California neighborhood bans short-term Airbnb rentals after drug parties, shooting
New rules for short-term rentals
RELATED: The board voted unanimously to amend the county code regarding businesses licenses, which regulates short-term rentals. Under the new rules, hosts with Airbnb or Vacation Rentals By Owner, VRBO, will be required to register and pay a fee of $914 on an annual basis.
LONG BEACH, Calif. - A neighborhood in Long Beach, California has become the first and possibly not last to ban unsupervised Airbnb rentals over concerns about drug-filled parties plaguing homes.
In April, College Estates resident Andy Oliver filed a petition to the city’s Community Development Department following months of out-of-state tourists renting out unhosted houses, taking advantage of the state’s lax drug laws and blaring loud music late into the night. The final straw came after a shooting victim ended up outside Oliver’s house.
"People have to live with this knowing that your house, your safe place, has now been violated by violent crime," Oliver told CBS News.
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By Tuesday, his efforts paid off with over half of the approximately 800 homes in his area agreeing to sign, successfully passing the new restrictions.
According to a city ordinance passed in 2020, Long Beach is permitted to have 1,000 un-hosted or unsupervised short-term rentals. However, a provision allowed residents to circulate petitions that could ban these types of rentals.
House rentals in the College Estates neighborhood will now have to either convert to a supervised rental, where the host is on site, or shut down the property after their license expires.
Oliver’s success has since inspired nine other Long Beach neighborhoods to petition for similar bans, as well as a new advocacy group called the Long Beach Safe Neighborhood Coalition.
"Our group has found growing support in the past few months as people are finding out about our website and the overall cause of protecting residential neighborhoods from unhosted, unsupervised short term rentals - most run by real estate investors and LLCs (to rent on platforms like Airbnb, VRBO, Hotels.Com), etc.," the coalition told Fox News Digital.
The group added, "We've even gotten inquiries from as far away as North Carolina and Florida from concerned homeowners there battling similar issues. This is a nationwide (really worldwide) issue that is affecting communities everywhere - and residents are standing up against the proliferation of short-term rentals that are transforming once quiet, peaceful neighborhoods into tourist districts and crime havens."
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One resident included Christina Nigrelli, who is currently awaiting the city’s review of her petition for an unsupervised rental ban in her South of Conant neighborhood.
"We are hoping to hear before June," Nigrelli told Fox News Digital. "We are cautiously optimistic. We had a lot of support throughout the neighborhood."
The Long Beach Safe Neighborhood Coalition stated it was informed by the city that the other neighborhood petitions are also expected to be counted by June.
Fox News Digital reached out to the City of Long Beach for a comment.