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Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

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41–50 of 171 posts

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#41
post #16

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.

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).

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#42

> 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.…

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.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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/…

...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?

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#44

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

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...

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#46

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.

>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. not really. they were caught, and their response is f * you, rather than to ask forgiveness. whether or not you agree with their behavior, they are very much NOT asking for forgiveness.

Don't forget the butthurt ads they plastered the city with once they were finally made to pay their taxes. "Dear SF, Hope you are putting our tax $$ to good use! Love Airbnb!"

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#47
post #42

> 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.…

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.

Under your analogy, the host has to make sure the guest is licensed, which is different from the law, which is about the host.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares what your neighbors want? Seriously. In the Seventeenth Century many American colonists were fleeing England due to religious persecution because their religion didn't happen to be the the dominant/majority held belief [1]. The idea that government should govern based on what the majority want is a fallacy. The specific topic of tyranny of the majority and ways to combat it were discussed in the Federalist…

I'd rather my neighbors not run a crackhouse and a brothel on airbnb out of our building, thanks.

Well, you're in luck because both of those things are already illegal.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#49

> 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.…

If that analogy (sensible, imo) is too much for you then pretend he was talking about GetAround.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#50
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is the argument NIMBYs have been using against regular old renters since the beginning of time.

Once you own property, you too can be a NIMBY! That's how local property rights work.
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