York Region 'party houses' among Airbnb crackdown

'We all need to do our part to reduce the number of large parties and events, and we support the efforts of local officials to crackdown on this reckless behaviour,' says company spokesperson

Newmarkettoday.ca
Sept. 22, 2020

Airbnb today announced a crackdown on party houses throughout the province of Ontario. As a part of this effort, over 40 listings in Ontario that have received complaints or otherwise violated our policies on parties and events have been suspended from the Airbnb platform.

This follows Airbnb’s policy change to ban parties at Airbnb listings globally until further notice.

The vast majority of hosts in Ontario contribute positively to their neighbourhoods and economy, and they also take important steps to prevent unauthorized parties -- like establishing clear house rules, quiet hours, and communicating in advance with their guests. Our actions today address the very small minority of hosts who have previously received warnings about hosting responsibly or have otherwise violated our policies.

The actions were communicated to the hosts late last week, and the suspensions were spread throughout the following cities and counties across the province:

Barrie
Belleville
Brampton
Caledon Village
Georgina
Hamilton
London
Markham
Mississauga
Norfolk County
Northumberland County
Ottawa
Peterborough
Prince Edward County
Quinte West
Richmond Hill
Toronto
West Nipissing

Airbnb announced a global ban on 'party houses' in 2019. In March 2020, the company launched a 24/7 Neighbourhood Support Hotline in Canada, where neighbours can call us anytime and reach a real person at Airbnb. The hotline is staffed with trained agents so that neighbours can reach us directly with their concerns. Issues raised by residents through this hotline led directly to many of the listing suspensions announced today.

“We all need to do our part to reduce the number of large parties and events, and we support the efforts of local officials to crackdown on this reckless behaviour,” said Airbnb’s Public Policy Manager in Canada, Nathan Rotman. “By bringing greater awareness to our 24/7 neighbourhood support hotline we can continue to strengthen the enforcement of violations of our party ban policy throughout Ontario and across Canada.”

In addition to the bans on both parties and party houses pursuant to our policies, earlier this year Airbnb announced restrictions on some bookings of local entire home listings by Canadian guests under the age of 25. Informed by this pilot initiative in Canada, Airbnb recently expanded this protection to the UK, France, and Spain. As a practical example, if we identify a 20-year old guest who is located in Waterloo, our systems are set up to restrict that user from booking a house, apartment or other entire home listing in Waterloo for a 1-night reservation the following weekend unless they have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb. However, if that same 20 year-old is booking a stay to visit family in Ottawa, the restriction would not apply.

Airbnb also announced last year the expansion of manual screening of high-risk reservations flagged by our automated systems. This helps identify reservations that help stop unauthorized parties before they start.