The New York Daily News
By Kenneth Lovett
08.07.2017
State senator pushes Airbnb to require guests’ photo ID, keep records for 3 years
A state senator says he is preparing legislation to treat home-sharing sites like Airbnb more like hotels.
The bill by Sen. Tony Avella (D-Queens) will require Airbnb and others who rent their homes or apartments to require photo identification when guests arrive and to keep their records on guests for three years in case the information is needed by investigators and regulators.
“If Airbnb wants to act like a hotel, then it must be subject to the same basic transparency and disclosure requirements that all legal lodging establishments in the City of New York are responsible for,” Avella said.
Current state business law, he said, requires legal lodging establishments to keep for a period of three years basic information about their guests, including their name, residence, date of arrival and departure that can be turned over to regulators and law enforcement when requested.
“Airbnb’s unwelcome proliferation in neighborhoods in my district, mostly by absentee commercial operators, has created a public nuisance and public safety risks that are simply unacceptable,” Avella said.
“Given that Airbnb shows no interest in policing outlaws on their own platform, we need legislation to compel them to do basic things that are in the public’s interest.”
He said his push to also require guests to provide a photo ID would also cover all lodging establishments, including hotels, most of which already do it routinely.
“Given the public safety risks and the need for law enforcement to have all the necessary information they need on the millions of tourists who come to our great city every year, this is a common sense reform that all lodging establishments should be subjected to,” Avella said.
Airbnb spokesman Peter Schottenfels shot back, “It is unfortunate that a lawmaker who has taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the hotel industry would introduce legislation attacking hardworking New Yorkers for using their own homes to earn enough to stay in the neighborhoods they love.”
He urged Avella to back different legislation “that allows New Yorkers to share their homes while cracking down on commercial operators who abuse home sharing platforms.”
The Avella bill is the latest salvo in the bitter battle being waged by many Democratic lawmakers from the city and the hotel industry against the popular home-sharing site.
Legislators have claimed Airbnb has led to illegal hotels cropping up around the city, inconveniencing tenants, putting people at risk, and reducing the number of affordable housing units.
Airbnb says its hosts mainly consist of residents who need the extra income home-sharing provides to afford to be able to stay in the city. They say the opposition is led by the hotel industry that is threatened by home-sharing.
The hotel industry last week unveiled a television ad linking home-sharing to security threats. Airbnb fired back with its own ad accusing the hotel industry of fear mongering and xenophobia.
Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan), a leading Airbnb legislative critic, has introduced separate legislation that the hotel industry is backing that would require ads on home-sharing sites to include full location details, like street name, street number, apartment number, borough, town and county of the unit being offered.