NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) Executive Director Christian J. Klossner today announced a new lawsuit to shut down an illegal short-term rental operation at a building located in Turtle Bay. According to the lawsuit, defendant Arron Latimer — a licensed real estate broker — as well as building owner Apex Management and managing member Esther Yip used a number of LLCs they control to run a complex and illegal short-term rental operation at 344 East 51st Street utilizing popular online lodging websites, like Airbnb. The suit represents the city’s first lawsuit against a short-term rental operation identified using data obtained through the city’s law — Local Law 146 of 2018, amended by LL 64 of 2020 — requiring online short-term rental platforms to regularly report data on bookings to the city.

New York City hotels will ban guns on their property after a deal between the Hotel Association of New York City and the New York Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, AFL-CIO (HTC), was reached.

For over 100 years, New York State had strict gun safety laws that severely limited the number of individuals who are able to carry firearms outside of their homes. This changed on June 23rd, when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated key parts of the State’s law, opening the door for virtually anyone to now carry a firearm outside of their home in New York and New Jersey.

New York City hotels are taking a hard line on firearms in response to the controversial US Supreme Court decision striking down century-old state rules on carrying concealed weapons.  

The coronavirus pandemic may be ebbing, but the hospitality industry still ain’t doing so hot.

Yesterday we reviewed a positive report on the New York City hotel industry by CBRE, and today the NY Post had a rebuttal from the Hotel Association of New York City.

Wealth Management: Nine Must Reads for the CRE Industry Today

A year ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers set aside $100 million to encourage real estate developers to take New York City’s vacant and underutilized hotels that were struggling due to a lack of guests during the pandemic and turn them into permanent housing for the homeless and low-income residents. Not one hotel has been converted under the program so far.