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> David Campos, a supervisor who has been harshly critical of Airbnb, called the ordinance a "modest piece of legislation," according to the San Francisco Chron

> 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. rental car agency:consumer != (airbnb:host or host:guest)

epmatsw 10y ago
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.
- dkuebric 10y ago
  Under your analogy, the host has to make sure the guest is licensed, which is different from the law, which is about the host.
  - rahimnathwani 10y ago
    The agency:consumer ~= airbnb:host analogy makes more sense.
- jhchen 10y ago
  Driving a car is a complex and potentially dangerous activity, hence the license. A license to rent a place to sleep makes no sense. Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that car accidents kill 30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level. A more appropriate analogy is perhaps a fishing license.
  - fizx 10y ago
    Plenty of things can go wrong with a place to sleep. Bedbugs, for example.
  - calbear81 10y ago
    The license is not to ensure you know how to host. It is designed to limit the impact of hosting on neighbors and the housing supply. People didn't sign up to live next to a hotel when they move into a residential neighborhood.
  - dap 10y ago
    Licenses aren't just for ensuring competence (as in the case of driver's licenses). Sometimes, they're to make sure that the government knows about the people doing it (as in the case of car registrations), either to collect tax or to be able to find people associated with an activity. And sometimes they exist to limit the number of people who can do something (as in the case of liquor licenses in many areas). In this case, it seems like SF wants to "license" rental activity in order to tax it, and it wants to tax rental activity in part to limit it. Zoning could do this, too, but a tax is more flexible on an individual basis. This is especially meaningful in a city in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.
  - lovich 10y ago
    The license is to rent out your place. Does renting your property on a short term basis suddenly release you from requirements like making sure you have heat and water in the unit or meet zoning regulations? There's and argument to be made that this level of regulation is uneeded or causes more problems than it solves, but the regulation is still there and AirBnB I'd doing there best to avoid having it affect their business
- abannin 10y ago
  See my post above
pbreit 10y ago
If that analogy (sensible, imo) is too much for you then pretend he was talking about GetAround.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  To substitute a p2p car sharing service in place of car rental agency completely changes the meaning... Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate. I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.
  - mangeletti 10y ago
    It's the hosts they're talking about, not the guests, which would need licenses. I'm fairly sure you have to have a license to serve breakfast as a business. You also have to be inspected by the health department. Same goes for running a hotel. That stuff all costs money, and it's not up to a private business (AirBnB) to determine how to enforce such laws, even though their existence does change the landscape.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      It seems my phrasing was unclear. With "to sleep and eat breakfast", my intent was: a customer to sleep somewhere and eat breakfast there (as the end user), not for a business to serve that customer. I made this point to the article's literal analogy of the car rental agency's need to validate a consumer to drive a car (as the end user). There is no license needed to sleep and breakfast.
      - mangeletti 10y ago
        You're phrasing was clear. The person making the analogy was comparing the drivers to the hosts.
  - dap 10y ago
    > I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast. This was the third Google hit for "are hotels licensed": http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirealicense-Publiclodging.html http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirea... Restaurants, too: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp Anyway, it's a completely bogus assumption that licensing is only about ensuring competence.
rahimnathwani 10y ago
How is the analogy flawed? Rental car agencies ensure drivers (who use the agency's cars) are licensed. AirBnB is being asked to ensure hosts (who use AirBnB's platform) are licensed.
- tn13 10y ago
  Driving car requires license for various other reason all of us agree with. I don't see why hosts need a license. Also there is potential stupidity of passing regulations that people wont respect any ways.
  - calbear81 10y ago
    You're being downvoted because you are not considering land use and zoning issues. Hosts need to register to ensure that they don't convert their properties into full time hotels in buildings designed for residential use.
    - exclusiv 10y ago
      But mostly the city wants to ensure they get paid and keep the lodging industry off their backs. Hotels pay occupancy taxes and want AirBnBs to have that encumbrance. I have a property in an area that has it all figured out and I had to get it certified by an inspector, pay some fees, and submit occupancy taxes. Most skirt the laws. Chicago did it right in my opinion by requiring AirBnB to manage and submit the taxes and fees.
      - jacobolus 10y ago
        The city is facing huge pressure from local residents because the price of housing has gone up dramatically in the past few years. Property owners taking rental properties off the market to turn them into unlicensed full-time hotels through Airbnb further reduces housing stock, in addition to forcing a bunch of negative externalities onto neighbors who have little recourse. Most local residents who aren’t themselves Airbnb hosts are on the city’s side here. The hotel industry is certainly unhappy with Airbnb, but they’re far from the only ones.
mikeryan 10y ago
David Campos' poor analogy has pretty much zero relevance to the case at hand.
HillRat 10y ago
Hm. Okay, perhaps a better analogy might be the way gun manufacturers are expected to ensure they're selling to licensed gun dealers.
abannin 10y ago
The analogy would imply that hosts should verify that guests have a license to rent. Last I checked, there is no license to rent. A much better analogy would be a franchisor has a responsibility to ensure a franchisee has appropriate business licensure. However, I do not know where the liability lies in this scenario.

epmatsw 10y ago

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.

dkuebric 10y ago
Under your analogy, the host has to make sure the guest is licensed, which is different from the law, which is about the host.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  The agency:consumer ~= airbnb:host analogy makes more sense.
jhchen 10y ago
Driving a car is a complex and potentially dangerous activity, hence the license. A license to rent a place to sleep makes no sense. Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that car accidents kill 30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level. A more appropriate analogy is perhaps a fishing license.
- fizx 10y ago
  Plenty of things can go wrong with a place to sleep. Bedbugs, for example.
- calbear81 10y ago
  The license is not to ensure you know how to host. It is designed to limit the impact of hosting on neighbors and the housing supply. People didn't sign up to live next to a hotel when they move into a residential neighborhood.
- dap 10y ago
  Licenses aren't just for ensuring competence (as in the case of driver's licenses). Sometimes, they're to make sure that the government knows about the people doing it (as in the case of car registrations), either to collect tax or to be able to find people associated with an activity. And sometimes they exist to limit the number of people who can do something (as in the case of liquor licenses in many areas). In this case, it seems like SF wants to "license" rental activity in order to tax it, and it wants to tax rental activity in part to limit it. Zoning could do this, too, but a tax is more flexible on an individual basis. This is especially meaningful in a city in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.
- lovich 10y ago
  The license is to rent out your place. Does renting your property on a short term basis suddenly release you from requirements like making sure you have heat and water in the unit or meet zoning regulations? There's and argument to be made that this level of regulation is uneeded or causes more problems than it solves, but the regulation is still there and AirBnB I'd doing there best to avoid having it affect their business
abannin 10y ago
See my post above

pbreit 10y ago

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

tedmiston 10y ago
To substitute a p2p car sharing service in place of car rental agency completely changes the meaning... Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate. I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.
- mangeletti 10y ago
  It's the hosts they're talking about, not the guests, which would need licenses. I'm fairly sure you have to have a license to serve breakfast as a business. You also have to be inspected by the health department. Same goes for running a hotel. That stuff all costs money, and it's not up to a private business (AirBnB) to determine how to enforce such laws, even though their existence does change the landscape.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    It seems my phrasing was unclear. With "to sleep and eat breakfast", my intent was: a customer to sleep somewhere and eat breakfast there (as the end user), not for a business to serve that customer. I made this point to the article's literal analogy of the car rental agency's need to validate a consumer to drive a car (as the end user). There is no license needed to sleep and breakfast.
    - mangeletti 10y ago
      You're phrasing was clear. The person making the analogy was comparing the drivers to the hosts.
- dap 10y ago
  > I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast. This was the third Google hit for "are hotels licensed": http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirealicense-Publiclodging.html http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirea... Restaurants, too: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp Anyway, it's a completely bogus assumption that licensing is only about ensuring competence.

rahimnathwani 10y ago

How is the analogy flawed? Rental car agencies ensure drivers (who use the agency's cars) are licensed. AirBnB is being asked to ensure hosts (who use AirBnB's platform) are licensed.

tn13 10y ago
Driving car requires license for various other reason all of us agree with. I don't see why hosts need a license. Also there is potential stupidity of passing regulations that people wont respect any ways.
- calbear81 10y ago
  You're being downvoted because you are not considering land use and zoning issues. Hosts need to register to ensure that they don't convert their properties into full time hotels in buildings designed for residential use.
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    But mostly the city wants to ensure they get paid and keep the lodging industry off their backs. Hotels pay occupancy taxes and want AirBnBs to have that encumbrance. I have a property in an area that has it all figured out and I had to get it certified by an inspector, pay some fees, and submit occupancy taxes. Most skirt the laws. Chicago did it right in my opinion by requiring AirBnB to manage and submit the taxes and fees.
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      The city is facing huge pressure from local residents because the price of housing has gone up dramatically in the past few years. Property owners taking rental properties off the market to turn them into unlicensed full-time hotels through Airbnb further reduces housing stock, in addition to forcing a bunch of negative externalities onto neighbors who have little recourse. Most local residents who aren’t themselves Airbnb hosts are on the city’s side here. The hotel industry is certainly unhappy with Airbnb, but they’re far from the only ones.

mikeryan 10y ago

David Campos' poor analogy has pretty much zero relevance to the case at hand.

HillRat 10y ago

Hm. Okay, perhaps a better analogy might be the way gun manufacturers are expected to ensure they're selling to licensed gun dealers.

abannin 10y ago

The analogy would imply that hosts should verify that guests have a license to rent. Last I checked, there is no license to rent. A much better analogy would be a franchisor has a responsibility to ensure a franchisee has appropriate business licensure. However, I do not know where the liability lies in this scenario.