Tourist parties in Las Vegas are not limited to the Strip. They pervade the residential neighborhoods, too. Party houses—residential properties rented out for the sole purpose of hosting a big bash—are popular here. Everybody knows this. Not everyone, though, enjoys this.
And so on March 4 the Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance that aims to weed out party houses by regulating short-term house rentals. (It went into effect March 10.) If they want to rent their houses for fewer than 31 days, property owners or managers must now follow these rules:
• Obtain a permit from the city;
• Have no complaints associated with the property;
• Be available to Metro or LV Code Enforcement in case of problems;
• Start collecting room tax.
“I felt we had to do this,” says Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, who oversees Ward 1, and who had received more than 35 complaints from constituents irate over the noise, trash and parking problems related to these party houses. “Because the outright ban we had discussed on short-term rentals last year was wrong.”
That’s right, says Cherrell Tarantino, who manages 200 rental properties through her business Executive Locations—about 50 of which are short-term—and who had rallied her industry against the City Council’s absolute ban on short-term rentals when it passed in November.
“The law hurt a whole industry of legit, honest businesses,” says Tarantino of the ordinance. “The council didn’t even know we existed.”
There are 13 companies like Tarantino’s in the Valley. “There is a demand out there for our services, and we provide it,” says Tarantino. Her clients who seek short-term homes in residential neighborhoods include casino executives who don’t want to put their visiting families up on the Strip, couples waiting to close on a home just purchased in the Valley and displaced victims of floods and fires.
And so she collaborated with other members of her industry, the city and complaining homeowners, and together they drafted a new version of the ordinance.
“I was torn about it,” says Tarkanian. “I want to keep residential districts residential, and not commercial. But I didn’t want to hurt this industry.
“So I think the new permits will be the right solution. That way we can keep track of who’s renting out these places and what they’re doing.”
The city, of course, is targeting party houses, which even Tarantino detests on account of the bad name they give her industry. But are new rules on transient rentals really necessary?
The city already has codes regulating noise, trash and parking in residential neighborhoods, and, by city law, anyone who wants to throw a party must first obtain an events permit.
These laws, however, have not been enforced.
“It’s because Metro has shootings and robberies to deal with—they’re too busy to enforce these,” says Tarkanian. “But now we have Code Enforcement to enforce the new ordinance, and they should be able to respond right away.”
Tarantino says her industry already regulates itself. The applications their clients fill out ask the reasons for renting, and the contracts contain stipulations against overpopulating the house and unlawful activities. It’s not her fault the city’s preexisting laws “have no teeth,” she says.
Nor should she have to pay.
“I wish none of it would’ve happened in the first place,” says Tarantino. “Now, it’s going to be a big headache for us.”
Not only will the permits costs businesses like hers some $300 a year, but Tarantino says she will also have to hire another staffer for administrative overhead. Moreover, the room tax—4 percent (or 9 percent when the property is within two miles of the Las Vegas Convention Center), which in any case goes straight to the city—will be an additional cost to unload onto clients.
“Like I said,” says Tarkanian, “I’m conflicted. But the most important thing is to keep commercial businesses out of residential neighborhoods.”
The only problem with this thinking, Tarantino contends, is that her business is not commercial. “My clients are living in those houses, like anybody else,” she says. “I don’t see the difference between living in a place for 15 days and living in it for 32 days.”
Tarkanian says the City Council will re-examine the issue if, in time, it proves ineffective.
Illustration by Meg Hunt