The Brawl Over Airbnb Is Back On

Last week, Argo Real Estate convened a panel in an upper Broadway hotel to discuss the ways co-op and condo board can defend themselves against illegal short-term sublets. One of the panelists, attorney Michelle Itkowitz, presented attendees with a 26-page pamphlet entitled Airbnb and Your Building: Prevention, Detection, and Remedies for Landlords.

As Itkowitz and her fellow panelists were talking, the anti-Airbnb group Share Better was launching a new digital ad campaign urging New Yorkers to “say something” if they suspect a neighbor is renting units through Airbnb in violation of the city and state laws, The New York Law Journal reports.

A related website has instructions on how New Yorkers can report “Airbnb commercial operators” to the city. It also provides information about a law established by the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year that subjects violators to fines of $7,500 for each time they advertise units that would be illegal to rent under city law. After a period of relative calm, the brawl over Airbnb is back on.

The dangers of illegal sublets in co-ops and condos have been widely documented, and they’re now a year-round problem. And Itkowitz, among others, stresses that all sublets are not illegal. As she writes in her pamphlet, “Do NOT confuse short-term leasing with a tenant’s rights to a roommate or to sublet.”

But Airbnb has started counterpunching by playing the race card. Airbnb spokesman Peter Schottenfels said in a statement Wednesday that the digital ads are "cyber bullying" designed to discourage blacks and Hispanics from making units available through Airbnb. The service’s allies released a letter signed by 13 "leaders" of groups of Airbnb hosts, which branded Share Better as little more than a front group for the hotel industry. The Airbnb hosts also argue that last year's state law is racially discriminatory because it exempts one- and two-family homeowners from its provisions. The hosts argue that because blacks and Hispanics in New York City are less likely to own their own homes and more likely to live in multifamily dwellings, the law is akin to discredited practices like redlining that are used to limit black residents from qualifying for housing opportunities.