I wrote a piece last month that ended with a declaration that I was working on a list of questions that needed to be answered and would have the list in the next couple days. I was overly optimistic. Each question seemed to add two more ancillary questions. After watching the CPC meeting, I started reading through the comments submitted to Cpcinfo@nola.gov (they can be found at nola.gov/city planning—the deadline to submit your own comments is November 30, 2015.). There I found a great deal more information and many questions posed that I hadn't thought of. After reading and reading, I have decided that I have a few thoughts on all this that don't really lend themselves to a list per se, just categories of concern. I'm sure everyone knows my stand as an opponent of short term rentals, but if they are to be permitted and regulated there are some things that must be considered.
LISTING DATA
First and foremost, AirBnb's tactic has been to force municipalities to subpoena their listing data. New Orleans has to require that the data from all the various listing sites be turned over before any permits are issued. There is no other way to know the actual number of short term rentals, number of rooms, addresses, names of the people listing the rentals. Without that information, many of the other issues surrounding STR become difficult if not impossible to sort out. Along with the acquisition of that data, the City must insist that a license/permit number be required by the listing entity before a listing is accepted by their site. No permit/license, no listing. If a non-permitted listing is found, both the site and the person listing the property should be fined substantially. (That data will also help in the tax collection issues that everyone is concerned about and that most of the pro-short term rental folks say they're willing to pay.)
OWNER OCCUPIED (HOMESTEAD)/ABSENTEE/CORPORATE LISTERS
The ANP short term rental advocacy group wants blanket permission for all of the above categories of short term rentals. If permits are to be issued, the City should only allow Owner Occupied/Homestead Exemption properties to be permitted/licensed. That will eliminate absentee landlord problems and remove corporate listers completely. There are other issues that are troubling even with this scenario.
-Can an entire unit (like half a double) be listed or only an extra room in the owner occupied dwelling? There are currently too many “whole unit” short term rentals being listed (illegally).
-Some have suggested that the Homestead Exemption be pulled if an owner is short term renting, turning the property into a de facto commercial enterprise. I have to disagree with this approach as that will open the door for absentee and corporate entry into the market.
-Allowing only owner occupied/homestead exemption properties to be listed also removes the incentive for absentee/non-resident/corporate purchase of a property solely for its conversion to a short term rental property. (Absentee ownership should also apply to a person who lives in one house and STR's the house they bought next door. Owner occupied should be defined as living on the premises that is listed for STR.)
-A Homestead owner at least lives here and votes here. Yes. That matters to me.
SAFETY and LEGAL COMPLIANCE ISSUES
-The Louisiana State Fire Marshall has come out against STR's as most are non-compliant with fire safety regulations. Installation of sprinklers and emergency exit markers should be required, as well as any other safety requirements that currently legal Bed and Breakfasts must comply with.
-Compliance with all Anti-Discrimination and Americans with Disabilities Act laws pertaining to commercial lodging businesses should also be part of the permit/license requirements. Any law pertaining to the above issues that a legal Bed and Breakfast already has to comply with should be applied to STR's.
-Will the STR be billed by Entergy or their insurance carrier at commercial or residential rates? If it's permitted/licensed as an STR, it is then a commercial entity and should be billed as such. (Currently LEGAL Bed and Breakfasts already pay these rates.)
-Standard Homeowners Insurance does not cover damage or injury that is a result of a commercial enterprise, I'm told. In order to get permit/license, proof of appropriate insurance should be provided and required, just as it is for car registration.
PERMITS/LICENSING
The lawyer for the ANP suggests that 20 rooms per block sounds reasonable to him. That is an enormous number of rooms. There are other problems connected with that suggestion.
-Permits/Licenses should be considered under the Conditional Use rules requiring notification of adjoining property owners. Doing it this way can potentially weed out bad actors up front as their neighbors will let you know if they have already had problems.
-Is an entire unit (like half of a double) or just an extra room in the owner occupied house being short term rented?
-Is the property listed as “suitable for special events?” (On AirBnb there is a box that can be clicked when listing the property for this. This allows the property to be rented for bachelor/bachelorette parties, etc.) If so that means other fire/safety/insurance issues have to be dealt with just as they would be for any venue rented for a special event. This could be a problem. For example, the Trash Palace can no longer be the venue for the KdV ball as the attendee numbers exceed their permitted limits. The same criteria should be used for any STR listed as "suitable for special events."
-How many rooms are being STR'd on the property?
-What is the maximum number of occupants allowed per room? (That has to be a consideration. There must be a limit not only on the number of rooms, but the number of occupants per room.)
-How many permit/licenses will be allowed per block? (BLOCK and BLOCK FACE must be discussed and the language clearly stated before a maximum number is determined.) Right now I know of one block face in the Marigny that has five STR's. That is too many per block face or even per block. As the neighborhood fabric is frayed and parking issues become rampant, which is already happening in some areas, this will be a very important limit.
-Stacy Head said she sees no problem with someone renting out their “back house.” On the Marigny block face mentioned above, one person erected a pre-fab large tool shed-like building that is being STR'd, and the person next door refurbished an ancient extant shed to STR. Will it suddenly be permissible for everyone to erect a structure in their backyard to STR? Will building permits be required? Can everyone on the block do it?
-Perhaps we should consider tying the number of permissible STR's to the number of long term affordable rentals in the same neighborhood, like a two to one ratio: two affordable long term rentals to one STR Homestead.
-Given the number of STR's already in existence, if we whittle it down to only owner occupied/homestead exempt dwellings, who gets the permit? The person who files the Conditional Use papers/insurance/fire inspection first? The person who has been doing it longest? A lottery (much like we do for artists at Jackson Square)? If there are already five on one block face, and it is limited to one per block face, who has to shut down their current operation? They've all been illegal up to this point. Whatever is decided on this has to be ironclad and tough.
-Permit/License should be granted for one year only with the ability to renew if they are in compliance with regulations and there have been no complaints filed.
-Just as there are only a certain number of CPNC's (what a taxi needs to be legal) or artist vendor licenses, there should be a limited number of STR licenses available city wide. There can be a waiting list for the following year. If someone loses their permit due to continued violations or complaints, the next person on the list can take his/her shot and go through the permitting/licensing process.
FEES/FINES/ENFORCEMENT
-Fees for the permit/license must be substantial. They must be large enough to be taken seriously.
-If an illegal STR is found, there should be substantial fines. Again, large enough to be taken seriously, limiting the number of violations that can be handled with a fine before more serious action is taken. We are able to stop construction on a a site (I've seen Stop Work orders on buildings in town). If we can do that we can do something similar to unpermitted/unlicensed STR's.
-Fees should be graduated scale: a whole unit would be highest fee, and two STR rooms in one house would be a higher fee than one.
-Fees and fines should be used solely for the enforcement of the regulations on STR's.
-I saw one comment suggesting seizure of the property of a violator. I'm not in favor of property seizures in general, but enforcement of regulations, enforcement with teeth, is critical. Something like the “blight” fines that accrued daily might be one way to go.
-Taxes must be exactly the same as they are for hotel/motel/B&B's.
-There must be safety and compliance inspections on a regular basis.
-There must be a system for neighbor complaints to be acknowledged, addressed and acted upon.
-There must be a posted sign with a contact number in case of complaints or other STR issue.
TENANTS RIGHTS/TENANTS SUB-LEASING
-It has to be made illegal to evict a long term tenant to convert a unit to STR. It happens. That can't be allowed to continue.
-Tenants who pose as actual renters, who then immediately list their new apartment as a STR should be subject to immediate lease termination. It happens a lot.
This problem comes from both ends of the rental question. People have been evicted by their landlords, with leases broken, as the landlord thinks he can make more turning the unit into an STR. I know at least half a dozen people in the last couple years that that has happened to. City wide the number must be pretty large if I know that many from just among my friends. I've also seen landlords who found out that that nice guy who rented Apartment B, listed it and turned it into an STR the afternoon he got the keys. There are several people in town who posed as long term tenants in multiple units, then listed those same units as Short Term Rentals turning themselves into professional STR providers. If a landlord knows that's what a tenant plans to do then they're both at fault, but often the landlord doesn't know. We need some discussions in this city about a more balanced approach regarding the rights of tenants and landlords as we are a city with a large number of renters whose rights and issues have been overlooked for a very long time.
Having spent the last month reading comments, I will not attempt to cover all the ground that so many others have gone over much better than I can. In comment section 1, p.95, a man named Jay Seastrunk has a lot of interesting comments regarding Master Plan specifics and safety/bldg issues. He mentions the possibility of a homeowner with a raised home, building multiple bedrooms under his raised home, each with its own exit door and wonders if something like that, which would be essentially a motel under the pilings, would be legal. That could happen even with the Owner occupy/Homestead regulation scenario.
I wish I'd written down all the page numbers of great comments. I didn't. I know Mr. and Mrs. James Morrison, Jr. are in that first comment section and their well reasoned and very detailed 5 pg comment has lots to say about zoning with regard to single family, two family, multi-family homes. I would urge you to find that one and read it.
Either comment section 1 or comment section 4, look for Dr. Emile Brinkmann, PhD. Dr. Brinkmann was the Chief Economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and is considered an expert on residential real estate issues. He feels that a unit removed from the rental market circumvents the Fair Housing Laws. He also talks about zoning issues, distortion of home prices and rental rates, and says that if the homeowner HAS a mortgage and decides to STR, he may be committing Mortgage Fraud unless he explicitly stated that he was going to operate a short term rental on the mortgaged property. It's a lengthy and very informative document, in depth with some recommendations. Again, I urge you to track it down and read it. It's worth it.
Also important are the comments from the Hotel folks and PIANO, the LEGAL Bed and Breakfast group. As PIANO points out, they had to dot all the i's and cross all the t's in order to open their business. If we're going to allow and regulate STR, we are in fact allowing the property owner to run a business in a residential area. They should at least have to play by the same rules, not just pay the same taxes and think it's a fair game.
After a month of reading all of this, I am more convinced than ever that IF we allow this into the city, the data from the listing corporations is crucial as is the limitation of permit/licensing to owner occupied dwellings. Otherwise we'll be overrun with STR's owned by people who don't vote here, use our city as a piggy bank, and who don't care about neighborhoods or displaced locals. I'd like to ban STR outright, but if we have to compromise on this, then at least let's make it tougher to do and of greater benefit to us.
For anyone who thinks this is only a downtown problem, one woman who commented at nola.gov lives on Dominican Street. She says as of LAST summer, she had counted 18 AirB's, excluding VRBO/Homeaway/Craigslist, etc. She and her husband have lived in that house for a very long time. She feels surrounded, without neighbors, and says that two elementary schools in her area are also virtually surrounded. This isn't what we want for our neighborhoods, so let's really think about this. My questions are the tip of the iceberg.
Again, go read what much smarter people than me have written about this and watch out for the smoke and mirrors of the slick PR types putting out info for folks like ANP.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
STR/AirBnB: Pay No Attention to that Corporation Behind the Curtain
I've been reading reports, proposals and talking to people for and against short term rentals all week. I've been paying attention to this phenomenon for longer than that but our city had a hearing recently and I watched every minute: which by the way was about all the time they gave each citizen commenter to make a comment. I think the actual limit was 4 minutes. Definitely not enough for many to make a point pro or con.
I had a long conversation with someone I know and respect who is on the other side of this issue. I understood the issues and arguments which the friend presented clearly and fairly. I empathized, but still respectfully must disagree.
I went from that conversation into reading a report that had been mentioned a couple times during the meeting at City Hall. While this report was written to lay out the issues Los Angeles is having with the AirBnb/STR model, many of the issues they're having are pertinent to us here in New Orleans. I am putting this link in plain view so you don't have to guess which hyperlink takes you to it: http://www.laane.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AirBnB-Final.pdf
As I read reports and articles, I started putting together a list of questions I'd like answered before any kind of ordinance or compromise is reached. I'll be putting those questions in a post to follow this one so that this one doesn't get unwieldy. This post deals with the way in which AirBnb enters a market and subsequently deals with that market. Frankly it's brilliant strategy, albeit one with which I fundamentally disagree.
Entering a Market
There are a couple of STR companies out there. The quotes and strategy sections are aimed at AirBnB, but it appears that the others like VRBO or Homeaway, kind of come in on the coattails of AirB's entry strategy.
First we need to look at the AirB mythology: One of the founders was renting an apartment in San Francisco, there was a conference coming to town that some people he knew were going to attend, they couldn't find hotel rooms as the hotels were booked up, so he put an air mattress in his room and so the company, the concept and the myth were created. The myth of the airbed in a shared room, or even a spare room, is no longer the reality in most of the AirB listings, nor is it desirable from the company's point of view. It is, however, a nice bootstrap entrepreneurial story and it's the basis of the warm and fuzzy “everyman” corporate persona they cultivate. When they enter a market it isn't with bells and whistles. They enter it with your neighbors' faces.
From the report: “This generally involves packing a room with dozens of hosts. Armed with compelling stories, these hosts detail the ways in which renting out their spare rooms has enriched their lives and saved them from economic ruin. The hosts seem motivated by a combination of financial self interest and a sincere belief that they compose a beleaguered community. This gives AirBnB a group of personal, heartfelt and therefore effective spokespeople that most corporations can only dream of.”
Stage one, our neighbors' faces, which is exactly what we saw at the City Hall meeting the other night. It's effective. That is followed by a second stage, which was also seen the other night when we saw a well organized and funded group, and a couple of attorneys connected with that group, ceding time to each other for comments. Even that group is part of the playbook, again from the report: “(Their) philosophy is evident in much of AirBnB’s marketing, from its founding myth about the air mattress to its use of hosts as spokespeople. To build up this base, AirBnB has hired political field operatives in addition to contracting with traditional PR firms. A simple LinkedIn search shows that AirBnB’s preference has been for hiring staffers with experience managing political campaigns.” (This whole philosophy stems from a book titled The Culting of Brands: How to Turn Customers into True Believers written by Doug Atkin, who is also AirB's “Global Head of Community”--another example of a warm and fuzzy corporate persona—sounds so much better than VP in Charge of Client Base Growth or something.)
So at City Hall we saw the playbook in action: some of our neighbors and friends, and a local STR professional PR campaign making comments at the mic. Our neighbors were impassioned and in some cases emotional. The organized PR group sounded pragmatic, and commented as though they were presenting “suggestions” about something that was already a done deal with mere details to be worked out down the road.
The brilliance of this model is that none of us wants to be seen as unfriendly or unfair. We're all struggling, so our thinking goes, and we don't want to lose friendships that matter to us. Those of us opposed to STR are seen as jealous or petty, unable or unwilling to understand the “real” issues. We're cast as some sort of socialist property taking mob who incessantly meddle, involving ourselves in their private business. It silences some of us.
Taking Advantage of Momentum in the New Market
That model also casts the “hosts” as a benevolent bunch who are just trying to make ends meet. It may be true for some, though not the majority. That is the fallacy. Behind every host, every short term “tenant”, is the corporation. A very large, very profitable corporation that comes to a market, encourages people to undertake an activity that is illegal in that market, leaves those people to be the face of it, while it rakes in eye popping profits taking a cut from both the host and the “tenant.” AirBnB's IPO in 2014 was analyzed in all major economic/business journals in terms of stock value and projected profits. They boasted 1.5 million listings in some of the reports, but we are fooled into looking at our neighbors, our market, our city coffers and limit our looking to those places, fight it out among ourselves ignoring the giant treasure chest in the corporate sky, profits that help none of the above mentioned groups, only the shareholders and the corporation who hides behind their “hosts” and “tenants.”
When all is said and done, the hosts are on their own. The markets they enter have to figure out how to deal with it as the housing market is affected, as neighborhoods become frayed, as jobs are lost in the legal hospitality sector. AirB and its ilk bear no responsibility for safety, insurance, disputes, thefts, destruction of property (except in very limited and hard to prove instances), or injury. Hosts are subcontractors, any cleaning crew the hosts might employ are subcontractors. The corporation pays no permitting fees, no licensing fees, no taxes, nor do they routinely comply with the laws regarding handicapped access. It's not their problem bro. Caveat emptor you hosts and travelers. Whatever you encounter is not our problem, besides we already got our cut off the top.
In the Los Angeles study it is noted that some of the negative impact of this STR model hasn't really been factored into the discussion: “UCLA Anderson School of Business study found that the high cost of housing has a generated a statistically significant drag on job creation in Los Angeles. Fewer rental units, a drag on job creation, a reduction in tax revenues and a qualitative assessment of AirBnB’s effects in neighborhoods are key elements that must be considered before a accurate judgment of the company’s impact can be rendered.”
Having that Market over a Barrel
That isn't really being done. Instead cities have been overrun and the STR problem becomes a crisis before any kind of in depth study or discussion is had. City Councils and zoning departments find themselves already behind the curve playing catch up or proposing some kind of patchwork “solution” or “compromise” that doesn't work or is unenforceable before the ink is even dry on the ordinance.
For its part, AirB waits for critical mass, then? From the report: “AirBnB often approaches cities with the promise of remitting a monthly fee equal to the TOT in exchange for the passage of regulations that legitimize their business model. The rationale behind this offer is that cities will be adding new revenue to municipal coffers. However, this revenue is mostly reallocated from hotels which would have remitted these taxes anyway.” (TOT is the Transient Occupancy Tax in Los Angeles. I'm sure New Orleans has something akin to it.)
At that point, the corporation sees that market as a done deal and if pushed to provide actual numbers of listings in the market area, or the number of hosts who are homesharing vs turning entire units into de facto hotels, they demure until a city forces the issue with subpoenas. They obfuscate, routinely offer numbers that are often half of the real numbers, and force a municipality to spend their dime to get the real data.
I urge you to read the report in the link above. I can't possibly toss all the numbers out for you, besides, why reinvent the wheel when so much of what's in that report is pertinent to us. It also does a great job explaining the safety issues, job displacement, housing crunches, rising rents, the tax dollars lost (then sort of found then spent on subpoenas and enforcement), and many things I hadn't considered but that need to be.
The AirBnB “business model” is cynical, effective and highly profitable for them. One doesn't see logo emblazoned tshirts and tote bags, nor are the hosts treated like franchise owners and supplied with AirB stationery and pens. The hosts are on their own. The travelers renting from them are on their own. The markets they enter are on their own. The neighborhoods they fracture are on their own. Neighbors and friends, City Councils and zoning commissions, will get no help from them in terms of dealing with their model.
A local tour guide told me he'd been doing an impromptu survey: after asking where the tourist is from he asks them where they're staying. If they are staying in an STR, they look down and almost whisper. Many hosts try hard to do the same. One I know told her guests to tell anyone who asked that they were old friends from college.
Whisper. Pay no attention to the corporation behind the curtain, pulling levers and forcing municipalities to deal with them on their terms only and after the fact. They have nothing to do with all this. It's on you, whether you like it or not. Just look at those faces. They are your neighbors.
(I'm still compiling my list of questions that I think need to be answered or at the very least addressed. I'll have that posted in the next day or two.)
I had a long conversation with someone I know and respect who is on the other side of this issue. I understood the issues and arguments which the friend presented clearly and fairly. I empathized, but still respectfully must disagree.
I went from that conversation into reading a report that had been mentioned a couple times during the meeting at City Hall. While this report was written to lay out the issues Los Angeles is having with the AirBnb/STR model, many of the issues they're having are pertinent to us here in New Orleans. I am putting this link in plain view so you don't have to guess which hyperlink takes you to it: http://www.laane.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AirBnB-Final.pdf
As I read reports and articles, I started putting together a list of questions I'd like answered before any kind of ordinance or compromise is reached. I'll be putting those questions in a post to follow this one so that this one doesn't get unwieldy. This post deals with the way in which AirBnb enters a market and subsequently deals with that market. Frankly it's brilliant strategy, albeit one with which I fundamentally disagree.
Entering a Market
There are a couple of STR companies out there. The quotes and strategy sections are aimed at AirBnB, but it appears that the others like VRBO or Homeaway, kind of come in on the coattails of AirB's entry strategy.
First we need to look at the AirB mythology: One of the founders was renting an apartment in San Francisco, there was a conference coming to town that some people he knew were going to attend, they couldn't find hotel rooms as the hotels were booked up, so he put an air mattress in his room and so the company, the concept and the myth were created. The myth of the airbed in a shared room, or even a spare room, is no longer the reality in most of the AirB listings, nor is it desirable from the company's point of view. It is, however, a nice bootstrap entrepreneurial story and it's the basis of the warm and fuzzy “everyman” corporate persona they cultivate. When they enter a market it isn't with bells and whistles. They enter it with your neighbors' faces.
From the report: “This generally involves packing a room with dozens of hosts. Armed with compelling stories, these hosts detail the ways in which renting out their spare rooms has enriched their lives and saved them from economic ruin. The hosts seem motivated by a combination of financial self interest and a sincere belief that they compose a beleaguered community. This gives AirBnB a group of personal, heartfelt and therefore effective spokespeople that most corporations can only dream of.”
Stage one, our neighbors' faces, which is exactly what we saw at the City Hall meeting the other night. It's effective. That is followed by a second stage, which was also seen the other night when we saw a well organized and funded group, and a couple of attorneys connected with that group, ceding time to each other for comments. Even that group is part of the playbook, again from the report: “(Their) philosophy is evident in much of AirBnB’s marketing, from its founding myth about the air mattress to its use of hosts as spokespeople. To build up this base, AirBnB has hired political field operatives in addition to contracting with traditional PR firms. A simple LinkedIn search shows that AirBnB’s preference has been for hiring staffers with experience managing political campaigns.” (This whole philosophy stems from a book titled The Culting of Brands: How to Turn Customers into True Believers written by Doug Atkin, who is also AirB's “Global Head of Community”--another example of a warm and fuzzy corporate persona—sounds so much better than VP in Charge of Client Base Growth or something.)
So at City Hall we saw the playbook in action: some of our neighbors and friends, and a local STR professional PR campaign making comments at the mic. Our neighbors were impassioned and in some cases emotional. The organized PR group sounded pragmatic, and commented as though they were presenting “suggestions” about something that was already a done deal with mere details to be worked out down the road.
The brilliance of this model is that none of us wants to be seen as unfriendly or unfair. We're all struggling, so our thinking goes, and we don't want to lose friendships that matter to us. Those of us opposed to STR are seen as jealous or petty, unable or unwilling to understand the “real” issues. We're cast as some sort of socialist property taking mob who incessantly meddle, involving ourselves in their private business. It silences some of us.
Taking Advantage of Momentum in the New Market
That model also casts the “hosts” as a benevolent bunch who are just trying to make ends meet. It may be true for some, though not the majority. That is the fallacy. Behind every host, every short term “tenant”, is the corporation. A very large, very profitable corporation that comes to a market, encourages people to undertake an activity that is illegal in that market, leaves those people to be the face of it, while it rakes in eye popping profits taking a cut from both the host and the “tenant.” AirBnB's IPO in 2014 was analyzed in all major economic/business journals in terms of stock value and projected profits. They boasted 1.5 million listings in some of the reports, but we are fooled into looking at our neighbors, our market, our city coffers and limit our looking to those places, fight it out among ourselves ignoring the giant treasure chest in the corporate sky, profits that help none of the above mentioned groups, only the shareholders and the corporation who hides behind their “hosts” and “tenants.”
When all is said and done, the hosts are on their own. The markets they enter have to figure out how to deal with it as the housing market is affected, as neighborhoods become frayed, as jobs are lost in the legal hospitality sector. AirB and its ilk bear no responsibility for safety, insurance, disputes, thefts, destruction of property (except in very limited and hard to prove instances), or injury. Hosts are subcontractors, any cleaning crew the hosts might employ are subcontractors. The corporation pays no permitting fees, no licensing fees, no taxes, nor do they routinely comply with the laws regarding handicapped access. It's not their problem bro. Caveat emptor you hosts and travelers. Whatever you encounter is not our problem, besides we already got our cut off the top.
In the Los Angeles study it is noted that some of the negative impact of this STR model hasn't really been factored into the discussion: “UCLA Anderson School of Business study found that the high cost of housing has a generated a statistically significant drag on job creation in Los Angeles. Fewer rental units, a drag on job creation, a reduction in tax revenues and a qualitative assessment of AirBnB’s effects in neighborhoods are key elements that must be considered before a accurate judgment of the company’s impact can be rendered.”
Having that Market over a Barrel
That isn't really being done. Instead cities have been overrun and the STR problem becomes a crisis before any kind of in depth study or discussion is had. City Councils and zoning departments find themselves already behind the curve playing catch up or proposing some kind of patchwork “solution” or “compromise” that doesn't work or is unenforceable before the ink is even dry on the ordinance.
For its part, AirB waits for critical mass, then? From the report: “AirBnB often approaches cities with the promise of remitting a monthly fee equal to the TOT in exchange for the passage of regulations that legitimize their business model. The rationale behind this offer is that cities will be adding new revenue to municipal coffers. However, this revenue is mostly reallocated from hotels which would have remitted these taxes anyway.” (TOT is the Transient Occupancy Tax in Los Angeles. I'm sure New Orleans has something akin to it.)
At that point, the corporation sees that market as a done deal and if pushed to provide actual numbers of listings in the market area, or the number of hosts who are homesharing vs turning entire units into de facto hotels, they demure until a city forces the issue with subpoenas. They obfuscate, routinely offer numbers that are often half of the real numbers, and force a municipality to spend their dime to get the real data.
I urge you to read the report in the link above. I can't possibly toss all the numbers out for you, besides, why reinvent the wheel when so much of what's in that report is pertinent to us. It also does a great job explaining the safety issues, job displacement, housing crunches, rising rents, the tax dollars lost (then sort of found then spent on subpoenas and enforcement), and many things I hadn't considered but that need to be.
The AirBnB “business model” is cynical, effective and highly profitable for them. One doesn't see logo emblazoned tshirts and tote bags, nor are the hosts treated like franchise owners and supplied with AirB stationery and pens. The hosts are on their own. The travelers renting from them are on their own. The markets they enter are on their own. The neighborhoods they fracture are on their own. Neighbors and friends, City Councils and zoning commissions, will get no help from them in terms of dealing with their model.
A local tour guide told me he'd been doing an impromptu survey: after asking where the tourist is from he asks them where they're staying. If they are staying in an STR, they look down and almost whisper. Many hosts try hard to do the same. One I know told her guests to tell anyone who asked that they were old friends from college.
Whisper. Pay no attention to the corporation behind the curtain, pulling levers and forcing municipalities to deal with them on their terms only and after the fact. They have nothing to do with all this. It's on you, whether you like it or not. Just look at those faces. They are your neighbors.
(I'm still compiling my list of questions that I think need to be answered or at the very least addressed. I'll have that posted in the next day or two.)
Monday, October 05, 2015
Unsolicited Advice to the Northeast in the Aftermath--Now Relevant to South Carolina's Flood Victims
It was suggested I re-post this for those of you struggling in the aftermath of the horrendous flooding in South Carolina. I can barely look at the news photos. Too gut wrenching, but I am thinking about you, and all you'll be dealing with going forward. This post was originally written to the Hurricane Sandy folks, who by the way, are still very much struggling in many areas. Although the Springsteen lyrics aren't geographically tied to you in South Carolina, the sentiments below them do. Please know that those of us here in New Orleans understand, and we hope that our experience can help you as you make your way through this tragic time.
No. It's not all right and you probably can't get across the river right now anyway.
My high school years in Bergen County are peppered with memories not of classrooms and despotic Vice Principals, but of subway rides into Manhattan, afternoon rides on the Staten Island Ferry (cheap fun for a truant), and hustling rides ten to a car down the Garden State Parkway to Asbury Park and Seaside Heights, which were never called by name, only referred to as “The Shore.” I picked splinters out of my feet after walking the now destroyed boardwalk in barefeet like an idiot. I was kissed sweetly in the sand that has now buried cars and shifted houses off their foundations. I rode the rollercoaster that now sits in the Atlantic. At least I think that's the one I rode after being dared.
My last decade has been shaped by the Federal Flood, otherwise known as Hurricane Katrina. The landscape around me has changed since then in both good and bad ways. My interior landscape is forever changed by that experience.
I heard Seaside Heights' Mayor Bill Akers on CNN this morning. He said that when he hears what's going on in other areas his heart goes out to them. His voice broke when he said he was trying to keep emotion out of it. For now. I was on my dry couch in New Orleans in tears.
We here in New Orleans watched the NASA shots of Sandy headed your way. She was huge, well organized, aimed at you and we knew how that felt. She was perfect, as Katrina was, actually beautiful when viewed from the safety of a distant satellite lens. We saw the targets on your backs and understood, possibly as no other group of people can.
Initially there was some bitter grousing about our having had to defend our City's right to exist and be rebuilt, something you might not have to do. We weathered the nasty comments about our being idiots living below sea level, and even nastier comments about tax payer money being wasted on morons and ingrates and freeloaders. These comments were ubiquitous after Katrina, but we wouldn't wish what you're dealing with on anyone because we've been there.
We endured extreme heat, while you folks have to deal with unbelievable cold, as the power went out and stayed out. We are also a city in which some people don't have cars, so we understand the New Yorkers who are utterly stranded as the Subway tunnels have turned into something better navigated by gondolas than train cars. We know as we see aerial views of Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and all the coastal towns that what we're seeing in no way shows us the length and breadth and depth of the devastation. We know you aren't overstating it when you say it looks like a war zone. We understand the loss of everything you own. We know the tears you'll shed as your kids' yearbooks and baby pictures are gone forever. We understand your toughness, your determination to rebuild, your compassion for your neighbors and your statements about your family being fine and your losses were “only stuff.”
We get it.
Now for the unsolicited advice:
Expect unexpected consequences. One or more of your leaders will let you down. Right now the adrenalin is flowing and you're all in shock, as are your leaders, who really seem to be doing a great job. It's down the road when the issue becomes money and contractors and the actual rebuilding that you'll be let down by someone. Be prepared to deal with the anger.
Have patience. Your power will come on when it comes on, and all the ranting and raving in the world cannot change that, nor can you expect a timetable from your utility companies. Just two months ago we went through Isaac and the utility issues were exasperating. I say this to you as someone who sat on the porch waiting for bucket trucks, or at least information, in the aftermath of several hurricanes now. Don't waste your energy (no pun intended) calling them or expecting one of them to say Thursday at 9AM. It won't happen. Cuddle up and keep each other warm. Oh, and expect your utility rates to jump as the utility companies go to your local civic leaders and ask who's going to pay for all this repair. It will never come out of the utility company's profits, it will come out of your wallet. That I can guarantee.
Try not to slug your Insurance Adjuster. As I watched the storm coming in the other night, there was footage of a building in Chelsea. The entire facade had fallen down, and this was before Sandy's actual landfall. What I heard, in terms of reasons for the facade falling, was familiar: coulda been rain, coulda been shoddy workmanship, coulda been wind, coulda been anything: and so the parsing began. What happened here, and what will no doubt happen there, is that whatever you're covered for, it will be the OTHER reason that caused the damage. If you're covered for wind, it will be deemed water damage or vice versa. Don't count on your insurance carrier to be compassionate. They won't be. In fact you may find your rates hiked, your policy canceled, your payout to be a pittance that wouldn't even cover one month's car payment. Expect that coverage in your area will be curtailed with some companies refusing to write a policy at all. No amount of righteous outrage about the premiums you've paid for years will alter any of this. Your carrier will go on the news, make statements about wanting to help, tell you that you're in good hands, then send you a letter saying they're dropping you at the same time that they issue their quarterly report on profits. Expect it.
Advocate for your Area. Don't let the officials make all the decisions as the rebuilding process gets started. Get involved, start neighborhood associations, make yourself heard, fight for your little spot on this planet. If you don't, monied interests who view disaster as a profit making opportunity, will show up and barrel some ordinance through your City Council; you'll be really upset after the fact. Get in front of this. You've got a little time. First you have to clean up, but remember what I'm saying as the process moves forward. Without your voice, your advocacy, some things will be proposed and moved into your reality so fast your heads will swim, and they won't always be things you would like to have happen. Governor Christie said today that for a guy his age, the iconic parts of the Shore will never be the same. They're gone. He's right. Just don't let people, especially people who aren't from there, determine what will be put in place, no matter what city, town or borough you live in. Ask us about the “iconic” French Market some time when you get a chance, and that's just one little thing. Your sense of community is what will see you through. Without it you'll be steamrolled by developers with wads of cash and connections. Carpetbaggers don't just come to the South.
Allow yourself time to cry. And cry. Then cry some more. You'll be crying unexpectedly for a long time. Ask us. We still cry over the Flood seven years ago, and are crying as we see your devastation because those pictures dredge up visions burned into our souls that we manage not to notice on good days and can't escape on bad days. You'll find yourselves three years from now looking for something familiar, something you know you had, then get slugged in the solar plexus as you remember that it was in a box in your basement when Sandy slammed through. Give yourself permission to grieve the loss of the little things that marked your journey through life. While they don't matter much in the overall scheme of things, they do matter to you, a great deal. Don't minimize their importance in your determination to stay strong. That last picture of your Dad will haunt you if you don't allow yourself to mourn it's simple paper loss.
Don't be afraid to ask for help, you'll need it. The mental health issues related to this will not show up in force for a couple of months. Some won't show themselves until well after the rebuilding has begun. You are in for months and months of stress, and being a hearty lot, you'll manage. You'll cope. Then you'll find yourselves as we did, with a group of friends, and every 15 minutes one or the other of you will burst into tears. Don't berate yourselves over this. Help the other guy through the sobbing until it's your turn and they'll help you and understand and won't call you a pussy.
Watch your elderly family members. They will quietly weather this, but many of them will internalize it. The deaths of elderly people after Katrina skyrocketed. I am not trying to scare you. I'm just telling you what we experienced and it was not something we expected. Many of us didn't notice that the old man down the street was struggling because everything he ever knew was gone, never to return. We didn't always notice when the old lady around the way gave up, and gave in to her broken heart. It was sobering and scary and we carried guilt for being so concerned about rebuilding that we missed signs. These are the things your leaders or the media won't necessarily tell you. We've lived it. We're hoping you can avoid some of it by knowing ahead of time.
Your little ones will be scared, deeply and for a long time. They'll need a lot of help and attention. Your usually mellow child might suddenly bolt under the bed at the sound of the wind. As scary as this was and is for you, for them it's as though a big malevolent foot stomped their sandcastle of security. They're too young to understand, too young to process some of it, too young sometimes to vocalize their fears, and they'll try to be strong for you as you are trying to be for them. Make sure that your schools have some kind of program in place to deal with the trauma. If they don't have one, demand it.
Retain your sense of humor. Gallows humor will get you through a lot of things. Of course, here in New Orleans, gallows humor is our stock in trade, but I know you've got a pretty good streak in you too. Use it. You'll need it and will find it very helpful as you dig out.
Accept what people give you. Don't let your pride get in the way. We learned that very quickly as packages with cash tucked into them came to us from friends and strangers all over the country. For some of you the cash will be important as your paychecks won't be coming for a while, if your job still exists. Our initial response was, yup, pride. We don't need that, we're fine, we thought. We learned humility fast and we learned to simply say thank you and accept the help. The folks who sent it wanted to help, really wanted to help. They didn't want to give to an organization, they wanted to help us hand to hand, and they knew that if we knew of a place or person nearby who needed the help they sent more than we did, which was often the case, that we'd make sure it got to those people. You will be touched and humbled by the generosity of people and that's something else you can lean on during this trying period.
Be prepared for assholes. There will be those who make outrageous assertions about your character or your home from behind a screen as they sit comfortably a thousand miles away. They will say it's God's wrath for having gay people among you. They will say you're idiots for living at sea level. They'll make all manner of racist comments. They'll say that rebuilding boardwalks and homes on the shore or the barrier islands is wasteful folly. They'll call you freeloaders, opportunists, and worse. For every bit of great kindness you receive, there will be an equal amount of venomous hatred. Ignore them if you can or defend if you must. Understand that idiots will come out of the woodwork as fast as the volunteers who show up to help you. They are hateful cowards. Say what you must to them, unless ignoring them is easier on your psyche.
As Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I am reminded of the first Thanksgiving after Katrina. A small group of us got together for dinner at one of the few open restaurants. (Power, by the way, still wasn't on in many areas of the city.) One of our number asked quietly if we'd mind if he read something. We all said no, of course we didn't mind. He had searched for days for this passage from “Ulysses” by Tennyson:
Our hearts are with you, and our tears are tears of understanding and memory. I am in hopes that the writing of this will arm you for the battle ahead as what we learned has to have some positive use. I cannot accept that it was all for naught.
“Tonight I'm gonna take that ride
Across the river to the jersey side
Take my baby to the carnival
And I'll take her on all the rides
`cause down the shore everything's all right”
Song by Tom Waits
Heard in the head of a Jersey Girl in the voice of
Bruce Springsteen, Jersey Girl
Heard in the head of a Jersey Girl in the voice of
Bruce Springsteen, Jersey Girl
No. It's not all right and you probably can't get across the river right now anyway.
My high school years in Bergen County are peppered with memories not of classrooms and despotic Vice Principals, but of subway rides into Manhattan, afternoon rides on the Staten Island Ferry (cheap fun for a truant), and hustling rides ten to a car down the Garden State Parkway to Asbury Park and Seaside Heights, which were never called by name, only referred to as “The Shore.” I picked splinters out of my feet after walking the now destroyed boardwalk in barefeet like an idiot. I was kissed sweetly in the sand that has now buried cars and shifted houses off their foundations. I rode the rollercoaster that now sits in the Atlantic. At least I think that's the one I rode after being dared.
My last decade has been shaped by the Federal Flood, otherwise known as Hurricane Katrina. The landscape around me has changed since then in both good and bad ways. My interior landscape is forever changed by that experience.
I heard Seaside Heights' Mayor Bill Akers on CNN this morning. He said that when he hears what's going on in other areas his heart goes out to them. His voice broke when he said he was trying to keep emotion out of it. For now. I was on my dry couch in New Orleans in tears.
We here in New Orleans watched the NASA shots of Sandy headed your way. She was huge, well organized, aimed at you and we knew how that felt. She was perfect, as Katrina was, actually beautiful when viewed from the safety of a distant satellite lens. We saw the targets on your backs and understood, possibly as no other group of people can.
Initially there was some bitter grousing about our having had to defend our City's right to exist and be rebuilt, something you might not have to do. We weathered the nasty comments about our being idiots living below sea level, and even nastier comments about tax payer money being wasted on morons and ingrates and freeloaders. These comments were ubiquitous after Katrina, but we wouldn't wish what you're dealing with on anyone because we've been there.
We endured extreme heat, while you folks have to deal with unbelievable cold, as the power went out and stayed out. We are also a city in which some people don't have cars, so we understand the New Yorkers who are utterly stranded as the Subway tunnels have turned into something better navigated by gondolas than train cars. We know as we see aerial views of Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and all the coastal towns that what we're seeing in no way shows us the length and breadth and depth of the devastation. We know you aren't overstating it when you say it looks like a war zone. We understand the loss of everything you own. We know the tears you'll shed as your kids' yearbooks and baby pictures are gone forever. We understand your toughness, your determination to rebuild, your compassion for your neighbors and your statements about your family being fine and your losses were “only stuff.”
We get it.
Now for the unsolicited advice:
Expect unexpected consequences. One or more of your leaders will let you down. Right now the adrenalin is flowing and you're all in shock, as are your leaders, who really seem to be doing a great job. It's down the road when the issue becomes money and contractors and the actual rebuilding that you'll be let down by someone. Be prepared to deal with the anger.
Have patience. Your power will come on when it comes on, and all the ranting and raving in the world cannot change that, nor can you expect a timetable from your utility companies. Just two months ago we went through Isaac and the utility issues were exasperating. I say this to you as someone who sat on the porch waiting for bucket trucks, or at least information, in the aftermath of several hurricanes now. Don't waste your energy (no pun intended) calling them or expecting one of them to say Thursday at 9AM. It won't happen. Cuddle up and keep each other warm. Oh, and expect your utility rates to jump as the utility companies go to your local civic leaders and ask who's going to pay for all this repair. It will never come out of the utility company's profits, it will come out of your wallet. That I can guarantee.
Try not to slug your Insurance Adjuster. As I watched the storm coming in the other night, there was footage of a building in Chelsea. The entire facade had fallen down, and this was before Sandy's actual landfall. What I heard, in terms of reasons for the facade falling, was familiar: coulda been rain, coulda been shoddy workmanship, coulda been wind, coulda been anything: and so the parsing began. What happened here, and what will no doubt happen there, is that whatever you're covered for, it will be the OTHER reason that caused the damage. If you're covered for wind, it will be deemed water damage or vice versa. Don't count on your insurance carrier to be compassionate. They won't be. In fact you may find your rates hiked, your policy canceled, your payout to be a pittance that wouldn't even cover one month's car payment. Expect that coverage in your area will be curtailed with some companies refusing to write a policy at all. No amount of righteous outrage about the premiums you've paid for years will alter any of this. Your carrier will go on the news, make statements about wanting to help, tell you that you're in good hands, then send you a letter saying they're dropping you at the same time that they issue their quarterly report on profits. Expect it.
Advocate for your Area. Don't let the officials make all the decisions as the rebuilding process gets started. Get involved, start neighborhood associations, make yourself heard, fight for your little spot on this planet. If you don't, monied interests who view disaster as a profit making opportunity, will show up and barrel some ordinance through your City Council; you'll be really upset after the fact. Get in front of this. You've got a little time. First you have to clean up, but remember what I'm saying as the process moves forward. Without your voice, your advocacy, some things will be proposed and moved into your reality so fast your heads will swim, and they won't always be things you would like to have happen. Governor Christie said today that for a guy his age, the iconic parts of the Shore will never be the same. They're gone. He's right. Just don't let people, especially people who aren't from there, determine what will be put in place, no matter what city, town or borough you live in. Ask us about the “iconic” French Market some time when you get a chance, and that's just one little thing. Your sense of community is what will see you through. Without it you'll be steamrolled by developers with wads of cash and connections. Carpetbaggers don't just come to the South.
Allow yourself time to cry. And cry. Then cry some more. You'll be crying unexpectedly for a long time. Ask us. We still cry over the Flood seven years ago, and are crying as we see your devastation because those pictures dredge up visions burned into our souls that we manage not to notice on good days and can't escape on bad days. You'll find yourselves three years from now looking for something familiar, something you know you had, then get slugged in the solar plexus as you remember that it was in a box in your basement when Sandy slammed through. Give yourself permission to grieve the loss of the little things that marked your journey through life. While they don't matter much in the overall scheme of things, they do matter to you, a great deal. Don't minimize their importance in your determination to stay strong. That last picture of your Dad will haunt you if you don't allow yourself to mourn it's simple paper loss.
Don't be afraid to ask for help, you'll need it. The mental health issues related to this will not show up in force for a couple of months. Some won't show themselves until well after the rebuilding has begun. You are in for months and months of stress, and being a hearty lot, you'll manage. You'll cope. Then you'll find yourselves as we did, with a group of friends, and every 15 minutes one or the other of you will burst into tears. Don't berate yourselves over this. Help the other guy through the sobbing until it's your turn and they'll help you and understand and won't call you a pussy.
Watch your elderly family members. They will quietly weather this, but many of them will internalize it. The deaths of elderly people after Katrina skyrocketed. I am not trying to scare you. I'm just telling you what we experienced and it was not something we expected. Many of us didn't notice that the old man down the street was struggling because everything he ever knew was gone, never to return. We didn't always notice when the old lady around the way gave up, and gave in to her broken heart. It was sobering and scary and we carried guilt for being so concerned about rebuilding that we missed signs. These are the things your leaders or the media won't necessarily tell you. We've lived it. We're hoping you can avoid some of it by knowing ahead of time.
Your little ones will be scared, deeply and for a long time. They'll need a lot of help and attention. Your usually mellow child might suddenly bolt under the bed at the sound of the wind. As scary as this was and is for you, for them it's as though a big malevolent foot stomped their sandcastle of security. They're too young to understand, too young to process some of it, too young sometimes to vocalize their fears, and they'll try to be strong for you as you are trying to be for them. Make sure that your schools have some kind of program in place to deal with the trauma. If they don't have one, demand it.
Retain your sense of humor. Gallows humor will get you through a lot of things. Of course, here in New Orleans, gallows humor is our stock in trade, but I know you've got a pretty good streak in you too. Use it. You'll need it and will find it very helpful as you dig out.
Accept what people give you. Don't let your pride get in the way. We learned that very quickly as packages with cash tucked into them came to us from friends and strangers all over the country. For some of you the cash will be important as your paychecks won't be coming for a while, if your job still exists. Our initial response was, yup, pride. We don't need that, we're fine, we thought. We learned humility fast and we learned to simply say thank you and accept the help. The folks who sent it wanted to help, really wanted to help. They didn't want to give to an organization, they wanted to help us hand to hand, and they knew that if we knew of a place or person nearby who needed the help they sent more than we did, which was often the case, that we'd make sure it got to those people. You will be touched and humbled by the generosity of people and that's something else you can lean on during this trying period.
Be prepared for assholes. There will be those who make outrageous assertions about your character or your home from behind a screen as they sit comfortably a thousand miles away. They will say it's God's wrath for having gay people among you. They will say you're idiots for living at sea level. They'll make all manner of racist comments. They'll say that rebuilding boardwalks and homes on the shore or the barrier islands is wasteful folly. They'll call you freeloaders, opportunists, and worse. For every bit of great kindness you receive, there will be an equal amount of venomous hatred. Ignore them if you can or defend if you must. Understand that idiots will come out of the woodwork as fast as the volunteers who show up to help you. They are hateful cowards. Say what you must to them, unless ignoring them is easier on your psyche.
As Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I am reminded of the first Thanksgiving after Katrina. A small group of us got together for dinner at one of the few open restaurants. (Power, by the way, still wasn't on in many areas of the city.) One of our number asked quietly if we'd mind if he read something. We all said no, of course we didn't mind. He had searched for days for this passage from “Ulysses” by Tennyson:
“Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Our hearts are with you, and our tears are tears of understanding and memory. I am in hopes that the writing of this will arm you for the battle ahead as what we learned has to have some positive use. I cannot accept that it was all for naught.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Sold Out: More AirBnB Concerns
Many years ago, a friend and I stood forlornly outside Madison Square Garden as David Bowie went on stage inside. We had been unable to find anyone with extra tickets. The show was sold out. That was too bad for us. Many years later, I remember considering a visit to New Orleans for Mardi Gras only to be told by someone in the know that I'd have to make hotel reservations a year ahead of time if I really wanted to do that. The hotel rooms would be sold out. Too bad for me. As a result I didn't make it to Mardi Gras until New Orleans became my home. My (affordable) rental lease guaranteed that reservation for any damn day I wanted.
Fast forward and it seems that many locals are standing forlornly outside rentable units being told it's too bad for them, they're sold out, the keys having gone to anyone BUT a local long term working renter. One article I saw last week quoted a local resident saying that come Monday morning her neighborhood was a ghost town: no one walking, no one on a stoop, no one around on her way down the block although it had been full of folks over the weekend. Many New Orleanians are watching their neighborhoods turn to short term rental havens (oh SO authentic!) filled with de facto hotels, no actual neighbors, ever rising rents and ever shorter supply and they're sick of it.
The folks in Barcelona and Copenhagen seem to be in the same boat but they're fighting back. Barcelona statistics seem to show that about 60% of the tourist lodgings in that city are now short term AirBnb/VRBO, etc as opposed to what most reasonable folks think of when they think of the word “hotel.” In parts of Barcelona the same issues are arising: rising rents, impossible to raise a family with the rising prices, too many tourists looking for authenticity, rogue hotels all over the place with local residents quickly being displaced. Last year many Barcelona citizens took to the streets over this issue. Copenhagen has had it with tourists taking over their city as well, and the Danes have sensibly forbidden the sale of seacoast vacation cottages to foreigners. Both cities feel like their residents are being over run and run out by tourists. In one article on Barcelona someone being interviewed spoke of the “theme park” atmosphere, a statement that can be heard on any stoop in New Orleans (or for that matter, seen as a Krewe du Vieux theme).
In a conversation last week someone visiting, and thoroughly enjoying themselves glad to say, said they'd LOVE to buy a place down here “for when they come to visit.” It was a shame because I'd enjoyed our conversation until that point, then out of my mouth came, “Well, we've got a lot of that here. Empty units that are only actually lived in 6 weeks out of the year tops.” Sensing that my mood had darkened a bit, she said, “I'd rent it out when I wasn't here so it wouldn't be EMPTY” <---said very defensively. “To a local who needs a place to live? So what, you'd cable ahead and let them know when you were going to grace us with a visit and they could go, I dunno, camping til you leave?” (Yeah. I know. Rude. Further, she didn't pick up on my use of the arcane “cable” as apparently she hadn't seen enough old movies filled with wealthy folks who cable. Whatever. I was sort of sorry. Until . . .) “No. Of course not. I'd short term rent it so I could guarantee that it would be vacant when I came to visit. I'd NEVER put a local out of a place to live!” <---This said still defensively but brightly as though I was accusing her of being a horridly insensitive landlord, which naturally she wouldn't be. “I see,” I said, “so you'd just permanently put the local out of a place to live.” She stared at me like I had three heads. It had clearly never occurred to her that this was the actual reality. I bought her a drink to smooth the waters but later realized I had only fed the beast with my charm, manners and a change of topic. (“So, how about that Trump!???!”) I thought later that maybe we need to become ruder. A friend, knowing I carry on about this a lot, sent me a link. (This LINK)I followed her directions about clicking and unclicking and was shocked but a tad vindicated. I put in the zipcode box 70117, then moved the map so that most of the French Quarter, Marigny, St. Roch, Bywater and the Lower 9 neighborhoods were visible. I was especially looking in the three areas I'd previously lived. I clicked “Sublets” and unclicked the others. Took a screenshot.
I then reversed it, leaving the zipcode field the same, I clicked “Full Lease” and unclicked the others. Took another screenshot. Then heard a loud OH MY GOD come out of my mouth. Take a look.
I counted from the mid-point of the Quarter (ignoring the extra sublets that showed up in the Upper Quarter) both times, using the same starting points. Including only those areas that were riverside of I-10 downtown. You can see for yourself. Full Lease count was 12. Sublet count was 35. Nearly 3-1. That should scare the pants off of us.
Councilperson Stacy Head has some suggestions. She'd legalize short term if the owner lived on the premises with some provisos. She seems unaware (benefit of the doubt) that a number of people listing these short term rentals are doing it as a job: posing as a “renter”, signing the lease, promptly turning it into a short term rental with some of these folks having half a dozen of them. (I heard today from someone who deals with rentals a lot that he had rented out a place, the guy looked great on paper and in person, he showed up the next day with an extra key and the place was already tricked out for a bachelorette party scheduled the next day!) Another part of her proposal that baffles me is this:
I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Let's let people buy blighted properties, fix them up, run them as short term rentals for “several years” (How many years? License them as hotels? Pay hotel taxes? YEARS??) and claims that somehow a zillion people coming and going in that neighborhood for “several years” will “stabilize” the neighborhood. Huh? She follows that up with “that, in turn, could lead to a situation” whereby the city could “ease the restrictions” elsewhere in the city? Sounds like she wants the entire place to be full on the weekends and empty during the week while we all get forced out to Metairie or, I dunno, Dubuque. None of the above makes sense to me, but it would make governance easier with none of us pesky local residents bringing our complaints about the cost of solar trash cans, parking issues, zoning, music or crime to the door of the Council or Mayor's office.
This week there were a couple of interesting pieces about who was left behind after the Federal Flood, how the demolition of public housing impacted the local citizenry, and the problems with Section 8 housing (not the least being there isn't enough). Why not flip that blight scenario on its head. Let those 10K blighted buildings get purchased for a song, get SBA or someone on board to help with the rehab of the house, then require that it be rented as a Section 8 unit for “several years” and require absolute compliance with the strictest interpretation of the Fair Housing laws. Or maybe consider what some other cities are doing using community land trusts (great article in the Atlantic about that) in which low income folks buy the houses but the land stays in the hands of a non-profit. (It has worked well in Albquerque in a section of town that is wedged between Old Town and very high end homes.) Get some lenders on board because evidently one the hardest issues facing this model is banks unable to figure out how to structure the mortgages.
We can't give away our city's housing to short term rental advocates. We also can't turn back the clock on tourism completely, but is there really a problem with saying, “Hey, we've gone beyond our capacity to put roofs over all the tourists heads this weekend. Our ACTUAL, licensed, insured hotels are booked up. Sorry we're sold out. Come next week instead.” Don't like that idea? Prefer to sell out to the short term rental folks? Okay. But you won't like it when your waitresses, bartenders, maids and valets join the rest of us in the streets with signs and bullhorns protesting our inability to find affordable rental housing. That will really harsh the buzz of the tourists upon whose wallets we depend.
What can't happen is the continuation of the status quo where every neighborhood is a an unlicensed hospitality zone and too many of the local workers have no affordable housing options. We know we need tourism dollars, but you folks on the Council need us, and not just to work. A friend sent me a photo this week. A photo of all of you with the caption: Tourists don't vote in Orleans Parish. Out of town landlords also don't vote in Orleans Parish. The CEO's of AirBnb and the others, also don't vote in Orleans Parish. We do. Us. Down here. The ones paying more than half our salaries in rent year in and year out as opposed to one weekend a year every other year. We're scared. We're pissed. And we know how to make signs and use a bullhorn.
Fast forward and it seems that many locals are standing forlornly outside rentable units being told it's too bad for them, they're sold out, the keys having gone to anyone BUT a local long term working renter. One article I saw last week quoted a local resident saying that come Monday morning her neighborhood was a ghost town: no one walking, no one on a stoop, no one around on her way down the block although it had been full of folks over the weekend. Many New Orleanians are watching their neighborhoods turn to short term rental havens (oh SO authentic!) filled with de facto hotels, no actual neighbors, ever rising rents and ever shorter supply and they're sick of it.
The folks in Barcelona and Copenhagen seem to be in the same boat but they're fighting back. Barcelona statistics seem to show that about 60% of the tourist lodgings in that city are now short term AirBnb/VRBO, etc as opposed to what most reasonable folks think of when they think of the word “hotel.” In parts of Barcelona the same issues are arising: rising rents, impossible to raise a family with the rising prices, too many tourists looking for authenticity, rogue hotels all over the place with local residents quickly being displaced. Last year many Barcelona citizens took to the streets over this issue. Copenhagen has had it with tourists taking over their city as well, and the Danes have sensibly forbidden the sale of seacoast vacation cottages to foreigners. Both cities feel like their residents are being over run and run out by tourists. In one article on Barcelona someone being interviewed spoke of the “theme park” atmosphere, a statement that can be heard on any stoop in New Orleans (or for that matter, seen as a Krewe du Vieux theme).
In a conversation last week someone visiting, and thoroughly enjoying themselves glad to say, said they'd LOVE to buy a place down here “for when they come to visit.” It was a shame because I'd enjoyed our conversation until that point, then out of my mouth came, “Well, we've got a lot of that here. Empty units that are only actually lived in 6 weeks out of the year tops.” Sensing that my mood had darkened a bit, she said, “I'd rent it out when I wasn't here so it wouldn't be EMPTY” <---said very defensively. “To a local who needs a place to live? So what, you'd cable ahead and let them know when you were going to grace us with a visit and they could go, I dunno, camping til you leave?” (Yeah. I know. Rude. Further, she didn't pick up on my use of the arcane “cable” as apparently she hadn't seen enough old movies filled with wealthy folks who cable. Whatever. I was sort of sorry. Until . . .) “No. Of course not. I'd short term rent it so I could guarantee that it would be vacant when I came to visit. I'd NEVER put a local out of a place to live!” <---This said still defensively but brightly as though I was accusing her of being a horridly insensitive landlord, which naturally she wouldn't be. “I see,” I said, “so you'd just permanently put the local out of a place to live.” She stared at me like I had three heads. It had clearly never occurred to her that this was the actual reality. I bought her a drink to smooth the waters but later realized I had only fed the beast with my charm, manners and a change of topic. (“So, how about that Trump!???!”) I thought later that maybe we need to become ruder. A friend, knowing I carry on about this a lot, sent me a link. (This LINK)I followed her directions about clicking and unclicking and was shocked but a tad vindicated. I put in the zipcode box 70117, then moved the map so that most of the French Quarter, Marigny, St. Roch, Bywater and the Lower 9 neighborhoods were visible. I was especially looking in the three areas I'd previously lived. I clicked “Sublets” and unclicked the others. Took a screenshot.
I then reversed it, leaving the zipcode field the same, I clicked “Full Lease” and unclicked the others. Took another screenshot. Then heard a loud OH MY GOD come out of my mouth. Take a look.
I counted from the mid-point of the Quarter (ignoring the extra sublets that showed up in the Upper Quarter) both times, using the same starting points. Including only those areas that were riverside of I-10 downtown. You can see for yourself. Full Lease count was 12. Sublet count was 35. Nearly 3-1. That should scare the pants off of us.
Councilperson Stacy Head has some suggestions. She'd legalize short term if the owner lived on the premises with some provisos. She seems unaware (benefit of the doubt) that a number of people listing these short term rentals are doing it as a job: posing as a “renter”, signing the lease, promptly turning it into a short term rental with some of these folks having half a dozen of them. (I heard today from someone who deals with rentals a lot that he had rented out a place, the guy looked great on paper and in person, he showed up the next day with an extra key and the place was already tricked out for a bachelorette party scheduled the next day!) Another part of her proposal that baffles me is this:
Should her initial proposal get approved, Head said, she is looking into the more complex issue of whether short-term rentals could be used as a tool to get investors to clean up blighted properties and bring them back into commerce.
One solution to the 10,000 blighted properties in the city could involve allowing people who purchase them and fix them up to fully rent them out to short-term tenants for several years, giving the neighborhoods they are in a chance to stabilize to the point where longer-term rentals are possible, Head said.
And that, in turn, could lead to a situation where it might be less of an issue to ease the restrictions on short-term rentals elsewhere in the city.
“There are so many blighted properties that if all of our efforts to get them into commerce were successful, it’s possible there would be a place for non-owner-occupied short-term rentals,” she said.
I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Let's let people buy blighted properties, fix them up, run them as short term rentals for “several years” (How many years? License them as hotels? Pay hotel taxes? YEARS??) and claims that somehow a zillion people coming and going in that neighborhood for “several years” will “stabilize” the neighborhood. Huh? She follows that up with “that, in turn, could lead to a situation” whereby the city could “ease the restrictions” elsewhere in the city? Sounds like she wants the entire place to be full on the weekends and empty during the week while we all get forced out to Metairie or, I dunno, Dubuque. None of the above makes sense to me, but it would make governance easier with none of us pesky local residents bringing our complaints about the cost of solar trash cans, parking issues, zoning, music or
This week there were a couple of interesting pieces about who was left behind after the Federal Flood, how the demolition of public housing impacted the local citizenry, and the problems with Section 8 housing (not the least being there isn't enough). Why not flip that blight scenario on its head. Let those 10K blighted buildings get purchased for a song, get SBA or someone on board to help with the rehab of the house, then require that it be rented as a Section 8 unit for “several years” and require absolute compliance with the strictest interpretation of the Fair Housing laws. Or maybe consider what some other cities are doing using community land trusts (great article in the Atlantic about that) in which low income folks buy the houses but the land stays in the hands of a non-profit. (It has worked well in Albquerque in a section of town that is wedged between Old Town and very high end homes.) Get some lenders on board because evidently one the hardest issues facing this model is banks unable to figure out how to structure the mortgages.
We can't give away our city's housing to short term rental advocates. We also can't turn back the clock on tourism completely, but is there really a problem with saying, “Hey, we've gone beyond our capacity to put roofs over all the tourists heads this weekend. Our ACTUAL, licensed, insured hotels are booked up. Sorry we're sold out. Come next week instead.” Don't like that idea? Prefer to sell out to the short term rental folks? Okay. But you won't like it when your waitresses, bartenders, maids and valets join the rest of us in the streets with signs and bullhorns protesting our inability to find affordable rental housing. That will really harsh the buzz of the tourists upon whose wallets we depend.
What can't happen is the continuation of the status quo where every neighborhood is a an unlicensed hospitality zone and too many of the local workers have no affordable housing options. We know we need tourism dollars, but you folks on the Council need us, and not just to work. A friend sent me a photo this week. A photo of all of you with the caption: Tourists don't vote in Orleans Parish. Out of town landlords also don't vote in Orleans Parish. The CEO's of AirBnb and the others, also don't vote in Orleans Parish. We do. Us. Down here. The ones paying more than half our salaries in rent year in and year out as opposed to one weekend a year every other year. We're scared. We're pissed. And we know how to make signs and use a bullhorn.
Friday, June 12, 2015
AirBnB: Short Term Rentals, A Different Kind of Blight
Well, looks like the folks in San Francisco are upset with AirBnB and their City Council. The council voted to table a bill regarding home sharing, much to the chagrin of many residents who have in any case, decided to take matters into their own hands via referendum. In NYC landlord's are doing all they can to kick everyone in rent controlled apartments out using some pretty shabby methods.
Meanwhile, here in New Orleans things are seemingly out of control in terms of AirBnb and the loss of affordable housing, and it happened almost over night. I have friends in the Marigny who tell me our former local watering hole now has virtually no regulars anymore, or at least not ones I'd recognize. They've moved across the street and elsewhere. One friend said, “I don't have the right clothes and my (gauged) jewelry scares them.” I'm guessing there are fewer gossamer winged girls in green wigs and tall bikes parked on the corner of Franklin and Royal now too.
I lived two blocks from Esplanade in the Marigny for about three years, an area I loved. It was perfect proximity to every place I needed to be or wanted to go. The rent was high even then, the yard was huge and high maintenance but the block was pretty close knit. Everyone said hello, or helped with the feral cat trapping and releasing, or mourned when one of the old timers passed on. We weathered Gustav there, playing blackjack at Buffa's after the storm passed while all the food in their freezer and everyone else's was cooked and eaten. In 2009 a friend asked if we wanted to move into a house he had just inherited. It was much deeper in the Marigny, nearly to Bywater. “It's across Elysian Fields for crying out loud!” I said, and anyone who knows me well is nodding right now. It was smaller, had a less maintenance heavy yard, and it was nearly $400 cheaper per month. Well, sorta. We had to now pay a water bill, but whatever. I didn't want to move but move we did. I asked him why he was living in Da Parish instead of this cute little house? “Because there are too many black people here,” came the answer. I was frankly shocked but I wrote the check.
Once moved in it was tough for a while. I missed my neighbors. I missed my perfect central proximity. I missed hearing the Mac35 band practicing as I could at my old house, but learned to love the sound of the trains. I made friends with the place and the people on the block pretty quickly. Sure, it took ten more minutes to get to Lafayette Square for the Wednesday music, but not a real problem. My hips had a bit more cartilage then. We spent Hurricane Isaac there, getting word of a swim party a block up and cold beer at the Lost Love Lounge while we waited for Entergy. As a Krewe du Vieux member, the closeness to the Den was great if I had to stagger home after a fundraiser. My home bar changed from Buffa's to Mimi's, and although I felt underdressed and over-aged there at first, I met the regulars and became a known quantity—if I left my card they'd just add their tip and wait for me to show up because they knew I would. It became our sub-krewe's second home as the upstairs gave us privacy to act like idiots at the pre-parade party, munching pizza and chicken, drinking whatever crazy ass brew the manager who loved us made in gigantic quantities, and tossing glitter all over each other before we had to line up. Book signings, memorial services, celebrations, “haven't seen you in forEVER” gatherings, sad days, happy days, all the basic parts of life seemed to happen on our porch, inside Mimi's, on a wobbly chair at Flora Coffeehouse. Just sitting there for an hour would bring someone you knew to holler at, and more than likely they'd lock up their bike and sit down for a while to catch up. We showed pictures of our dogs to each other, bitched about the prices at the local store, passed on gossip, and gathered there at 8AM on Mardi Gras morning to roll out with St. Ann. The neighborhood was comfortable. It was home with a capital H.
Every year the rent rose, eventually coming only $50 bucks from the rent I'd been convinced to move there to escape. Homeowners taxes had gone up for sure. Insurance rates had been rising. Everyone I knew was hanging tight as their rents rose little by little. Then in January 2014 the friend who owned the house dropped a bombshell: His new girlfriend hated Da Parish, thought the Marigny was chic, and we had to go. He was in love and they were moving in. I missed the “love” part as I couldn't hear it through the white noise of panic and dread. The lease was technically up, and had reverted to month to month. Nothing could be done, so after the tears abated, the search began in earnest. The realities of a new deposit and first month's rent while paying rent at home was daunting. It couldn't have been done without a friend's help. Feelers were put out on Facebook, friends were asked to keep an eye out (and so very many of them did my email box was chock full of possible leads), “for rent” signs on houses were checked out. I scoured Craigslist while simultaneously packing. Mardi Gras came early that year, complicating the logistics. The sense of anger and betrayal seemed to hang like a fog over all of it. Of course he owned the place, of course he had the right, but the rent had always been paid on time, maintenance had been done so as not to bother him with little stuff, great landscapers were called after Isaac to save a tree paid for out of pocket because it was the right thing to do and it was home. Swallowing hard, the search for a new roof overhead was on. I actively avoided the sense of uprootedness. I'd deal with that later.
The “looking” sucked. I don't have to tell any of you. You've all been there. Too late for this one, reject that one, oh my god this one has a hole in the floor and they want how much? No dogs? No cats? We're screwed?
Just then an old friend called, who had rented our earlier Marigny house to us. The one we had forsaken for cheaper rent. “Meet me in the Quarter at 8AM.” What? Morning drinking? “No. I have the perfect place for you.” He did. After skittering across town on frosty streets the day the city froze the key was turned in the gate and there it was. At $50 less than what we were now paying for the “cheaper place” we called home, the papers were signed on the spot. I thought I'd dreamed it. The nightmare that is moving ensued, the logistics of moving to the Quarter around Mardi Gras were surmounted, amazing friends pitched in at every turn. One day I walked out of the gate and a tourist asked if I lived here, I thought she meant New Orleans, she meant in the Quarter, I wasn't sure how to answer her. No one with any sense looks for a place in the Quarter, but here I was, a total long time Marigny dweller being looked at as a lucky bitch who came out that gorgeous gate. I couldn't deny it. I was lucky. Very very lucky.
It was an adjustment for sure, but here I am 15-16 months out while the neighbors on my old block are now knee deep in AirBnB's. (Or Homeaway/VRBO/Craigslist, whatever vacation rental sites there are out there for short term rentals.) A sea change on one block, actually one block of one street, in that short length of time.
I was slow on the uptake. When I first moved to the other side of the world, I mean, the Marigny, the neighbors had their niece staying in the small shed like building out back. It was in a lovely yard, the shed had been nicely furnished, and she said she had left her home elsewhere, moved here to her uncle's house and was doing some housekeeping for him and his partner til she found a job. We'd talk a little as I pulled the stubborn vines that had overgrown the fence for years, and she swept her uncle's stoop. We'd exchange pleasantries and comment on the weather, we'd yell at our respective dogs to quit barking at the mailman. After a few months she was gone. Last time I saw her she told me she had found that job and moved. After that I noticed a different car in the driveway, a different guy coming out of the back apartment. A little more building and tweaking of the backyard. A week later another guy, another terse “I'm a friend of ____ here on business” as he headed out the gate at a fast determined clip. One warm night, I had brought a beer home from Mimi's, plopped down on my stoop and a beautiful woman swathed in multi-colored scarves with an unidentifiable accent sort of floated by with a soft soprano hello as she disappeared toward the backyard. An SUV would suddenly appear in the front yard driveway overnight and disappear just as suddenly. It was months before I figured out what was going on. Mostly it was unobtrusive and the rest of our friends on the block were still hanging on their stoop, our stoop or watching the game with us in the living room, so nothing seemed really amiss. The neighbors with the merry go round friends coming to stay were amiable and cordial but aloof from the regular shenanigans of the rest of us.
On the upriver side of the street there were two renters, including us I think, but the other homes were owner occupied, although one was occupied only intermittently during Mardi Gras or a Fest. On the other side of the street there were more renters as the buildings were multi-unit dwellings. One of the largest of them had, however, been purchased and apparently had been in Architectural Digest or something. It was supposedly a large loft but most of what I knew was conjecture as that owner/occupant also wasn't swilling Jameson's in our living room yelling obscenities at referees during football season.
That one street, on one side of the block, now has 5 AirBnB's, three of them in a row, the entire middle part of that block, and two on the other side of the street. Five. That's only one side of one four sided block. According to the completely unreliable AirBnB maps (I'll explain about their unreliablility in a bit.) if you follow that block one block toward the river, there are three more, go one block toward the lake and there are at least 5 more (counting both up and downriver sides of the street). That gives that three block section of ONE street a total of 13 AirBnB's, and that's at a minimum. (In fact, rumor has it that the ratty old shed at our old home is now an “elegant renovated cottage”: renovated and listed within a year.)
I am only using AirBnB's map for these numbers. Some of the short term rentals are listed on multiple sites, like VRBO, Homeaway (which I believe is some sort of offshoot of VRBO), vacationhomerentals.com, and Craigslist along with listing it on AirBnB, although I'm sure that that isn't a complete list of short term rental sites. Another trick I've noticed is some people (people I know are definitely short term renting) obfuscate their actual street location to keep neighbors from finding their listings. Once you click on a listing, you might get a street name, and a vague circle on the map in terms of general location, but most of them keep their actual street address off any public listings. Some would be pretty easy to find if they show an exterior shot of the house, others only show the interior of the space to be rented, and some are converted sheds or add ons that wouldn't necessarily be seen from the street. For all of these reasons, the AirBnB home map is unreliable as a definitive tool for counting the number of these rentals per block. The numbers are most certainly greater than what can be found on AirBnB's site alone.
Back to my old block, there are five confirmed on a one block section of one street. (These are confirmed by neighbors still in the neighborhood if not on that block.) If we start multiplying that by all four sides of a block, the numbers are certainly much higher than I would have thought. After seeing that, I decided to go look at the area of our first Marigny rental which was about two blocks off of Esplanade.
Again, understanding that some of these are listed so as to obfuscate their actual locations, my old block seems to only have two, although if you headed toward the river and turned right or left, you'd find two more in short order, one in each direction. Go down further into the Marigny Triangle and you'll see a sea of red placards with prices on them, the deeper you go the more they proliferate. Here's a shot of 16 of them between Esplanade and Touro, just barely above Burgundy and just below Dauphine. The further toward the river you go, the denser it gets, then start heading toward Elysian Fields. They appear like poppies in the field on the way to Oz.
Are all these short term rental people homeowners? Possibly, but probably not. For some folks it's a business. I learned that when I moved into the Quarter.
When I walked through that iron gate on that cold day in February 2014 there were actually two places for rent in this building: one inside the building and one detached way back in the courtyard. I live in the detached building. The one inside the building was smaller, but gorgeous and definitely still in the realm of affordable (not pre-K affordable but post-K affordable, all things being relative.) My idea of affordable housing is “can my bartender afford it?” If the answer is yes, even if it's with a room mate, it falls into the affordable category. I'd prefer the no room mate scenario, but I am a realist. After moving in, I was out one night checking out the local watering hole. On my way back home I noticed a young woman, excited eyes, map in hand, suitcase on wheels, peering up at the building's gated front door and row of doorbells. I helpfully asked her if she needed directions, she suddenly looked wary and said she was “staying with a friend” in the building. I said ok and went in the side gate. Minutes later I heard her walk through the front door of the building (it echoes) and she disappeared inside the first apartment.
As time went on, this happened more frequently: some person or persons would appear outside the building, look bemused and confused, sometimes making a call, having a short conversation, then entering the building. One day the communal trash was overflowing with hand grenade containers and other party down stuff. Another day the trash had a chair sitting in front of it that clearly had had a difficult evening. One afternoon a young man, sitting in the courtyard with four other young folks, all nice kids, was overheard saying to one of his companions, “I'm not sure when she's coming with the other key.” I went down and asked them who they were. They told me they were “______'s friends from college.” Well I'd met _____ and it had probably been a while since she'd been in college. The kids were all staying there for spring break and had been told to tell anyone that asked the college friend story. This went on for months, not every week, not every weekend, but a lot. The building is keyed so that one key opens both gates. Are they returning these keys, I wondered? Are they out there floating around?
Then came the locked in Ecuadorian housekeepers. At least I think that's where they said they were from. One was inside the building and the apartment with enough supplies to clean a hospital ward, while the other was locked outside on the sidewalk. Neither had a key to the gate, the interior door, or the door to the apartment itself. I asked how they had gotten in. One answered in broken English that the “Mister ____” had let them in and was supposed to be coming back at some point. I asked if they knew where Mister ____ was and they pointed vaguely in the direction of the bar. (As far as I knew, there WAS no “Mister” living there.) I went over and asked the barkeep if he knew who I was talking about as the bartender knows me. No he didn't. The two women would have been locked up, one in one out, until someone happened along to spring them, in this case I did.
Finally I started searching. Was this really what I thought or was I wrong? If it was being used as a short term rental, what should I do about it? First I had to prove to myself that I wasn't going to be upsetting a person's life based on conjecture, not to mention when you live in close quarters, folks need to get along so I wasn't going to start accusing anyone of anything.
I started with the address. No dice. The obfuscation I mentioned happening in the Marigny was happening here. I did find tons of AirBnB listings within a two block area of my house. One of the biggest eye openers was that in my search for confirmation of what was going on in my building, I found a few people who had multiple listings. One guy has four “entire house/apt” listings in a six block area. What I learned is that these folks go in as prospective tenants, rent the unit, sign the lease, pay the deposits, then trick them out and promptly list them on AirBnb. Another guy I found had six units he was listing. (BTW these are NOT your standard apartment management companies, these are individuals posing as renters, taking stock off the market.) There was an incredibly expensive place for rent in the huge building next door, and the woman who manages that one told me that even with the rent for the unit at $2000 (how much you say?), someone asked to rent it telling her up front that he meant to turn it into a short term rental. She said absolutely not and was frankly flabbergasted, but then I told her about some of the folks I'd found with multiple units. She's been managing buildings in the Quarter for years and had no idea people were signing multiple leases in order to turn a profit on the units. She, of course, knew about AirBnB and the issues around that, but she was as astonished as I was that people were making a career out of it.
So I keep looking. I find it. Yep. She's doing AirBnB. She's a nice young woman. She's talented. She has a young kid and a dog. She's creative. I find that she has two listings, one in the most unexpected place, somewhere out in the Carrollton area, but inside, not on Carrollton but close to the streetcar line (something she pointed out in her listing). On a “General” Somebody street. (That listing has lately disappeared so I don't know if she's living in that one or gave that one up.) So clearly she's doing this as an income generator. I get it. We're so not rich. We go from week to week, Entergy bill to Entergy bill, like everyone else. I'm not interested in screwing someone over. However, this is my security at issue. This is the other tenants' security at issue. This is a NEIGHBOR issue. Who the hell is your neighbor? The person you think it is or the person your neighbor is renting to—for two or four days?
I grew up in the late 60's early 70's. I don't “narc” on someone. I have issues with ratting someone out. If you grew up with J. Edgar Hoover as the guy who kept the files, you are careful about possibly screwing up someone's life. You have no idea how deep this reluctance is if you haven't grown up with it. But I found the damn listing, in our building, keys being sent out via mail, great reviews, people are having a great time, doing laundry on the landlord's dime since he pays the water bill. The rest of us live in what is a pretty secure place, without these strangers coming in and out of the building. I was angry, and I resented being put in this position. I tend toward live and let live. Others in the building were concerned too, but the concern was whispered.
I took a screenshot of the listing. Our neighbors have lived here for 30 years. (When we moved in there was a woman who'd lived here 17 years. THAT is security!) They had been concerned as we were. I took the print out of the listing to them for confirmation. What was interesting was their/our response. Do we tell the landlord because it sucks and we're not comfortable? What if something happens over there? She's got it listed as great for a “special event.” So what? Her AirBnB “verified” person throws a party that turns into an orgy and next thing we know we got cops swarming the place looking for Fatty Arbuckle? My neighbor says don't say anything, he might raise our rent. His partner says what if something happens there and the owner decides that after he, his insurance and the tenant are sued, it's not worth it for him to keep the place and we all get moved out when he sells it to eliminate the problem or pay the costs? Won't his homeowner's be hit in the lawsuit? Could be and that might be a reason to just bail. Want a vodka and cran asks the neighbor? Yes please? We drink our drinks slowly, clink our ice cubes and stare at the table. Silence. Finally one of us starts the cycle over again: So what do we do? Tell the landlord? Repeat above issues. Not tell the landlord? What if he says “Why the hell didn't you TELL me?” Well the why is that we aren't sure how he'd respond, and that worries us. One landlord in NYC was blown out of court over this very issue.
But we're not NYC and we're not San Francisco. Both have rent control and tenant's rights guardians. Louisiana is very much a landlord preferred system. Well in that case it should bode well for this person to be evicted for breach of lease (although we all said we'd feel lousy putting a single mom on the streets, that sentiment was shortly quashed by noting that she's not living there actually, she's renting it out whenever she wants so she must have another place to be). On the other hand, is the landlord okay with her doing this because, hey, he gets his rent every month with no issues? We're all paying our rent with no issues and NOT short term leasing our place.
So now we start discussing multiple issues related to AirBnb/short term rentals generally.
1. You own the damn place and can do with it what you want.
That said, you should have to register it, pay taxes on the short term/hotel level and keep a homeowner's policy at a certain level to cover any problems that could arise. (Meth dealer cooks in your place, prostitutes decide to use your place as the assignation venue, etc. Yeah, it's all already happened in NYC.) Nevermind you don't seem to care about the fabric of your neighborhood. Rent that place to a waitress who needs a place to be!
2. If you're a renter, you have a lease. In NYC a judge basically said that the lease didn't matter so the landlord couldn't evict. It was a bit more complicated that that statement makes it sound, as the link shows, but still the landlord was out of luck. (I think the judge was wrong, and my guess is that LA judges wouldn't see it that way, however, if they did, what precedent does that set?) In San Francisco I think it was, one landlord tried to get an “AirBnB host” tenant's short term lessee out of the apartment because he wouldn't leave. That landlord lost because the law was that if someone rented a place, (even if not FROM the landlord) for 30 days, a de facto month to month lease was considered in force.
3. One AirBnB court case involved a woman who owned a co-op and her roommates were renting it out if she went out of town for business. Something went awry. It was decided by AirBnB that no issue arising from a third party mattered one whit. You read that right, the owner of the co-op whose name was on the paperwork was deemed a third party. Seriously???
The HUGE concern in our courtyard discussion is that the landlord is rich enough to not give damn about any of this. That if it becomes too much of a burden he'll just sell the building or sell it off as condo's. Most, if not all of us, living here could not afford to buy our units.
Another scenario regarding the issue of Homeowner's Insurance: Our “we'll save $400 a month” landlord had his taxes and homeowner's raised. I checked the Assessor's Office. He was right and our rent raise was totally fair. But what happens if something happens inside an AirBnB property? Something sinister? Something bloody, illegal or just plain out to lunch-spray painting anarchy signs on the walls? Let's talk worst case scenario. Woman gets killed at AirBnB rental. Someone is arrested and charged and we watch it on TV. Family sues. Who do they sue? They shotgun it. They sue AirBnB, the “host”, the owner of the building, the homeowner's insurance carrier, and anyone else they can find. Someone will pay off. What's that gonna do for the rest of you homeowners? Raise your rates? Possible.
One guy in NYC, decided to AirBnB his place. They trashed it. Now he's “blacklisted” as a tenant. What exactly are your rights as a “host” or an owner of a place being rented out via AirBnb? Where do you go for recompense? (AirBnB is notoriously unhelpful in such situations. Some of the other listing sites might be better in this regard but I doubt it.) Who's paying the bill for the spray painted graffiti and broken toilet and the whatever happened to your property? Condo associations and Co-op Councils are regularly scanning AirBnb, etc. listings to see if someone in their building is short terming. AirBnB “encourages” their hosts to carry their own insurance for damages done to their “property”--which of course is a very loose term if they don't own the unit they're renting, or damage is done to a common area like a lobby.
Another issue: What about taxes? All of us have palmed a tip and not declared it. The enormous number of AirBnB's (and whatever other listing they're under) are not paying the insurance necessary, they're certainly not paying taxes for the most part (if the folks bragging to me about how much they've made doing this are to be believed). If they're going to act as hoteliers willing to put up with Led Zeppelin level destruction, then they need to be paying insurance and taxes. This entire neo-liberal, disruption idea is crazy right wing stuff minus the Bible thumping. What they really want is NO restrictions, no regulations. Disruption means nothing but let me make money and screw the rest of you. What's amazing to me is that a lot of the folks touting this “disruption” model are seen as liberals. They're not. They are Reaganites. They are neo-liberals: no regulation, complete privatization, utter free trade folks. By the way, they'd mostly deny this.
In my opinion, what has to happen is some kind of regulation.
If you own the place, well, I'm not happy about your screwing that waitress out of an affordable place to live, but I get it. You're greedy. You own the damn place and can do with it what you want. Okay. I might be willing to buy that IF, and only if, you are okay with registering with the City, paying the hotel taxes, and dealing with the insurance/lawsuits that may come. Good on you. Make that money. (Although I gotta tell ya one conversation I've had more than once starts with “If they can't afford the rising rents, too bad, they have to move” followed by “Do you know how high property taxes and insurance are these days? If I didn't do AirBnB I couldn't afford to keep my house!” This is said with no cognizance of the irony of those statements following one another.)
If you don't own the place, then in my opinion, you have NO right at all to flout your lease and ignore your neighbors' issues on this. Screwing your neighbors and your city shouldn't be a viable career path but apparently these days it is.
Landlords with renters doing this: I am not sure at all what your rights are. I am not a property owner in this state. I know that LA tends to lean toward your rights vs. my rights as a tenant. (That is an entirely different issue and one I'd like to discuss one day, as I am a firm believer in some sort of Tenant's Rights agreement.). But if your tenants are afraid to come to you regarding this AirBnB issue, that should tell you something: wow, they're scared of what I might do that might displace them.
The entire destruction of a neighborhood fabric is something that should be considered, but I doubt it will be. A neighborhood implies “neighbors.” Those are the people who know your car, know your dog, maybe take care of the cat or the plants for a weekend. The folks down the block who worry if they don't see you for a week. An ever changing populace of short term renters do not qualify as neighbors, and if the neighborhood becomes one giant “authentic” tourist destination, it's no longer a neighborhood nor is it authentic.
If the Mayor and the City Council have any gumption at all, they'll take this bull by the horns before there's a scandalous court case that makes national news, and look toward the well being and best interests of the working folks who are serving the tourists their drinks, turning down their sheets, driving them to and fro and generally making this place a place that is still inviting the tourist dollars we depend on. I hope they don't let the short term rental “hosts” cede our neighborhoods to those tourists. The City needs to take a stand against the taking of viable housing stock off the market for a quick buck while the people who live and work in this city find it more and more difficult to find an affordable place to live.
Meanwhile, here in New Orleans things are seemingly out of control in terms of AirBnb and the loss of affordable housing, and it happened almost over night. I have friends in the Marigny who tell me our former local watering hole now has virtually no regulars anymore, or at least not ones I'd recognize. They've moved across the street and elsewhere. One friend said, “I don't have the right clothes and my (gauged) jewelry scares them.” I'm guessing there are fewer gossamer winged girls in green wigs and tall bikes parked on the corner of Franklin and Royal now too.
I lived two blocks from Esplanade in the Marigny for about three years, an area I loved. It was perfect proximity to every place I needed to be or wanted to go. The rent was high even then, the yard was huge and high maintenance but the block was pretty close knit. Everyone said hello, or helped with the feral cat trapping and releasing, or mourned when one of the old timers passed on. We weathered Gustav there, playing blackjack at Buffa's after the storm passed while all the food in their freezer and everyone else's was cooked and eaten. In 2009 a friend asked if we wanted to move into a house he had just inherited. It was much deeper in the Marigny, nearly to Bywater. “It's across Elysian Fields for crying out loud!” I said, and anyone who knows me well is nodding right now. It was smaller, had a less maintenance heavy yard, and it was nearly $400 cheaper per month. Well, sorta. We had to now pay a water bill, but whatever. I didn't want to move but move we did. I asked him why he was living in Da Parish instead of this cute little house? “Because there are too many black people here,” came the answer. I was frankly shocked but I wrote the check.
Once moved in it was tough for a while. I missed my neighbors. I missed my perfect central proximity. I missed hearing the Mac35 band practicing as I could at my old house, but learned to love the sound of the trains. I made friends with the place and the people on the block pretty quickly. Sure, it took ten more minutes to get to Lafayette Square for the Wednesday music, but not a real problem. My hips had a bit more cartilage then. We spent Hurricane Isaac there, getting word of a swim party a block up and cold beer at the Lost Love Lounge while we waited for Entergy. As a Krewe du Vieux member, the closeness to the Den was great if I had to stagger home after a fundraiser. My home bar changed from Buffa's to Mimi's, and although I felt underdressed and over-aged there at first, I met the regulars and became a known quantity—if I left my card they'd just add their tip and wait for me to show up because they knew I would. It became our sub-krewe's second home as the upstairs gave us privacy to act like idiots at the pre-parade party, munching pizza and chicken, drinking whatever crazy ass brew the manager who loved us made in gigantic quantities, and tossing glitter all over each other before we had to line up. Book signings, memorial services, celebrations, “haven't seen you in forEVER” gatherings, sad days, happy days, all the basic parts of life seemed to happen on our porch, inside Mimi's, on a wobbly chair at Flora Coffeehouse. Just sitting there for an hour would bring someone you knew to holler at, and more than likely they'd lock up their bike and sit down for a while to catch up. We showed pictures of our dogs to each other, bitched about the prices at the local store, passed on gossip, and gathered there at 8AM on Mardi Gras morning to roll out with St. Ann. The neighborhood was comfortable. It was home with a capital H.
Every year the rent rose, eventually coming only $50 bucks from the rent I'd been convinced to move there to escape. Homeowners taxes had gone up for sure. Insurance rates had been rising. Everyone I knew was hanging tight as their rents rose little by little. Then in January 2014 the friend who owned the house dropped a bombshell: His new girlfriend hated Da Parish, thought the Marigny was chic, and we had to go. He was in love and they were moving in. I missed the “love” part as I couldn't hear it through the white noise of panic and dread. The lease was technically up, and had reverted to month to month. Nothing could be done, so after the tears abated, the search began in earnest. The realities of a new deposit and first month's rent while paying rent at home was daunting. It couldn't have been done without a friend's help. Feelers were put out on Facebook, friends were asked to keep an eye out (and so very many of them did my email box was chock full of possible leads), “for rent” signs on houses were checked out. I scoured Craigslist while simultaneously packing. Mardi Gras came early that year, complicating the logistics. The sense of anger and betrayal seemed to hang like a fog over all of it. Of course he owned the place, of course he had the right, but the rent had always been paid on time, maintenance had been done so as not to bother him with little stuff, great landscapers were called after Isaac to save a tree paid for out of pocket because it was the right thing to do and it was home. Swallowing hard, the search for a new roof overhead was on. I actively avoided the sense of uprootedness. I'd deal with that later.
The “looking” sucked. I don't have to tell any of you. You've all been there. Too late for this one, reject that one, oh my god this one has a hole in the floor and they want how much? No dogs? No cats? We're screwed?
Just then an old friend called, who had rented our earlier Marigny house to us. The one we had forsaken for cheaper rent. “Meet me in the Quarter at 8AM.” What? Morning drinking? “No. I have the perfect place for you.” He did. After skittering across town on frosty streets the day the city froze the key was turned in the gate and there it was. At $50 less than what we were now paying for the “cheaper place” we called home, the papers were signed on the spot. I thought I'd dreamed it. The nightmare that is moving ensued, the logistics of moving to the Quarter around Mardi Gras were surmounted, amazing friends pitched in at every turn. One day I walked out of the gate and a tourist asked if I lived here, I thought she meant New Orleans, she meant in the Quarter, I wasn't sure how to answer her. No one with any sense looks for a place in the Quarter, but here I was, a total long time Marigny dweller being looked at as a lucky bitch who came out that gorgeous gate. I couldn't deny it. I was lucky. Very very lucky.
It was an adjustment for sure, but here I am 15-16 months out while the neighbors on my old block are now knee deep in AirBnB's. (Or Homeaway/VRBO/Craigslist, whatever vacation rental sites there are out there for short term rentals.) A sea change on one block, actually one block of one street, in that short length of time.
I was slow on the uptake. When I first moved to the other side of the world, I mean, the Marigny, the neighbors had their niece staying in the small shed like building out back. It was in a lovely yard, the shed had been nicely furnished, and she said she had left her home elsewhere, moved here to her uncle's house and was doing some housekeeping for him and his partner til she found a job. We'd talk a little as I pulled the stubborn vines that had overgrown the fence for years, and she swept her uncle's stoop. We'd exchange pleasantries and comment on the weather, we'd yell at our respective dogs to quit barking at the mailman. After a few months she was gone. Last time I saw her she told me she had found that job and moved. After that I noticed a different car in the driveway, a different guy coming out of the back apartment. A little more building and tweaking of the backyard. A week later another guy, another terse “I'm a friend of ____ here on business” as he headed out the gate at a fast determined clip. One warm night, I had brought a beer home from Mimi's, plopped down on my stoop and a beautiful woman swathed in multi-colored scarves with an unidentifiable accent sort of floated by with a soft soprano hello as she disappeared toward the backyard. An SUV would suddenly appear in the front yard driveway overnight and disappear just as suddenly. It was months before I figured out what was going on. Mostly it was unobtrusive and the rest of our friends on the block were still hanging on their stoop, our stoop or watching the game with us in the living room, so nothing seemed really amiss. The neighbors with the merry go round friends coming to stay were amiable and cordial but aloof from the regular shenanigans of the rest of us.
On the upriver side of the street there were two renters, including us I think, but the other homes were owner occupied, although one was occupied only intermittently during Mardi Gras or a Fest. On the other side of the street there were more renters as the buildings were multi-unit dwellings. One of the largest of them had, however, been purchased and apparently had been in Architectural Digest or something. It was supposedly a large loft but most of what I knew was conjecture as that owner/occupant also wasn't swilling Jameson's in our living room yelling obscenities at referees during football season.
That one street, on one side of the block, now has 5 AirBnB's, three of them in a row, the entire middle part of that block, and two on the other side of the street. Five. That's only one side of one four sided block. According to the completely unreliable AirBnB maps (I'll explain about their unreliablility in a bit.) if you follow that block one block toward the river, there are three more, go one block toward the lake and there are at least 5 more (counting both up and downriver sides of the street). That gives that three block section of ONE street a total of 13 AirBnB's, and that's at a minimum. (In fact, rumor has it that the ratty old shed at our old home is now an “elegant renovated cottage”: renovated and listed within a year.)
I am only using AirBnB's map for these numbers. Some of the short term rentals are listed on multiple sites, like VRBO, Homeaway (which I believe is some sort of offshoot of VRBO), vacationhomerentals.com, and Craigslist along with listing it on AirBnB, although I'm sure that that isn't a complete list of short term rental sites. Another trick I've noticed is some people (people I know are definitely short term renting) obfuscate their actual street location to keep neighbors from finding their listings. Once you click on a listing, you might get a street name, and a vague circle on the map in terms of general location, but most of them keep their actual street address off any public listings. Some would be pretty easy to find if they show an exterior shot of the house, others only show the interior of the space to be rented, and some are converted sheds or add ons that wouldn't necessarily be seen from the street. For all of these reasons, the AirBnB home map is unreliable as a definitive tool for counting the number of these rentals per block. The numbers are most certainly greater than what can be found on AirBnB's site alone.
Back to my old block, there are five confirmed on a one block section of one street. (These are confirmed by neighbors still in the neighborhood if not on that block.) If we start multiplying that by all four sides of a block, the numbers are certainly much higher than I would have thought. After seeing that, I decided to go look at the area of our first Marigny rental which was about two blocks off of Esplanade.
Again, understanding that some of these are listed so as to obfuscate their actual locations, my old block seems to only have two, although if you headed toward the river and turned right or left, you'd find two more in short order, one in each direction. Go down further into the Marigny Triangle and you'll see a sea of red placards with prices on them, the deeper you go the more they proliferate. Here's a shot of 16 of them between Esplanade and Touro, just barely above Burgundy and just below Dauphine. The further toward the river you go, the denser it gets, then start heading toward Elysian Fields. They appear like poppies in the field on the way to Oz.
Are all these short term rental people homeowners? Possibly, but probably not. For some folks it's a business. I learned that when I moved into the Quarter.
When I walked through that iron gate on that cold day in February 2014 there were actually two places for rent in this building: one inside the building and one detached way back in the courtyard. I live in the detached building. The one inside the building was smaller, but gorgeous and definitely still in the realm of affordable (not pre-K affordable but post-K affordable, all things being relative.) My idea of affordable housing is “can my bartender afford it?” If the answer is yes, even if it's with a room mate, it falls into the affordable category. I'd prefer the no room mate scenario, but I am a realist. After moving in, I was out one night checking out the local watering hole. On my way back home I noticed a young woman, excited eyes, map in hand, suitcase on wheels, peering up at the building's gated front door and row of doorbells. I helpfully asked her if she needed directions, she suddenly looked wary and said she was “staying with a friend” in the building. I said ok and went in the side gate. Minutes later I heard her walk through the front door of the building (it echoes) and she disappeared inside the first apartment.
As time went on, this happened more frequently: some person or persons would appear outside the building, look bemused and confused, sometimes making a call, having a short conversation, then entering the building. One day the communal trash was overflowing with hand grenade containers and other party down stuff. Another day the trash had a chair sitting in front of it that clearly had had a difficult evening. One afternoon a young man, sitting in the courtyard with four other young folks, all nice kids, was overheard saying to one of his companions, “I'm not sure when she's coming with the other key.” I went down and asked them who they were. They told me they were “______'s friends from college.” Well I'd met _____ and it had probably been a while since she'd been in college. The kids were all staying there for spring break and had been told to tell anyone that asked the college friend story. This went on for months, not every week, not every weekend, but a lot. The building is keyed so that one key opens both gates. Are they returning these keys, I wondered? Are they out there floating around?
Then came the locked in Ecuadorian housekeepers. At least I think that's where they said they were from. One was inside the building and the apartment with enough supplies to clean a hospital ward, while the other was locked outside on the sidewalk. Neither had a key to the gate, the interior door, or the door to the apartment itself. I asked how they had gotten in. One answered in broken English that the “Mister ____” had let them in and was supposed to be coming back at some point. I asked if they knew where Mister ____ was and they pointed vaguely in the direction of the bar. (As far as I knew, there WAS no “Mister” living there.) I went over and asked the barkeep if he knew who I was talking about as the bartender knows me. No he didn't. The two women would have been locked up, one in one out, until someone happened along to spring them, in this case I did.
Finally I started searching. Was this really what I thought or was I wrong? If it was being used as a short term rental, what should I do about it? First I had to prove to myself that I wasn't going to be upsetting a person's life based on conjecture, not to mention when you live in close quarters, folks need to get along so I wasn't going to start accusing anyone of anything.
I started with the address. No dice. The obfuscation I mentioned happening in the Marigny was happening here. I did find tons of AirBnB listings within a two block area of my house. One of the biggest eye openers was that in my search for confirmation of what was going on in my building, I found a few people who had multiple listings. One guy has four “entire house/apt” listings in a six block area. What I learned is that these folks go in as prospective tenants, rent the unit, sign the lease, pay the deposits, then trick them out and promptly list them on AirBnb. Another guy I found had six units he was listing. (BTW these are NOT your standard apartment management companies, these are individuals posing as renters, taking stock off the market.) There was an incredibly expensive place for rent in the huge building next door, and the woman who manages that one told me that even with the rent for the unit at $2000 (how much you say?), someone asked to rent it telling her up front that he meant to turn it into a short term rental. She said absolutely not and was frankly flabbergasted, but then I told her about some of the folks I'd found with multiple units. She's been managing buildings in the Quarter for years and had no idea people were signing multiple leases in order to turn a profit on the units. She, of course, knew about AirBnB and the issues around that, but she was as astonished as I was that people were making a career out of it.
So I keep looking. I find it. Yep. She's doing AirBnB. She's a nice young woman. She's talented. She has a young kid and a dog. She's creative. I find that she has two listings, one in the most unexpected place, somewhere out in the Carrollton area, but inside, not on Carrollton but close to the streetcar line (something she pointed out in her listing). On a “General” Somebody street. (That listing has lately disappeared so I don't know if she's living in that one or gave that one up.) So clearly she's doing this as an income generator. I get it. We're so not rich. We go from week to week, Entergy bill to Entergy bill, like everyone else. I'm not interested in screwing someone over. However, this is my security at issue. This is the other tenants' security at issue. This is a NEIGHBOR issue. Who the hell is your neighbor? The person you think it is or the person your neighbor is renting to—for two or four days?
I grew up in the late 60's early 70's. I don't “narc” on someone. I have issues with ratting someone out. If you grew up with J. Edgar Hoover as the guy who kept the files, you are careful about possibly screwing up someone's life. You have no idea how deep this reluctance is if you haven't grown up with it. But I found the damn listing, in our building, keys being sent out via mail, great reviews, people are having a great time, doing laundry on the landlord's dime since he pays the water bill. The rest of us live in what is a pretty secure place, without these strangers coming in and out of the building. I was angry, and I resented being put in this position. I tend toward live and let live. Others in the building were concerned too, but the concern was whispered.
I took a screenshot of the listing. Our neighbors have lived here for 30 years. (When we moved in there was a woman who'd lived here 17 years. THAT is security!) They had been concerned as we were. I took the print out of the listing to them for confirmation. What was interesting was their/our response. Do we tell the landlord because it sucks and we're not comfortable? What if something happens over there? She's got it listed as great for a “special event.” So what? Her AirBnB “verified” person throws a party that turns into an orgy and next thing we know we got cops swarming the place looking for Fatty Arbuckle? My neighbor says don't say anything, he might raise our rent. His partner says what if something happens there and the owner decides that after he, his insurance and the tenant are sued, it's not worth it for him to keep the place and we all get moved out when he sells it to eliminate the problem or pay the costs? Won't his homeowner's be hit in the lawsuit? Could be and that might be a reason to just bail. Want a vodka and cran asks the neighbor? Yes please? We drink our drinks slowly, clink our ice cubes and stare at the table. Silence. Finally one of us starts the cycle over again: So what do we do? Tell the landlord? Repeat above issues. Not tell the landlord? What if he says “Why the hell didn't you TELL me?” Well the why is that we aren't sure how he'd respond, and that worries us. One landlord in NYC was blown out of court over this very issue.
But we're not NYC and we're not San Francisco. Both have rent control and tenant's rights guardians. Louisiana is very much a landlord preferred system. Well in that case it should bode well for this person to be evicted for breach of lease (although we all said we'd feel lousy putting a single mom on the streets, that sentiment was shortly quashed by noting that she's not living there actually, she's renting it out whenever she wants so she must have another place to be). On the other hand, is the landlord okay with her doing this because, hey, he gets his rent every month with no issues? We're all paying our rent with no issues and NOT short term leasing our place.
So now we start discussing multiple issues related to AirBnb/short term rentals generally.
1. You own the damn place and can do with it what you want.
That said, you should have to register it, pay taxes on the short term/hotel level and keep a homeowner's policy at a certain level to cover any problems that could arise. (Meth dealer cooks in your place, prostitutes decide to use your place as the assignation venue, etc. Yeah, it's all already happened in NYC.) Nevermind you don't seem to care about the fabric of your neighborhood. Rent that place to a waitress who needs a place to be!
2. If you're a renter, you have a lease. In NYC a judge basically said that the lease didn't matter so the landlord couldn't evict. It was a bit more complicated that that statement makes it sound, as the link shows, but still the landlord was out of luck. (I think the judge was wrong, and my guess is that LA judges wouldn't see it that way, however, if they did, what precedent does that set?) In San Francisco I think it was, one landlord tried to get an “AirBnB host” tenant's short term lessee out of the apartment because he wouldn't leave. That landlord lost because the law was that if someone rented a place, (even if not FROM the landlord) for 30 days, a de facto month to month lease was considered in force.
3. One AirBnB court case involved a woman who owned a co-op and her roommates were renting it out if she went out of town for business. Something went awry. It was decided by AirBnB that no issue arising from a third party mattered one whit. You read that right, the owner of the co-op whose name was on the paperwork was deemed a third party. Seriously???
The HUGE concern in our courtyard discussion is that the landlord is rich enough to not give damn about any of this. That if it becomes too much of a burden he'll just sell the building or sell it off as condo's. Most, if not all of us, living here could not afford to buy our units.
Another scenario regarding the issue of Homeowner's Insurance: Our “we'll save $400 a month” landlord had his taxes and homeowner's raised. I checked the Assessor's Office. He was right and our rent raise was totally fair. But what happens if something happens inside an AirBnB property? Something sinister? Something bloody, illegal or just plain out to lunch-spray painting anarchy signs on the walls? Let's talk worst case scenario. Woman gets killed at AirBnB rental. Someone is arrested and charged and we watch it on TV. Family sues. Who do they sue? They shotgun it. They sue AirBnB, the “host”, the owner of the building, the homeowner's insurance carrier, and anyone else they can find. Someone will pay off. What's that gonna do for the rest of you homeowners? Raise your rates? Possible.
One guy in NYC, decided to AirBnB his place. They trashed it. Now he's “blacklisted” as a tenant. What exactly are your rights as a “host” or an owner of a place being rented out via AirBnb? Where do you go for recompense? (AirBnB is notoriously unhelpful in such situations. Some of the other listing sites might be better in this regard but I doubt it.) Who's paying the bill for the spray painted graffiti and broken toilet and the whatever happened to your property? Condo associations and Co-op Councils are regularly scanning AirBnb, etc. listings to see if someone in their building is short terming. AirBnB “encourages” their hosts to carry their own insurance for damages done to their “property”--which of course is a very loose term if they don't own the unit they're renting, or damage is done to a common area like a lobby.
Another issue: What about taxes? All of us have palmed a tip and not declared it. The enormous number of AirBnB's (and whatever other listing they're under) are not paying the insurance necessary, they're certainly not paying taxes for the most part (if the folks bragging to me about how much they've made doing this are to be believed). If they're going to act as hoteliers willing to put up with Led Zeppelin level destruction, then they need to be paying insurance and taxes. This entire neo-liberal, disruption idea is crazy right wing stuff minus the Bible thumping. What they really want is NO restrictions, no regulations. Disruption means nothing but let me make money and screw the rest of you. What's amazing to me is that a lot of the folks touting this “disruption” model are seen as liberals. They're not. They are Reaganites. They are neo-liberals: no regulation, complete privatization, utter free trade folks. By the way, they'd mostly deny this.
In my opinion, what has to happen is some kind of regulation.
If you own the place, well, I'm not happy about your screwing that waitress out of an affordable place to live, but I get it. You're greedy. You own the damn place and can do with it what you want. Okay. I might be willing to buy that IF, and only if, you are okay with registering with the City, paying the hotel taxes, and dealing with the insurance/lawsuits that may come. Good on you. Make that money. (Although I gotta tell ya one conversation I've had more than once starts with “If they can't afford the rising rents, too bad, they have to move” followed by “Do you know how high property taxes and insurance are these days? If I didn't do AirBnB I couldn't afford to keep my house!” This is said with no cognizance of the irony of those statements following one another.)
If you don't own the place, then in my opinion, you have NO right at all to flout your lease and ignore your neighbors' issues on this. Screwing your neighbors and your city shouldn't be a viable career path but apparently these days it is.
Landlords with renters doing this: I am not sure at all what your rights are. I am not a property owner in this state. I know that LA tends to lean toward your rights vs. my rights as a tenant. (That is an entirely different issue and one I'd like to discuss one day, as I am a firm believer in some sort of Tenant's Rights agreement.). But if your tenants are afraid to come to you regarding this AirBnB issue, that should tell you something: wow, they're scared of what I might do that might displace them.
The entire destruction of a neighborhood fabric is something that should be considered, but I doubt it will be. A neighborhood implies “neighbors.” Those are the people who know your car, know your dog, maybe take care of the cat or the plants for a weekend. The folks down the block who worry if they don't see you for a week. An ever changing populace of short term renters do not qualify as neighbors, and if the neighborhood becomes one giant “authentic” tourist destination, it's no longer a neighborhood nor is it authentic.
If the Mayor and the City Council have any gumption at all, they'll take this bull by the horns before there's a scandalous court case that makes national news, and look toward the well being and best interests of the working folks who are serving the tourists their drinks, turning down their sheets, driving them to and fro and generally making this place a place that is still inviting the tourist dollars we depend on. I hope they don't let the short term rental “hosts” cede our neighborhoods to those tourists. The City needs to take a stand against the taking of viable housing stock off the market for a quick buck while the people who live and work in this city find it more and more difficult to find an affordable place to live.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Another Day, Another Letter
Dear Mayor Landrieu and City Council Members,
You're no doubt sick of hearing from me by now, nonetheless there are some things I want to tell you about.
Over the last few weeks I've talked with a lot of people: customers, workers, owners of bars in New Orleans downtown area. It hasn't been a regular beat reporter kind of thing, just talking. I see the lawsuit against the smoking ban has failed. The nola.com comment section is, of course, completely divided along the usual lines. There were also two other articles today about the fallout of the smoking ban, and interestingly they correlate with what I've been hearing. (I'll link to them and have more to say about them later.)
Full disclosure: I'm a smoker.
Second full disclosure: I didn't necessarily bring the topic up in the conversations I've had over the last couple weeks. In fact, the smoking ban and its impact often came into the conversation because of something else they'd said.
What I did notice that was disconcerting was a sense of fear in the conversations. Yes, really, fear. Many of the people who were talking to me knew I occasionally spout my mouth off online, others didn't but I told them I write publicly now and then. All, regardless of whether they were customers, workers or owners, asked me not to quote them by name, not to identify the bar, not to identify them. Many literally looked over their shoulders. It was damn strange. One said when I asked her why she was looking around like a cornered rabbit said, “You never know who's going to report you to whom. We're becoming a city of snitches.” I was fascinated by that comment but found as I went along that no one wanted to be identified. You'd think they were talking about a multiple kilo cocaine transaction, not a cigarette in a bar. Seriously, it was weird.
I figure I'll at least pass along what these folks, New Orleanians all, smokers and non-smokers, have told me.
One bartender told me he felt the ban was defacto discriminatory in that any business that has no possibility of having an outside area is necessarily behind the 8 ball. I mentioned this in some of my last letters to you. Places like Cosimo's, Buffa's, St. Roch or even the ever popular Tropical Isle locations have no outdoor options. I asked the bartender about benches or tables outside, I was told that that's illegal without a permit, which is rarely granted as sidewalks are a public right of way. I am not an expert on that, so I'll have to look it up, but he is right about the discrimination leveled against places without an outdoor patio area—business will probably migrate to places that have that option leaving some of the smaller neighborhood bars out of luck, and that doesn't seem quite fair. Another bartender happened upon our conversation and told us that when a smoking ban went through for restaurants, one restaurant north of the lake took almost the entire roof off the building so the place was a large covered patio with a very small “indoor” section. We all agreed that that wouldn't be possible in an historic district.
(I did notice a bench and a couple of ashtrays chained to a building next to a bar on a recent walk. I suppose that is a possibility, if permitted, for the tinier bars, but it doesn't remove the noise factor. In fact, next to another bar was a stoop with a hand lettered sign saying: “This is a residence. Do not sit.” Clearly the local residents are not crazy about the folks standing outside, and that will get worse I fear.)
A woman who is both a bar worker and a patron mentioned something I hadn't thought of. She works at a hotel bar, so no smoking allowed. She hangs out after work at a local dive that was popular with service industry workers and allowed smoking. She said she'd head there after her shift, which ended late at night, early morning, for a couple of drinks, a smoke and some gossip after work. She said she does it less often now. I expected her to say it was due to the smoking ban INSIDE. She said, no. It was because she felt she had to run a gauntlet of men who were smoking outside in order to get inside. I asked wouldn't those men have been in the bar anyway? She said yes, but there is a big difference between walking into a bar among seated men and having to walk through two lines of them as they part to allow her entrance. For her it was uncomfortable. After she mentioned it I asked a few other women in the same boat. They agreed but hadn't spoken about it for fear of judgment. Interesting on a lot of levels but I digress.
An owner asked me what his 110 lb female bartender is supposed to do if a guy his size, about 6'3” 225 lbs says no when she asks him to put it out or leave? He said he told her not to get in any arguments over it as she could get hurt. (In fact, in an article found today, this has already been a problem for one bartender in the Quarter. Please spare me the "smokers shouldn't have beaten him up" comments. OF COURSE NOT. It's not because they smoked that they were belligerent bullies, it's because they were belligerent bullies period.) He also fears the “snitch mentality,” a term I heard more than once. If someone has a beef against a bar, an ex-employer, a current employee or a customer, they can just call in a smoking ban complaint and cause problems for that owner. I asked if he thought that was improbable. He laughed and said, no, it should be expected and specifically cited anonymous photos that from all reports can be uploaded to the 311 site. (I am not sure about this, but it's a pervasive belief among barworkers.) Another owner told me that some minor fights had erupted outside the bar that normally would have been stopped inside the bar with a simple, “Settle down or leave!” Now, he asked , am I supposed to have my bartenders police the outside to make sure that doesn't happen?
There are also fears of criminal violence like thefts, muggings and worse happening to the smokers congregated outside. Once again, before you commenters start blaming the smokers for smoking and thus being outside, please use your common sense. Of course we know that the guys who committed the crime shouldn't have committed the crime, should be caught, and should be taken to court. Of course. Please, take a step off your nicotine free high horse and commend the folks for NOT pitching a fit inside the bar, for GOING outside like YOU wanted them to, then understand that they didn't get robbed or beat up because they smoked, they got robbed because they were easy pickings. For the record, there are many non-smokers who stand outside with their smoking friends because otherwise they'd be in the bar alone. They too could have been robbed in this kind of incident as I'm pretty sure the gunman didn't ask if they were all smokers standing there. One bar owner said he worries about an incident like this causing harm to his customers, lawsuits for his bar, a trip to the liquor license board followed by neighbor complaints and the guy with the gun will still be out there casing street smokers.
As of yet, I haven't heard of a bartender losing his/her job due to lowered revenues. I have encountered two who are now looking for second jobs to make ends meet. Their tips are half what they used to be. One is contemplating getting a roommate to pay the rent that used to be affordable himself, while another says she's just barely paying her bills and is actively looking for that second job. Not a different job, an additional job. She says the regulars who stayed and tipped aren't coming in or staying as long when they do and the tips are showing it.
I heard the strip clubs are suffering as well. Regardless of your views on strip clubs, they are viable businesses. I spoke with two people in the last two weeks, one a dancer, one an administrator. The dancer said that another dancer had been fired for standing outside having a smoke. I asked if the dancer would have been able to smoke while working prior to the ban. Yes, she said. She would have done her set, then gone over to the bar for a drink and a smoke, then been available to work the floor. She was outside after her set. She's looking for a job now. The administrator said that business was way down in four clubs that he worked with. I asked if it was due to the summer slow season. No, came the answer. “Young guys want the girls, the booze, the cigars, the whole thing, like in the movies. They're not spending as much time or money. The bachelor party guys love all that. I figure they'll move their party to a private house or a cigar bar, order up a stripper from Craigslist and buy their booze at Walmart.”
As I said earlier, the comments at nola.com are the standard issue: SCREW YOU, you idiot smoker! SCREW YOU, you non-smoker! SCREW YOU, New Orleans, I'll go to Jefferson Parish. This last one shouldn't be completely ignored. While nearby parishes might think we're all going to hell here in New Orleans, they'll happily take our money straight into their cash registers, their poker machines, their pool tables, their jukeboxes and their pockets as tips. Of course this whole smoking ban thing might just be a huge attempt to increase DUI bookings and fines. Naturally that was not meant seriously, but what will become serious at some point is that DUI will go up as people head off to bars and casinos unreachable by foot, bicycle or cab and instead hit the I-10 on their blurry way home.
Many smoking customers I talked to said they'd be willing to switch to e-cigs, not all, but a lot more than I expected. But alas, they've been banned. The “private club” idea was mentioned repeatedly, but alas, that's forbidden, which I find bizarre as the term “private club” means a customer necessarily knows what to expect before paying the membership fee. What I heard most from the owners, besides “please don't name my bar”, was the question of a referendum, an actual vote by the citizenry as opposed to an edict from above. When I asked if they'd be willing to pay yet another permit fee if a referendum allowing that was to pass, they were split. Many bar owners feel they already pay enough in fees and permits, others said they'd be willing to pay for a smoking permit if it would keep them in business.
What all of them said, the customers, workers and owners, was that they felt this had just been handled like a royal decree, and they resented that. The weird not quite fear I kept noticing was like they were waiting for a hammer to drop, a letter of marque yanking their hard earned liquor license, killing their businesses with them having no recourse. It's the no recourse that rankles. Is there really no kind of compromise possible?
As for me, I'll keep listening. Although maybe not for long as the noise issue will rear its head again and unfortunately be exacerbated by the sound of talking, zippos and clinking ice cubes outside someone's window.
You're no doubt sick of hearing from me by now, nonetheless there are some things I want to tell you about.
Over the last few weeks I've talked with a lot of people: customers, workers, owners of bars in New Orleans downtown area. It hasn't been a regular beat reporter kind of thing, just talking. I see the lawsuit against the smoking ban has failed. The nola.com comment section is, of course, completely divided along the usual lines. There were also two other articles today about the fallout of the smoking ban, and interestingly they correlate with what I've been hearing. (I'll link to them and have more to say about them later.)
Full disclosure: I'm a smoker.
Second full disclosure: I didn't necessarily bring the topic up in the conversations I've had over the last couple weeks. In fact, the smoking ban and its impact often came into the conversation because of something else they'd said.
What I did notice that was disconcerting was a sense of fear in the conversations. Yes, really, fear. Many of the people who were talking to me knew I occasionally spout my mouth off online, others didn't but I told them I write publicly now and then. All, regardless of whether they were customers, workers or owners, asked me not to quote them by name, not to identify the bar, not to identify them. Many literally looked over their shoulders. It was damn strange. One said when I asked her why she was looking around like a cornered rabbit said, “You never know who's going to report you to whom. We're becoming a city of snitches.” I was fascinated by that comment but found as I went along that no one wanted to be identified. You'd think they were talking about a multiple kilo cocaine transaction, not a cigarette in a bar. Seriously, it was weird.
I figure I'll at least pass along what these folks, New Orleanians all, smokers and non-smokers, have told me.
One bartender told me he felt the ban was defacto discriminatory in that any business that has no possibility of having an outside area is necessarily behind the 8 ball. I mentioned this in some of my last letters to you. Places like Cosimo's, Buffa's, St. Roch or even the ever popular Tropical Isle locations have no outdoor options. I asked the bartender about benches or tables outside, I was told that that's illegal without a permit, which is rarely granted as sidewalks are a public right of way. I am not an expert on that, so I'll have to look it up, but he is right about the discrimination leveled against places without an outdoor patio area—business will probably migrate to places that have that option leaving some of the smaller neighborhood bars out of luck, and that doesn't seem quite fair. Another bartender happened upon our conversation and told us that when a smoking ban went through for restaurants, one restaurant north of the lake took almost the entire roof off the building so the place was a large covered patio with a very small “indoor” section. We all agreed that that wouldn't be possible in an historic district.
(I did notice a bench and a couple of ashtrays chained to a building next to a bar on a recent walk. I suppose that is a possibility, if permitted, for the tinier bars, but it doesn't remove the noise factor. In fact, next to another bar was a stoop with a hand lettered sign saying: “This is a residence. Do not sit.” Clearly the local residents are not crazy about the folks standing outside, and that will get worse I fear.)
A woman who is both a bar worker and a patron mentioned something I hadn't thought of. She works at a hotel bar, so no smoking allowed. She hangs out after work at a local dive that was popular with service industry workers and allowed smoking. She said she'd head there after her shift, which ended late at night, early morning, for a couple of drinks, a smoke and some gossip after work. She said she does it less often now. I expected her to say it was due to the smoking ban INSIDE. She said, no. It was because she felt she had to run a gauntlet of men who were smoking outside in order to get inside. I asked wouldn't those men have been in the bar anyway? She said yes, but there is a big difference between walking into a bar among seated men and having to walk through two lines of them as they part to allow her entrance. For her it was uncomfortable. After she mentioned it I asked a few other women in the same boat. They agreed but hadn't spoken about it for fear of judgment. Interesting on a lot of levels but I digress.
An owner asked me what his 110 lb female bartender is supposed to do if a guy his size, about 6'3” 225 lbs says no when she asks him to put it out or leave? He said he told her not to get in any arguments over it as she could get hurt. (In fact, in an article found today, this has already been a problem for one bartender in the Quarter. Please spare me the "smokers shouldn't have beaten him up" comments. OF COURSE NOT. It's not because they smoked that they were belligerent bullies, it's because they were belligerent bullies period.) He also fears the “snitch mentality,” a term I heard more than once. If someone has a beef against a bar, an ex-employer, a current employee or a customer, they can just call in a smoking ban complaint and cause problems for that owner. I asked if he thought that was improbable. He laughed and said, no, it should be expected and specifically cited anonymous photos that from all reports can be uploaded to the 311 site. (I am not sure about this, but it's a pervasive belief among barworkers.) Another owner told me that some minor fights had erupted outside the bar that normally would have been stopped inside the bar with a simple, “Settle down or leave!” Now, he asked , am I supposed to have my bartenders police the outside to make sure that doesn't happen?
There are also fears of criminal violence like thefts, muggings and worse happening to the smokers congregated outside. Once again, before you commenters start blaming the smokers for smoking and thus being outside, please use your common sense. Of course we know that the guys who committed the crime shouldn't have committed the crime, should be caught, and should be taken to court. Of course. Please, take a step off your nicotine free high horse and commend the folks for NOT pitching a fit inside the bar, for GOING outside like YOU wanted them to, then understand that they didn't get robbed or beat up because they smoked, they got robbed because they were easy pickings. For the record, there are many non-smokers who stand outside with their smoking friends because otherwise they'd be in the bar alone. They too could have been robbed in this kind of incident as I'm pretty sure the gunman didn't ask if they were all smokers standing there. One bar owner said he worries about an incident like this causing harm to his customers, lawsuits for his bar, a trip to the liquor license board followed by neighbor complaints and the guy with the gun will still be out there casing street smokers.
As of yet, I haven't heard of a bartender losing his/her job due to lowered revenues. I have encountered two who are now looking for second jobs to make ends meet. Their tips are half what they used to be. One is contemplating getting a roommate to pay the rent that used to be affordable himself, while another says she's just barely paying her bills and is actively looking for that second job. Not a different job, an additional job. She says the regulars who stayed and tipped aren't coming in or staying as long when they do and the tips are showing it.
I heard the strip clubs are suffering as well. Regardless of your views on strip clubs, they are viable businesses. I spoke with two people in the last two weeks, one a dancer, one an administrator. The dancer said that another dancer had been fired for standing outside having a smoke. I asked if the dancer would have been able to smoke while working prior to the ban. Yes, she said. She would have done her set, then gone over to the bar for a drink and a smoke, then been available to work the floor. She was outside after her set. She's looking for a job now. The administrator said that business was way down in four clubs that he worked with. I asked if it was due to the summer slow season. No, came the answer. “Young guys want the girls, the booze, the cigars, the whole thing, like in the movies. They're not spending as much time or money. The bachelor party guys love all that. I figure they'll move their party to a private house or a cigar bar, order up a stripper from Craigslist and buy their booze at Walmart.”
As I said earlier, the comments at nola.com are the standard issue: SCREW YOU, you idiot smoker! SCREW YOU, you non-smoker! SCREW YOU, New Orleans, I'll go to Jefferson Parish. This last one shouldn't be completely ignored. While nearby parishes might think we're all going to hell here in New Orleans, they'll happily take our money straight into their cash registers, their poker machines, their pool tables, their jukeboxes and their pockets as tips. Of course this whole smoking ban thing might just be a huge attempt to increase DUI bookings and fines. Naturally that was not meant seriously, but what will become serious at some point is that DUI will go up as people head off to bars and casinos unreachable by foot, bicycle or cab and instead hit the I-10 on their blurry way home.
Many smoking customers I talked to said they'd be willing to switch to e-cigs, not all, but a lot more than I expected. But alas, they've been banned. The “private club” idea was mentioned repeatedly, but alas, that's forbidden, which I find bizarre as the term “private club” means a customer necessarily knows what to expect before paying the membership fee. What I heard most from the owners, besides “please don't name my bar”, was the question of a referendum, an actual vote by the citizenry as opposed to an edict from above. When I asked if they'd be willing to pay yet another permit fee if a referendum allowing that was to pass, they were split. Many bar owners feel they already pay enough in fees and permits, others said they'd be willing to pay for a smoking permit if it would keep them in business.
What all of them said, the customers, workers and owners, was that they felt this had just been handled like a royal decree, and they resented that. The weird not quite fear I kept noticing was like they were waiting for a hammer to drop, a letter of marque yanking their hard earned liquor license, killing their businesses with them having no recourse. It's the no recourse that rankles. Is there really no kind of compromise possible?
As for me, I'll keep listening. Although maybe not for long as the noise issue will rear its head again and unfortunately be exacerbated by the sound of talking, zippos and clinking ice cubes outside someone's window.
Monday, January 26, 2015
An Open Letter to Mayor Landrieu: Veto the Smoking Ban as Written
Open Letter to Mayor Landrieu
Dear Sir:
I am writing to urge you to veto the smoking ban passed by the City Council last week. In its present form it can only hurt small businesses and the very employees the Council claims it wants to protect. Notably Councilpersons Ramsey and Gray wanted more information on the economic impact of this kind of legislation in a city such as ours. I am hopeful that they, along with the other Council members, consider carefully what ramifications the smoking ban as written could bring,.
I read the live blogs and the articles covering this in the Times Picayune. I read all 1000+ comments. One kept sticking out to me, and apparently others who commented on it. Richard Rainey, of the Times Picayune, posted: “Bar owners asked the council quietly for a citywide ban because that way bars that want to be smoke-free won't lose customers to smoking bars, Guidry said.” That statement belies the unicorns and rainbows mantra that if all bars go non-smoking the non-smokers will magically take the places of smoking regulars. Clearly the bar owners who “quietly” asked for that unilateral approach knew this to be untrue and cynically asked off the record for something they knew was not a “level playing field” tactic to be implemented. That was patently unfair and frankly a little sleazy.
This is not just about smoking v smoke free. This will be about the loss of a lot of small businesses and jobs.
The new CZO will be coming up for discussion this spring. Some bars, like Mimi's, Jimmy's, St. Roch Tavern, Buffa's and others, will again find themselves involved in the discussion of music (music having been last year defined as “noise”). Many of them have already invested in sound proofing, security guards, complied with closing times and no go cups in order to assuage the neighbors' complaints. (By the way, Buffa's has a non-smoking back room and Mimi's has anon-smoking upstairs, but not all of these places have that space/ability.) After having spent in some cases thousands of dollars in attorney fees and renovations to comply, they turned to staff and security to encourage people to return to the inside of the establishment. (This is particularly the case with both Mimi's and St. Roch.) Now they will be asked to send their customers outside to comply with the smoking ban, and the circle will go around again with noise complaints. The owner of Cosimo's is also concerned with the neighbor/noise issue. I fear this issue will only be exacerbated by now asking those bars to send their customers outside.
(It has also been pointed out to me by some owners that they will have to ask for retention of all drivers' licenses upon the customer ordering a drink as it would be entirely too easy for them to order a drink, say they're heading out for a smoke, and never return. It's the little things like this that some folks aren't thinking about.)
Cosimo's owner stated that the vast majority (85-90%) of his customers are in fact smokers. There are other service industry bars that are filled with workers from non-smoking restaurants that come in after their shifts to have a drink and a smoke before heading home. (These are the same folks, by the way, who are serving in restaurants, working in hotels, dealing in casinos to locals and the tourists that our city pays a great deal to draw every year.) Have you ever seen Johnny White's or other service industry bars after a shift changes? Can you imagine the neighbor complaints with groups of people standing outside at midnight-2AM? This is very much not a level playing field as not all bars are able to suddenly create a patio/courtyard. It's also not a level playing field in terms of creation of private clubs, as “in a nod to tradition” Carnival krewe balls will be exempt, but a private club would not be.
The inclusion of electronic cigarettes in the ban will also greatly affect some of the new businesses that cater to the users of these items. New small businesses known as vape shops are just starting to see their businesses grow. The inclusion of e-cigs in this ban will most likely stall those businesses as well.,
In a British Beer and Pub Association survey done in 2011, the number of pub closures was staggering. (There are similar numbers in Ireland, Scotland and Wales following bans there.)
In an opinion piece written for The Guardian in 2011, the author calls the opinions of people decrying the loss of pubs in England “nostalgia,” and posits that: “It's hard to compete when people's idea of a good Saturday night has now shifted to involve a couple of friends, a bottle of wine and The X Factor. It also removes most of the negative side-effects associated with pubs – drink-driving, antisocial behaviour and aggression are far less likely to manifest themselves when you've spent the evening in your own front room.” The author goes on to say that taxes on liquor have gone up in supermarkets and that there was an influx of “chain pubs” that entered the market on the heels of the old school pubs' closing. After saying that all of that wasn't so bad, the author concedes that: “The real tragedy of pub closures is the number of people losing their jobs. Fourteen pubs closing each week equals devastating effects for families around the country, already hit hard by the recession.” That was 2011 and the pubs continue to close.
Is the economy of our city so good that we can afford to lose tax money from the bars and their customers if they follow the trends seen elsewhere. (For the record, after having spoken with friends in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, all say that a. if you have enough money, your smoking will be ignored by the proprietor hoping you'll spend it in their establishment, and b. that some establishments have just ignored the ban completely and willingly pay the fine if caught.) By the way, if the fines are a new idea for raising revenues, then allow the fines to be paid by the bar's customers and leave the liquor license out of it.
Are we in such good shape that we can afford to put our local bartenders out of work, or put them in a position where their job and tips can't pay the ever increasing rents in New Orleans? While busily talking about worker protection, the Council seems to have overlooked the issue of the wages that are needed to keep body and soul together.
The Casino issue is one that should give us all pause with regard to this ban. The money Harrah's brings in to New Orleans in terms of taxation, ancillary spending and employment is enormous and to cavalierly say that people will show up in droves to take the smokers place and/or not choose to go to casinos in nearby locales is disingenuous.
A friend whose circumspect views and common sense I generally agree with said on social media earlier this week that he felt the default should be non-smoking with a permit issued for smoking. While I usually agree with him, in this instance I think the owners of bars already have enough permitting issues to wade through. That said, if that is the only way for some of them to stay in business, as long as the permit wasn't exorbitant and punitive, perhaps that would be a way to go. I still disagree with the idea, but at least the owner would be given a choice: the owner who has built and nurtured that business sometimes for decades; the owner who hires people to work there; the owner who knows his/her clientele.
I find the exclusion of cigarettes from cigar bars to be just plain idiotic. The exclusion of e-cigs entirely, I also find idiotic. I remain unclear on whether or not a pipe can be legally smoked in a bar as it appears that cigarettes, and only cigarettes (and the smokers who pay very high taxes for them by their own choice) are being targeted. I am also intrigued that the same people who often note the obvious failure of our government's wasteful and decades long War on Drugs are so willing to now criminalize the cigarette smoker or the business owner who knows his/her patrons' preferences.
If New Orleans is going to accept the 2011 UK Op Ed writers' view that an evening at home watching X Factor with friends is a superior choice to going out, or that small bars closing so that chain bars can take their places is better than a neighborhood bar, then we as a city are truly on the wrong path.
The pie in the sky “non-smokers will take their place” myth is just that. A myth. What is not a myth is that non-smoking clubs on Frenchmen are doing fine, allowing e-cigs, and they did that by choice not legislation.
Full disclosure: I am a smoker, do not light up in a non-smoking bar, have patronized all but one of the bars I mentioned above. I wrote about the ones I know will have problems. I am sure that there are others throughout the city that will have the same problems if this legislation is allowed to pass as is.
I hope you will veto this bill, and consider all the unintended consequences of leaving this decision as currently designed. We don't need to make these businesses suffer, put people out of work or criminalize anything else. We have enough of those issues already.
Sam Jasper
EDIT 1.27.15: "This terrible process started with the ban on smoking. Labour was warned that it would result in pub closures, but went ahead regardless. The people it was supposed to protect – the bar staff – have suffered catastrophic job losses as a result (though this is rarely noticed, as so many bar staff are non-unionised, cash-in-hand foreigners). Labour knew this would happen, as the state of British Columbia in Canada had introduced a similar ban a couple of years earlier and the immediate result had been bar closures and (I have been told) one third of bar jobs lost." That from This article in the Telegraph, written last week.
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