ST. LOUIS – Airbnb announced an ‘anti-party crackdown’ plan in Missouri for the upcoming Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends.
“It impacts primarily one- and two-night reservations. So if someone is booking a 30-day stay that is less likely to be impacted by someone,” said Ben Briet, a spokesperson for Airbnb. “But honing into those who do not have that long history of a platform.”
The plan comes after concerns over short-term rental parties in the St. Louis area and other parts of the state.
“Cracking down on disruptive parties is a thing that is very important to us as a platform,” Briet said. “Certainly, a host of one don’t want parties carrying in their listings, and neighbors don’t want that either.”
St. Louis Alderwoman Cara Spencer, whose 8th ward includes part of downtown, said city leaders have addressed concerns surrounding Airbnbs and other short-term rentals.
“When Airbnb is talking about regulating themselves. I’m hopeful that can be effective, but their goal is to make money and they are not here experiencing the mayhem,” Spencer said.
Over the past few months, FOX 2 has been covering issues regarding illegal short-term rental parties, some of which have turned violent, one incident was caught on video.
St. Louis officials are at a breaking point when it comes to these celebrations that end in chaos.
“We have introduced a bill, it’s a starting point, and we are hoping that discussions very quickly here in-depth from the community about how to make sure our restrictions have a lot of teeth in them,” Spencer said.
In 2022, Airbnb had a similar initiative over Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends. The company estimated that these efforts reduced the number of disruptive parties. In Missouri, over 200 people were deterred from booking entire home listings over Memorial Day weekend due to those defenses.
To read more about Airbnb’s plan to crack down on parties, click here.