Statement from Airbnb on Hoboken “House Party” Ordinance
Airbnb today released the following statement regarding the “house party” ordinance that was passed by the Hoboken City Council last week.
Statement
“Airbnb fully agrees with the importance of preventing disruptive house parties, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact communities across New Jersey. That’s why Airbnb has taken steps to ban both parties and party houses, going so far as to suspend or remove party houses across New Jersey this summer – including here in Hoboken. We fully support Mayor Bhalla and the City Council as they work to implement this new ordinance and we hope to partner with the city to continue to crack down on parties and party houses, in accordance with public health guidance.”
Background
- Airbnb formally banned party houses in late 2019.
- In a July party house crackdown, Airbnb suspended or removed more than 35 listings throughout New Jersey that received complaints or otherwise violated our policies on parties and events, including in Hoboken.
- Airbnb recently announced a global ban on all parties and events at Airbnb listings, including a cap on occupancy at 16.
- Amid concerns about a second wave of the pandemic and to strengthen our hosts’ protection against parties, Airbnb prohibited one-night reservations over Halloween weekend in entire home listings throughout the US and bolstered existing protections and technologies aimed at stopping as many large gatherings as possible that weekend.
- A year ago, we announced that we had expanded the manual screening of high-risk reservations flagged by our automated systems. This technology helps us to stop parties before they start. Since the expansion of our manual review of high-risk reservations last year, more than 250 high-risk reservations in New Jersey have been proactively cancelled. Further, our restrictions on guests under the age of 25 from booking entire-home listings locally, combined with our restrictions on very last-minute bookings, have blocked over 23,000 distinct reservation attempts in New Jersey.