Airbnb Initiates LA Party House Crackdown, Takes Action on 50+ Listings
Airbnb today announced a crackdown on party houses throughout Los Angeles County. As part of this effort, more than 50 listings across the county that have received complaints or otherwise violated our policies on parties and events have either been suspended or removed from the Airbnb platform.
This follows Airbnb’s policy change last week to ban parties and events at Airbnb listings globally until further notice.
The vast majority of hosts in Los Angeles County contribute positively to their neighborhoods and economy, and they also take important steps to prevent unauthorized parties – like establishing clear house rules, quiet hours, and communicating in advance with their guests. Our actions today address the small minority of hosts who have previously received warnings about hosting responsibly or have otherwise violated our policies.
The actions were communicated to the hosts over the past week, and the suspensions were spread throughout the following cities, in addition to parts of unincorporated LA County:
- Burbank
- Calabasas
- Compton
- Glendora
- Hacienda Heights
- La Cañada Flintridge
- Long Beach
- City of Los Angeles
- Malibu
- Marina del Rey
- Pasadena
- West Hollywood
- Whittier
Airbnb announced a global ban on party houses in 2019, alongside a 24/7 Neighborhood Support Hotline, where neighbors can call us anytime and reach a real person at Airbnb. The hotline is staffed with trained agents so that neighbors can reach us directly with their concerns. Issues raised by Los Angeles County residents through this hotline led directly to many of the listing suspensions announced today.
“Stopping large gatherings is more important than ever in this current environment, and we support local efforts by Mayor Garcetti and others to crackdown on party houses,” said Airbnb’s Director of Public Policy in Los Angeles, John Choi. “We also hope that sharing out these steps today can raise further awareness of our 24/7 neighbor hotline so that we can continue to strengthen the enforcement of our policies throughout the County.”
In January, Airbnb initiated a separate crackdown in partnership with the city of Los Angeles, focused on Hollywood Hills. The city provided Airbnb information pertaining to “chronic party houses”, some of which have generated citations and cease-and-desist orders, which led to the company taking decisive action against 28 listings at properties in the Hills. Whereas that January crackdown was prompted by city violations, today’s announcement is intended to enforce Airbnb’s strict community policies.
In addition to last week’s party ban, Airbnb recently shared out restrictions on some bookings of local entire home listings by U.S. guests under the age of 25. As a practical example, if we identify a 20-year old guest who is located in Burbank, our systems are set up to restrict that user from booking a house, apartment or other entire home listing in Burbank for a 1-night reservation the following weekend unless they have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb. However, if that same 20 year-old is booking a stay to visit family in San Francisco, the restriction would not apply.
Airbnb also announced last year the expansion of manual screening of high-risk reservations flagged by our automated systems. This helps identify reservations that help stop unauthorized parties before they start.