
summarizing a post from CNet, which did actual reporting and has the text of
the decision. I wish OPs would take the time to actually figure this out
before submitting links. You want good journalism? Then support it by
promoting the original work, not the get-rick-quick aggregation.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585377-93/ny-official-
air...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585377-93/ny-official-airbnb-stay-
illegal-host-fined-$2400/)

~~~
bdcravens
How many stories on Tumblr have their been the past few days? Never mind the
articles on Jobs and Swartz when they passed. Take something and repurpose it
for our own benefit .. hey, isn't that the basis of AirBnB's business model?
:-)

------
DanBlake
The reason this is a issue (in san francisco, at least) is that long term,
elderly and protected tenants are getting evicted from buildings with whats
called a 'ellis act'.

A ellis act lets you kick everyone out of your building with the restriction
that you cannot 're-rent' it for 5 years.

Since a 30 day stay is not 'renting' per sf code, unscrupulous landlords have
been using BnB sites to profiteer evictions.

That is one of many reasons why its against almost all city/state codes to do
this.

I thought about this before- AirBnB and VRBO themselves are not actually
committing the 'crime' however they are certainly with knowledge of the use
that is happening. As such, I am sure any landlord wronged by either site
would have a absolutely fantastic case for tortuous interference to them
(AirBnB interfered with the contract between a landlord and tenant)

I think it basically comes down to this. Certain things are illegal, like it
or not. Lots of people think prostituion should be legal country wide, like
nevada. But its not. Setting up a site to let you sell something that it knows
is going to be illegal is riding a extremely fine line.

It reminds me of a old trick used in a terms of service for a filesharing
website back in the day. "You agree that by continuing, you have received a
written, expressed waiver from warner, nbc, fox, [etc...] to download their
content "

The service knows that absolutely nobody has such a warning/waiver but by
shifting the blame to the user, they think to be untouchable.

I am not a lawyer though, so what do I know.

~~~
kansface
Yes, but why should anyone who has lived in an apartment for 1 year be
entitled to pay that price for life? Why should a resident who has lived in my
building for 5 years be entitled to pay 40% of what I do for as long as they
care to stay? The current opposite extreme is just as bad.

------
lifeisstillgood
I think we shall see more and more of this, airbnb, kickstarter and many other
"social clearing houses" are essentially delivering services that investment
regulation and consumer protection legislation has been developed _explictly
to prevent_

Its not that this specific NYC law exists and been upheld, its that there is a
whole class of such laws across the West. People will bump into these a lot
more.

~~~
greghinch
That doesn't mean those laws shouldn't be challenged. Often they were put in
place under different circumstances.

~~~
Argorak
Could you please clarify which of those circumstances do not apply today?

Especially the basic one that most housing space is intended for residency
which, by its nature, is less lucrative then short-term renting?

Quite on the contrary, in this case I think that the circumstances here are
even pointing towards more regulation and AirBNB is accellerating that.

~~~
tomjen3
Well for one, Uber has had all kinds of problems being allowed to run taxies
for hire in NY, and one of the complaints has been that they don't have a city
certified taxi-meter installed.

That regulation might have made sense before GPS enabled smartphones --
especially when said GPS enabled smartphones are the only way to hail an Uber
car.

I don't know the reason for banning unlicened hotels, but I imagine that at
least one of the examples used were the safety of the cusomers -- that is
kinda pointless given that the customer can check out the reviews on AirBNB
before he decides to engage in business.

~~~
Argorak
We're talking housing, not cars here.

The reason for banning unlicensed hotels is to ensure that there is enough
space for actual rent.

------
ameister14
It technically always was illegal.

To be honest, I think there's a huge risk in the airbnb business; hitch-hiking
was not only popular but normal for students and young people for decades in
the US. Then a couple of people were raped and murdered and fear spread.

It's awful, but I think there's a significant risk for this exact scenario
crushing airbnb. Not that it would be common or even likely, but all it would
take was once, and the people could even know eachother. The media would pick
it up and sensationalize it and the business would go down.

------
mef
It already was illegal. Discussion:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5742925>

~~~
kyrra
I want to know how that discussion already fell off the front page? did it get
flagged off the front page? It has a lot of discussion and a decent number of
upvotes.

~~~
kylelibra
HN detects flame wars and devalues those posts in an attempt to facilitate
better discussion.

Source: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/the-evolution-of-hacker-
new...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/the-evolution-of-hacker-news/)

~~~
skrebbel
The stupid thing about that is that, because AirBnB is a YC company, all my
conspiracy theory bells went off immediately. I hadn't thought about the flame
war detection thing at all.

------
amorphid
I love AirBNB for finding a place to stay. Here are thoughts on how I might
feel in other roles:

* landlord: I'd have an issue with a high volume of non-tenants coming in and out of my building without permission.

* hotel operator: I'd rather the supply of hotel rooms be limited. The fewer rooms, the more demand for my rooms!

* insurance company: guest of AirBNB guest does something bad and the cost of dealing with it is high. What a mess.

* mayor: publicly I'm against it because hotels fund my election campaigns. Privately, I stay in AirBNB rooms while in vacation because civil service doesn't pay much (albeit it wouldn't surprise to find mayors are rarely broke)

* neighbor: there's too much noise coming from that place down the hall. They are rude and have no vested interest in being nice because they don't live here.

AirBNB is a fabulous service to use and I understand why it has opponents.

------
macleanjr
This ruling only applies to the 5 boroughs of New York City, not the entire
state.

~~~
dillonforrest
This is actually an annoying thing about NYC. In NYC, when people say "New
York," they actually mean "New York City's five boroughs." When people say
"upstate" or "upstate New York," they mean the rest of the state of New York
minus NYC. When people say "the city," they mean "Manhattan." The title only
makes sense to residents of NYC.

~~~
yebyen
Actually, I am a resident of Rochester and I understood the title intuitively.
Rochester is far (6 hours+) from The City. I was from Buffalo before that,
even farther away. I am used to hearing about odd laws that only apply in NYC
(the boroughs), from special conditions on a learners' permit license, to bans
on 16+oz fountain drinks, when I hear "now illegal in New York" I tend to
think naturally, it must apply only in New York City.

We are actually second-class citizens, the legislature of NY is only for NYC
(and the benefits of all the taxes we pay, union dues, etc, at least to hear
my father tell it.)

~~~
jbooth
I wouldn't go as far as second-class citizens, NYC is less than half the
population and, correspondingly, less than half of the districts. There are a
lot of NYC-specific taxes and tolls collected. Hell, Republicans controlled
the state legislature until a year ago or so (and you know they weren't from
NYC).

If I had to guess (I used to be in politics), your dad spends a lot of time
complaining about property taxes -- I can guarantee those don't leave your
municipality.

~~~
yebyen
I am pretty sure he's more interested in payroll taxes, unemployment
insurance, welfare dollars, Obamacare. I won't pretend I've read the ledgers,
but when he texted me yesterday to say '49 states left', I hadn't heard about
the devastation in Oklahoma and I started scanning the internet tubes to find
the news that Texas finally seceeded over Obamacare.

~~~
jbooth
Well, those are federal issues, so it sounds like his problem is the fact that
Obama's president rather than anything to do with new york state. I'd also
hypothesize that he was much less upset about these issues in December 2008
than he became starting in late January 2009.

~~~
yebyen
[http://taxfoundation.org/article/2012-state-business-tax-
cli...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/2012-state-business-tax-climate-
index)

There's NY, ranked right behind NJ as #49 for second least favorable state
business tax climate. That's right. Worse than California for business owners.
I have no idea of the legitimacy of this graph, it only took 10 seconds of
Googling to find it.

Not saying anything about Upstate vs The City, but my dad has lived in NY for
near to his whole life, he's actually from Long Island, and (what do you say
next? we have Jewish friends?)

It's easy to say they're federal issues, but NY has reasonably high sales tax
and income tax, and yes there is property tax. If you're from New York, you
wouldn't argue that we're not highly taxed. I happen to be near enough to the
poverty line, recent college graduate, high student loan debt, good payment
record, so I only know what they want me to see insofar as taxes go. I fill
out TurboTax and usually get most of it back.

I've actually received larger income tax returns than what I paid in total,
once or twice, with no plausible explanation other than "Dad paid for it," so
you'll have to understand, I am influenced / biased also based on that.

~~~
jbooth
Yes, conservative think tanks will always put NYC/Cali as the least favorable
business climate. But where's the business? Here. Cali.

I live in NJ, I work in NY, so I got 49 and 50 going strong here. I can tell
you, and you'll have to just trust me on this, business is better here than in
Alabama or Arkansas which have much better 'business climates'.

You received higher tax returns than what you paid because of the earned
income tax credit, a socialist wealth redistribution scheme to benefit low-
income workers that would never pass if today's political conservatives had to
vote on it. Your dad and I both helped pay for it.

~~~
yebyen
Well, thanks for the spirited discussion, and .. erm, for paying the bill,
too!

------
homosaur
My general libertarian bent generally would lead me to hate this sort of
legislation, but in markets where housing is near max utilization, it's not
only desirable, it's necessary. We already have enough of an issue with
housing in places like NYC and SF without landlords turning apartment
buildings into shitty hotels full of vacationers and Spring Break types who do
not care the slightest for the condition of the property or their relationship
with neighbors.

~~~
paddy_m
The reason there isn't enough housing, in SF especially is government
intervention. Zoning laws prevent housing supply meeting demand.

~~~
sigil
I've heard SF's laws against denser housing are a major factor in the housing
"shortage" there. [1]

In NYC, rent control laws are a major factor in the artificial housing
shortage. There's a consensus across economists of all stripes that rent
control is a bad thing ("the most efficient technique presently known to
destroy a city -- except for bombing"). See the studies cited here. [2]

[1] [http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-
become-a-...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-
world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/)

[2] <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html>

~~~
lukasb
What you say about rent control is true - _if there are not restrictions on
building new housing_. This is almost never true.

------
davidf18
As a Manhattan resident I am very pleased about this decision. As others have
stated, people don't want strangers and transients living in their buildings.
AirBnB was simply making profits off the inconvenience caused to residents in
NYC and this is clearly wrong.

The people who run AirBnB simply don't respect the feelings of others and the
investors should change management to those who do respect feelings of others.

------
gozmike
I had a really sketchy experience as a guest this winter that made me worry
about AirBnB.

I spent a few months living in the Haight with a delightful German woman who
supported her photography career by renting her spare rooms in a gorgeous
clean apartment.

For a while, the arrangement worked out pretty well. That is, until I ran into
one of her neighbours in the stairwell. I made friendly conversation with him
and he asked if I was staying at her place through AirBnB. I thought nothing
of it at the time.

That night, while greeting my "landlady", I told her I met the neighbour. Her
heart sank and she chastised me for talking to her neighbours (I had been
living at her place for a month or so!). Turns out that many renters
agreements in SF prevent the tenant from earning a profit on their rental.

Long story short, the neighbour I spoke to ended up not being so nice to her
and is causing significant problems for her. She may lose her rent-controlled
apartment (and thus her livelihood) all because I chatted with a neighbour in
the stairwell.

~~~
DanBlake
And for good reason. Rent control should not allow tenants to make a /profit/
on their apartments. The current SFRB law basically states you can only 'pro
rata' charge what you charge. So if you pay 1k a month for rent and you are
renting it out for half the month the most you can charge is 500. Or if its a
2 bedroom and you rent 1 bedroom, you can charge 50% of that.

Not that that matters. You are basically saying you parked in a firezone while
robbing a bank. You are already doing something against the law so the
additional methods dont matter much.

~~~
gozmike
Totally. It screws the landlord and drives up the overall cost of housing.

That said, this AirBnB host was supporting her (very frugal) lifestyle on the
profits from this rental. It hurts to know that I may have played a part in
undoing that.

------
jeffpersonified
Curious, and I haven't heard many comments on this: does this set a precedent
that other states are likely to follow, and if so, is this a serious threat to
the Airbnb business?

~~~
tptacek
It's probably not even a serious threat in NYC; the ruling doesn't appear to
bind on Airbnb itself in any ways, and apparently is only sporadically
enforced.

------
brudgers
Airbnb is no more or less legal than it was before. Some buildings and sites
are allowed to provide short term rentals. Most aren't.

What is happening nationally is that people are creating short-term rentals in
areas where the use and occupancy are deemed incompatible by land use
regulations and building codes. The AirBnB model is no different than renting
migrant workers mini-warehouses for dwelling. It's just that the landlord and
tenants transfer the burden of commercial uses and transient lodging onto the
surrounding neighborhood.

Disclaimer: I am currently involved in removing a short-term rental from my
neighborhood. At several hundred bucks a night, transient lodgers often have
few social constraints preventing them from treating the dwelling as a hotel,
and normal hotel behaviors spill effect the surrounding neighborhood. The
difference being that there is no onsite management and no oversight by local
and state regulators as is the case with the formal economy.

------
k-mcgrady
AirBnB will need to evolve their service to deal with this. They are going to
face this problem many times more I'm sure.

The only way I can see around it would be working with individual cities and
adapting the service within those cities so that it works better for everyone.

There are many negative externalities caused by AirBnB (personally I wouldn't
want my neighbours changing weekly and having access to my building and
mailbox) but there are also positive ones (filling vacant properties, boosting
the local economy).

When it comes to big cities like New York, Paris, London etc. AirBnb should
spend the money to carry out analysis of how the service could work best for
everyone and work with local authorities.

------
pbreit
For co-ops and buildings with HOAs, etc, they would most likely ban short term
stays. Which is fine since such a situation is undesirable for other
residents/owners.

But for free standing homes and other buildings for whatever reason choose to
allow such a thing, there should be some sort of "bed and breakfast" type
rules which govern semi/non-professional letting. Sort of like on Ebay how you
can sell up to a certain dollar amount before you have to pay taxes like
ordinary retail businesses.

------
cfesta9
I thought this was America! Huh? Isn't this America? I'm sorry, I thought this
was America. -Randy

I just went on a european trip and used airbnb. Houseboat in Amsterdam (super
awesome place) My "Experience" was wonderful. However, I did feel that the
security deposit was unsettling. Their word against mine kind of thing. So it
goes. I guess we will just leave the hotel business to the professionals. How
did 9flats avoid this?

------
tusharc
The strangest part of the ruling to me was the following implication that it
would have been fine if the tenant had gone into the housemate's room (not
just been allowed access, as per the verbiage of the law) "... Morrick noted
that his renter did not go into Warren's housemate's room during her stay."

------
joshdance
If the law was created to stop large property owners from buying up
residential space and creating hotels, is there a way to change the law to
prevent just that?

------
apgwoz
But, technically, isn't renting an apartment for the month of February (28
days) illegal too, since it's less than 29 days that the Hotel Law stipulates?

------
dominotw
Yes. I hope more cities follow the lead, before more people get scammed into
putting themselves and their property in danger.

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Diamons
This is a win for New Yorkers. The whole sharing economy thing is unsafe,
ridiculous, and kind of pathetic.

~~~
darkarmani
> The whole sharing economy thing is unsafe, ridiculous, and kind of pathetic.

How do New Yorkers win by having less choice?

~~~
prawn
Their neighbours are more likely to be people there for the long term and with
an interest in the community, rather than just renting out their place to
people a night at a time.

I can see the negative side of AirBnB, though that said I just booked a place
in Paris because every central hotel under $300/night appears to be booked for
next week.

~~~
brador
Do you not worry that someone will setup cameras in the WC, record you
pooping, then sell the videos, together with your personal details, on an
underground tor darksite in exchange for Bitcoins? And you'll never know?

I used to be very trusting of places until I stayed at a university accom
during a conference one time. The janitor was up to no good, but we had to
leave and no one wanted the trouble of reporting it to front desk.

~~~
prawn
I've stayed in tiny hotels in 30+ countries and not been worried about that so
I'm not sure why it would be much different with AirBnB.

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washedup
Another law made obsolete by the internet that needs to be changed.

~~~
rayiner
The internet has changed nothing here. The renters are physical people--it's
irrelevant to the law whether they got there from an internet website or from
an advertisement scrawled into a stone wall with a chisel.

~~~
washedup
I guess I mean another law that needs to be changed, not necessarily
abolished. The law should be updated so that people can legal advertise their
places on AirBNB. Not doing so would be neglecting a stream of revenue that
could be beneficial to the city.

When I say "made obsolete by the internet" I mean that some service or product
made possible by the internet is requiring us to take a look at some piece of
legislation that was put in place before such service or product existed. The
service in question (AirBNB) has changed the way we think about and look for
places to rent.

AirBNB is a forum which helps to legitimize these rental properties and owners
through crowd sourced reviews. In the past (with chisel and stone) there may
not have been such a clear way to determine this. AirBNB changes the
environment by offering a faster and steadier stream of users and reviews.
This changes how the economy of renting works, there by changing the
effectiveness of the standing law.

~~~
rayiner
Short term rentals and hotels have existed since time immemorial, and the laws
were created in response to those services. The fact that AirBnB now allows
advertising that service over the internet instead of a classified is neither
here nor there.

~~~
washedup
It's actually very important. AirBNB opens up a renting forum to the world,
which creates a bigger population of users, creating a bigger pool of reviews,
which leads to legitimacy. Let the people decide which places are worthy of
staying at. A (print) classified rarely reaches outside the local region.

Not only that, but the pool of renters or owners will grow because they see
AirBnB as a easy resource to advertise their properties.

The growth of both groups of people change the economy and the effectiveness
of the current law.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's actually very important. AirBNB opens up a renting forum to the world,
> which creates a bigger population of users

This magnifies the scope of the potential problem with arm-length short-term
rentals of people unfamiliar with the property and its circumstances which
laws restricting such rentals were meant to address; if anything it magnifies
rather than reduces the need for the regulations.

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gailees
linkbait?

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SmileyKeith
While the merits of Airbnb can be debated I suppose, sometimes I wish judges
could spend time on useful things.

