In the war between Miami Beach and Airbnb, tourists are caught between two fires

The neighborhood is perfect: next to a beautiful beach, full of restaurants and cafes and bars, with a pedestrian street where there are electronics stores and clothes, with cinemas, museums, discotheques, bicycles for rent, entertainment for children. South Beach He even has a hospital very close. For decades, and only with the exception of the boom years of drug trafficking, is this a wonderful tourist destination.

And that is why he is full of visitors. They rent not only places like hotels or apart-hotels, but also rooms and apartments via Airbnb, Flipkey, Booking.com, VRBO, HomeAway, Despegar, Hotels.com and other platforms.

Which is illegal. This results in fines and especially a war between the city of Miami Beach and Airbnb – the most powerful of these networks – which often ends with tourists hit by crossfire.

(Jenny Padura's report for Univision 23 – Miami)

A An officer of the compliance code knocks on the door of an apartment in a building that was denounced as a rental per day but was only allowed to Rents for a minimum of six months and a day. The tourist opens the door and explains: no, he does not live in Miami Beach; Yes, he is on vacation; yes, I found this accommodation on the internett. The officer gives him a notice of expulsion.

Following the the tourist calls the contact person listed in the rental announcement. The person gets angry. It is supposed that the tourist should have told the authorities a lieFor example, who is your friend or boyfriend or something?

The tourist asks for their money; the contact person stops responding Tourist contacts Airbnb, who also refuses reimbursement because it's not his fault if the owner lied about the terms.

according to The New York TimesIn less than 45 minutes of work, a control officer discovered, in the same building, five apartments rented illegally to travelers. What matters $ 20,000 fine for owner for the first time, with increases of $ 20,000 for each new offense.

More than five million ads for online rental of rooms and short-term apartments cover 81,000 cities in 191 countries. In Miami Beach, only Airbnb has about 4,500 active listings, many of whom are in designated areas for family housing.

"In our community, there is residential areasand we have delimited them so that when people buy a house, they know they are in a residential community, "he told the newspaper. Dan Gelber, Mayor of Miami Beach, Who also claimed that Airbnb had knowingly bypbaded the law.

The platform, meanwhile, sued the municipality: he argues that the regulation is excessive. "Nobody benefits when cities impose laws written for the sole purpose of punishing residents and consumers"he said to Time a spokesman for the company.

The complaint that leads compliance officers to a location usually originates from: annoying noiseswho leave the apartments where the party continues after the party or Uber and Lyft They take the tourists back to the apartments at night to the rhythm of the reggaeton or the door of the house hit by a person who has made a mistake in numbers.

Other reasons are padlock with key containing the keys of the apartments, of which there may be dozens near the entrance of a building, and the its wheels suitcases, at all times on the sidewalk, the lobby and the hallways.

Also the garbage left by tenants"If it was a small family business, we would not be aware of it," Jeff Donnelly, a resident of Flamingo Park, said since 1992. "We warned you they are unmanned hotels and maintenance is the responsibility of the neighbors"

The Code Compliance Office has 1,737 investigations on short-term rent during the 2017-2018 fiscal year, three times more than four years ago. In 2016, facing the trend, the municipality He brought the fine to 20,000 USD. and began to apply to homeowners, although it often involves sublease operations performed by annual tenants or apartment managers. But the the owners are the only ones who have a property against which to engage actions.

However, Miami Beach has not been enriched by sanctions. He explained The Miami Herald: "The city initially imposed fines of 13.3 million USD for 431 offenses, but Some landlords have appealed to the city attorney or have successfully negotiated minor payments. By the beginning of February, the city had only collected $ 463,000 out of a total fine of nearly $ 8 million, which is equivalent to 6%"

Airbnb, who said Time What cooperates with cities around the world to develop "reasonable rules"Since December, the lawsuits in Miami Beach require that those who rent do not only have a commercial license number (as before), but also a tax registration as a hotel. The company added that do not check the ads that appear on the site and that "warns guests and guests that they must be aware of local regulations and comply with them"

As well some owners plead against Miami BeachJust like Natalie Nichols, who since the 2008 crisis depended on her short-term income to live, avoid foreclosures, pay taxes and get insurance. Now, she lives off her savings for retirement, a little bit necessarily: "The city has deprived me of a business that should have brought me money. until my retirement, "he argued.

The main problems of the municipality are not individuals like her, but larger scale operations, illustrated the Herald For example, he quoted a man from North Carolina who rented an apartment on Jefferson Avenue but, when He looked for the keys in the "reception center" located in a hostel on street 9 he had to accept that they will change the housing to another place on Drexel Avenuesince the one he chose had a plumbing problem. And at Drexel, he was visited by a code compliance officer.