An Upper West Side landlord and a former broker were hit with a combined $17,000 worth of fines for allegedly advertising illegal short-term rentals – the first to be penalized under the state’s new law designed to cut back on illegal Airbnb listings.
Hank Freid, who manages the Marrakesh Hotel on the Upper West Side, and real estate broker Tatiana Cames were hit with 17 violations to the tune of $1,000 a piece for allegedly listing illegal short-term rentals, the New York Post reported.
Freid received 12 violations for listing SROs in the building on several sites such as Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire, Travelocity and Orbitz.
Cames, formerly a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group [TRDataCustom] who was last with Compass, received five violations for allegedly posting five individual listings on Airbnb at 320 Macon Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which property records show she bought in 2015 for $2.15 million, according to the Post.
Cames apparently is making a few extra dollars off vacancies in the brownstone while she tries to permanently rent out the space. The same Airbnb units are advertised as “for rent” on her website.
The property has inadequate fire alarms and sprinklers, illegal subdivisions and a bunch of confused French tourists, documents show.
Cames also manages an Airbnb listing at 103 St. James Place in Clinton Hill, which has hosted at least 179 guests, according to the number of reviews.
Last week was the first time the city could enforce the law that the state legislature passed in October making it illegal to advertise short-term rentals.
If Freid and Cames don’t remove their listings, they could be hit with another round of violations costing $5,000 each.
Freid’s attorney, Ronald J. Rosenberg, said the summons are a “misapplication of the law” and that his client will “fight the violations in court, as he has successfully done in the past.” [NYP] – Rich Bockmann