ANAHEIM – Airbnb retaliated with a lawsuit against Anaheim Thursday less than a month after the City Council banned short-term rentals and said home-sharing web sites would be fined for illegal listings. Airbnb’s suit says the city is violating the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment. The lawsuit is the latest for the popular online platform, which filed legal actions this summer against San Francisco for similar reasons. Anaheim’s City Council on July 12 gave the 363 permitted short-term rental operators in town 18-months to stop operating. But the lawsuit targets the stricter regulations the council adopted in the meantime to limit the impact of the rentals on the community. Come mid-August, Anaheim will require hosting platforms such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway to remove listings the city has not permitted or face fines starting at $500 for each violation that could reach $2,000….

ANAHEIM – A second home-sharing platform is suing Anaheim over penalties recently approved for hosting online listings for illegal short-term rentals. A day after Airbnb took legal action against the city, HomeAway also filed a lawsuit saying Anaheim’s ordinance fining websites for advertising listings of short-term rental homes that don’t have a city permit violates the 1996 Communications Decency Act and First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Communications Decency Act prohibits government from holding websites liable for content and actions posted by users. The ordinance, the lawsuit says, “would impose liability on HomeAway for publishing information provided by third-parties.”…

When I first began listing my one-bedroom adobe house in Marfa, Texas, on Airbnb, the service seemed like a godsend. When I took a weekend trip, I’d host tourists from Austin; their rental fees would more than cover the cost of a few tanks of gas and a nice dinner. The rewards weren’t just financial: The people who stayed in my house felt more like houseguests than clients. After a visitor left, I’d find a handwritten thank-you note on the kitchen table, leftover snacks in the fridge, and once, a charming pencil drawing of my cat scratching his ear. And since the hotel options in town are limited, plenty of visitors were happy to pay below-market prices for an authentic Marfa experience, housecats and all. This utopian vision of regular people helping each other out (and making a little money along the way) is a cornerstone of Airbnb’s PR strategy: “It’s like the United Nations at every kitchen table. It’s very powerful,” Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky told attendees at a hospitality conference last year. “For us to win, no one has to lose.” But that’s a more contentious claim than it might seem. Recent years have shown there are plenty of profits to be made in the short-term-rental world—and big profits tend to produce both winners and losers. Airbnb’s top 40 hosts in New York City have grossed more than $35 million combined. It didn’t take long for the original hosts of the so-called sharing economy to find themselves competing with enterprising property owners….

“Home-sharing” company Airbnb also had a big presence at the DNC as it sought to win over skeptical Democrats, including politicians in some liberal big cities who have made it harder for the company to operate. The company is facing allegations of racial discrimination and of negatively impacting the affordable housing supply. Still, of the nearly 40,000 people in Philadelphia for the convention, the company says 7,000 stayed in Airbnb properties, compared with 14,000 who booked hotels. Unions like UNITE-HERE contend that Airbnb is an illegal operation that takes business away from the hotels that many of its members work in. (UNITE-HERE and SEIU had a brief snafu earlier this year when SEIU announced it was partnering with Airbnb to ensure housekeepers were paid $15 an hour. Amid protest from UNITE-HERE, the union swiftly backtracked.)….

The city is reminding operators of short-term rentals, such as Airbnb, to register as new rules governing the popular home-sharing sites go into effect Monday. Under the regulations, all short-term rental hosts must pay an annual $25 registration fee and file with the Metro Revenue Commission to pay transient occupancy taxes each year. The rules were approved by Metro Council after months of deliberation that divided some neighbors on how the city should best handle the rise of home sharing as part of an expanding hospitality industry….

The city’s commissioner of the revenue is recommending a penalty for those who skip out on paying lodging taxes on short-term rentals that are booked through websites such as Airbnb. Phillip Kellam today will suggest to council members that they immediately change city code to fine or penalize such businesses that don’t pay. The city doesn’t forbid temporary lodging, but lacks regulations on short-term rentals in residential areas. “We do need an ordinance to help with the enforcement of this,” Kellam said. “It’s the fastest growing sector of the lodging market.” In April, a 20-year-old was shot and killed at a house that had been rented through Airbnb during College Beach Weekend. The home’s owner, a man from China, had not heard about the shooting until contacted by The Virginian-Pilot a few days later….

ALBANY – A coalition that includes developers and landlords has written to Gov. Cuomo asking him to sign into law a bill that would prohibit the advertising of illegal units on online home-sharing sites like Airbnb. “Enacting this bill would be an important step in the right direction toward eliminating illegal short-term rentals, which reduce the City’s housing supply, cause safety issues, increase building wear and tear costs, and create quality of life problems,” the groups wrote. The letter from the Real Estate Board of New York and the Rent Stabilization Board, among others, insists the legislation is not anti-technology but rather a new tool to crack down on a prior law that already makes home sharing in multifamily units in New York City illegal for less than 30 days illegal. Others signing on to the letter are the Community Housing Improvement Program, the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, the Federation of New York Housing Cooperatives and Condominiums, and the New York State Association for Affordable Housing…

The bill has managed to unify real estate interests and union, tenant and affordable housing activists.

A spokesman for Gov. Cuomo said the bill is under review. Airbnb wants him to veto it.

Airbnb is suing the city of San Francisco, battling legislation in New York and fighting widespread allegations that some of its hosts discriminate against renters. Which might explain why it is trying to get ahead of such confrontations here, in a newly opened used bookstore in the gentrifying Washington neighborhood of Parkview. District resident Liz Furgurson, who uses the home-sharing site to rent out a room in her basement, is leading a group of 14 fellow hosts on a stroll through the neighborhood’s small businesses. The hope, she says, is to familiarize shop owners with Airbnb and to encourage hosts to recommend local businesses to visitors. “What’s the best way to send folks here?” Furgurson asks shop owner Pablo Sierra on a recent evening. This event, called a “merchant walk” and organized by Airbnb, feels like a casual neighborhood meet-and-greet. But its implications could be much larger for the San Francisco-based company, founded in 2008 and now reaching 2 million rental listings worldwide. The company hopes gatherings like these can help shore up support as it faces a number of regulatory measures, including one in the District. Legislation introduced in September
by D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large) and backed by a hotel workers’ union would limit hosts to one listing at a time and require hosts to live on-site during guests’ stays. Rental units would have to be inspected by the city, and hosts would
have to notify neighbors of their rental plans….

If I could post an ad in a bus stop, it would read, “Dear Airbnb: You’re not a very good neighbor. For all that talk about being innovators, you’re really just out to make millions for your founders and investors, even if that means breaking the law while hiding behind your users and the First Amendment. Grow up, Airbnb. You’re a big business now — time to follow the rules. Love, Susan.”…

Renting a private house through sites like Airbnb will remain tax-free in Massachusetts after lawmakers abandoned a plan to extend hotel levies to short-term private lodgings. The Airbnb meaure was not included in a key economic development bill that emerged late Sunday night after marathon negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers. The plan’s defeat wasn’t a huge surprise: Governor Charlie Baker previously said he didn’t want to raise taxes on private rentals, and House lawmakers didn’t include a similar plan in their economic development bill….