First Airbnb Fine in Toronto is Welcome News

Fairbnb.ca Coalition: $10,000 fine shows need for stricter regulations and platform accountability

(TORONTO) Today, the Fairbnb.ca Coalition would like to extend our gratitude towards Justice of the Peace Gerry Altobello for imposing a stiff $10,000 fine on a Willowdale home owner who has brazenly violated the city’s zoning by-laws and negatively impacted his neighbours.

“We hope that this fine sends a wakeup call to thousands of Airbnb hosts who are skirting a range of existing regulations including the city’s zoning by-laws, as well as condo declarations, condo regulations and the Province’s Residential Tenancies Act,” says Fairbnb.ca Coalition chair Lis Pimentel.

The Fairbnb.ca Coalition is cautiously optimistic that fines will continue to be imposed on Airbnb’s biggest problem hosts, most notably on the Bleecker Street ghost hotel operator who has so egregiously impacted the immediate neighbourhood, a case that will be adjudicated on April 7, 2017. “At the same time,” Geordie Dent of the Federation of Metro Tenants Association warns, “this case should not deflect from the fact that we need strict rules and regulations to protect the city’s long term rental housing market and to prevent Airbnb from turning thousands of homes into transient rentals.”

The City needs to ban multiple-listing hosts, create a licensing/permit system for legitimate hosts sharing their primary residences, and require Airbnb only to post listings with valid permits. Such a regime would have prevented the Willowdale or Bleecker Street cases from happening, ensuring that residential streets and condominium buildings won’t be turned into transient rentals for the traveling public.