JACKSON, NJ – A house party attended by 700 people in Jackson Township this past weekend has led to a statewide crackdown by Air BnB against similar homes being used for house party rentals. Today, Airbnb announced action to crack down on party houses throughout the state of New Jersey. As part of this, 35 listings across New Jersey that have received complaints or otherwise violated our policies on parties and events have been either suspended or removed from the Airbnb platform.
This move follows Airbnb’s previous ban on party houses and commitment to safe and responsible travel. While the vast majority of hosts in New Jersey 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 small minority of hosts who have previously received warnings about hosting responsibly. The suspensions were communicated to the hosts beginning yesterday.
In late 2019, Airbnb announced a 24/7 Neighborhood Support Hotline in the United States, where neighbors can call us anytime and reach a real person at Airbnb. The hotline is staffed with a rapid response team so that neighbors can reach us directly with their concerns. Issues raised by New Jersey residents through this hotline led directly to many of the listing suspensions announced today.
“We stand with Governor Murphy, and we support his call to action to stop parties and promote behavior that respects the public’s health,” said Chris Lehane, SVP of Global Policy & Communications for Airbnb. “We ban party houses and will not tolerate irresponsible behavior on our platform. We know that there is still more work to be done, we ask that neighbors contact us as soon as possible through our Neighborhood Support Hotline, to directly communicate any concerns, which will help us continue to effectively enforce our party house ban.”
The suspensions and removals impacted listings in the following New Jersey cities:
- North Jersey
- Hoboken
- Guttenberg
- Irvington
- Jersey City
- Long Hill
- Montclair
- New Milford
- Newark
- Nutley
- Sparta Township
- Wood-Ridge
- Central Jersey
- Asbury Park
- Bridgewater Township
- East Brunswick
- Jackson Township
- Pennington
- Piscataway Township
- Toms River
- Trenton
- Watchung
- Woodbridge Township
- South Jersey
- Atlantic City
- Brigantine
- Stafford Township
- Ventnor City
“Stopping large gatherings is more important than ever in this current environment. The party house measures come on the heels of several other anti-party initiatives from Airbnb, including a strengthening of our policies to prohibit gatherings that violate public health mandates,” said Samuel Randall, spokesperson for Air BnB. “Additionally, Airbnb recently shared out restrictions on some U.S. guests under the age of 25 from booking entire home listings in their local area. As a practical example, if we identify a 20-year old guest who is located in Hoboken, our systems are set up to restrict that user from booking a house, apartment or other entire home listing in Hoboken 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 Ocean City, 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.
Stock Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash
