Miami Officials Promise To Crack Down On Airbnb Homeowners Who Spoke Up About Bad Regulations

from the that's...-a-problem dept

For a few years now, we've written about various local governments and their pointless wars against Airbnb, which are often driven by lobbying from the big hotels. Different governments take different approaches, but Miami apparently has an incredibly restrictive regulation that effectively bars short term rentals entirely. Even worse, the mayor has been pushing to make things even worse. Since the current law only is enforced in response to complaints, mayor Tomas Regalado is pushing a plan to more proactively hunt down homeowners who offer short term rentals on Airbnb.

And here's where things get... sketchy. There was a hearing and a vote about this plan recently, and a bunch of Miami homeowners went to City Hall to speak out against this plan. Of course, in order to speak before the Miami commissioners considering this, they had to first identify themselves. The commissioners, apparently unswayed by these homeowners or by Airbnb itself, voted 3 to 2 to move forward with the plan (and also threatened to sue Airbnb directly...). But perhaps most ridiculous of all, the city is now looking to go after the homeowners who spoke at City Hall. After all, they identified themselves as homeowners using Airbnb:

“We are now on notice for people who did come here and notify us in public and challenge us in public,” said City Manager Daniel Alfonso. “I will be duly bound to request our personnel to enforce the city code.”

That sounds an awful lot like punishing Miami residents for speaking out on a matter of public interest. Yes, you can argue that they were admitting to breaking current local ordinances, but it certainly feels pretty sketchy to then directly target them. It is basically broadcasting the fact that no one is allowed to present the other side, and to describe how short term rentals might be beneficial to the city.

Filed Under: daniel alfonso, miami, regulations, short term rentals, tomas regaldo
Companies: airbnb