Barcelona Mayor Threatens the Great Firewall of Catalonia to Fight AirBnB
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@Dashrender said:
Your desire to live there 3 weeks to 3 months - how many bachelors can/do this, let alone 4 person families like yours. Basically my question is, is there any point in a city like Barcelona catering to you and your situation or is that so rare that there is no money to be made from it?
Yes, I think more people can do this than you imagine. But the point is not to cater to it, but not to cater to the opposite. The mayor is very much catering to the college party crowd while trying to make it look like she is doing the opposite. The only winners in this are the hostels, pensions and similar low cost, short stay, tourist area businesses.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
What is the price difference between the paying taxes hostels vs the AirBnB places?
Hostels by definition are something like under $30 a night and often down to like $15.
AirBnB would be all over the place. But we are more typically getting $60 - $200 a night.
Then I'm really confused - the only one's who should be mad about AirBnB are the normal/high priced hotels, not the hostels - unless the hostels are complaining that taxes are killing them and the AirBnB people aren't playing fair - but they clearly cater to different clientele.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Getting rid of the partiers who only want to go to the beach for all night raves, OK I can see the city wanting to be rid of them because those, we'll call them kids, have little money and aren't spending it on local things in the city.
And, and this is huge, are not there for the culture. They are turning the city into Ibiza. They don't care about Catalonian culture, the Catalan langauge, local history, etc. If they were there, poor and not spending money but doing those things, I think the city would eat the losses.
Doing what things that are culture based but cost no money? walking around the poor parts of the city, speaking the language? Does that happen anywhere else? as a non world traveler I have no idea if poor people are traveling to other cities and spending time on those cities not spending money, but taking in the culture of that city.
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@Dashrender said:
Then I'm really confused - the only one's who should be mad about AirBnB are the normal/high priced hotels, not the hostels - unless the hostels are complaining that taxes are killing them and the AirBnB people aren't playing fair - but they clearly cater to different clientele.
Even the hotels should not care much, because it is a different type of traffic. People that use AirBnB, I think, will just bypass the city now, rather than switch to tourist accommodations. The reason that you choose AirBnB is very different. At least in many places.
One of the reasons you use AirBnB is to get away from hotels and tourist areas. Allowing you to live like a local, in small villages or obscure neighbourhoods.
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@Dashrender said:
Doing what things that are culture based but cost no money? walking around the poor parts of the city, speaking the language? Does that happen anywhere else? as a non world traveler I have no idea if poor people are traveling to other cities and spending time on those cities not spending money, but taking in the culture of that city.
Yup, standard behaviour outside of the US. It's generally considered the most important part of a young persons education and "growing up." It's often cited as more valuable than a formal education and has been shown to be more likely to cause you to be successful later in life. It's a normal part of European and European-related culture.
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I have lots of friends who do this. Some do workaway, some just live super cheap. I had someone from a hostel in El Valle thinking about crashing on my couch in Dallas for a while. We've had a few people stay with us when abroad, just crash on our couches, use a spare room, etc.
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One thing I've learned is that I can't look at my own life and expect it to be anywhere near the norm. I don't make the mean income in the USA, and my friends that I surround myself with don't either. This makes my observation skewed.
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@Dashrender said:
One thing I've learned is that I can't look at my own life and expect it to be anywhere near the norm. I don't make the mean income in the USA, and my friends that I surround myself with don't either. This makes my observation skewed.
You don't live in a mean income area either. Or even a remotely normal area.
But the US is anything but the norm for the world too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's shocking how blind everyone is to this.
Blind to what exactly? You seem to be basing everything on a single article that doesn't quote the new mayor or any of her government officials, apart from in relation to social housing.
What are exactly are you upset about? Catalonia banning unlicensed apartments (which is identical to New York, I believe and is nothing to do with the current mayor)? Catalonia threatening to block access to Airbnb's websites (which was a threat by the previous mayor, not this one)? Or Catalonia trying get more social housing (which as far as I can tell, is the only complaint that can be directed towards the current mayor/government)?
You seem to be ranting about different things and I'm not sure which one I'm being blind to? Why are you singling out the mayor? I don't know what she is responsible for and what the Catalan government is responsible for, but how can the mayor of a city ban internet access in an entire region?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
What are exactly are you upset about? Catalonia banning unlicensed apartments (which is identical to New York, I believe and is nothing to do with the current mayor)? Catalonia threatening to block access to Airbnb's websites (which was a threat by the previous mayor, not this one)? Or Catalonia trying get more social housing (which as far as I can tell, is the only complaint that can be directed towards the current mayor/government)?
I thought that I made it very clear after the last time you asked me to clarify...
I am upset about attempting to gain illegal access to private data and threatening and/or attempting to get censorship of the people's Internet access. And way beyond that, trying to gain control of the rest of the region for whom she is not a politician at all.
I think that the mayor is likely corrupt and doing what she can to support the people who have bought her as her actions all seem to go against what she claims is the goal. But that's separate. That's up to Barcelona to decide how to try to fix their city. But breaching privacy, threatening innocent companies and determining the freedom of communications for both her city AND others for whom she is not a representative is unacceptable no matter why she is trying to do it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
You seem to be ranting about different things and I'm not sure which one I'm being blind to? Why are you singling out the mayor? I don't know what she is responsible for and what the Catalan government is responsible for, but how can the mayor of a city ban internet access in an entire region?
Presumably because the access to it travels through the city. That would be my guess. Maybe she can't, but threatening to break the law is still a problem. What if the US government threatened to enact martial law in the UK? That we don't have the right to invade should make no difference to British citizens being pissed off that they are threatening them, right?
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At least Catalonia has admitted, according to the WSJ, that they don't have the right to block the site:
One has to ask how they have the power to fine them, either. AirBnB does not operate there at all, what jurisdiction does Catalonia have? It'll be interesting to see how EU law applies here. And US law. What if someone offered an apartment through any other website, like here, for example? Is it illegal to have a website where someone offers something for sale? Even if the site has no operations in the place where the person is posting? What gives Catalonia any authority there?
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But the Catalan response is last year. The new threats from Barcelona, not Catalonia, are new, presumably.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The new threats from Barcelona, not Catalonia, are new, presumably.
Or they don't exist and that article is talking bollocks.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Or they don't exist and that article is talking bollocks.
Possibly. One would hope that they would make a statement or take legal action in the case of liable.
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Cataluña recently (last month) changed their stance on AirBnB from 2014 and it is very legal there now: http://novobrief.com/airbnb-legal-in-cataluna-barcelona/
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Another site echoes the quotes from the press conference: http://www.tenantstogether.org/article.php?id=3777
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Telegraph reported that AirBnB requires the people using it to pay all of the necessary taxes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11701684/Spains-Airbnb-style-listings-outnumber-hotel-beds-says-report.html
There are no untaxed apartments on AirBnB. If local people are breaking the law, that's nothing to do with AirBnB or similar services. They are not the tax collectors.
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A lot of outlets are reporting that the mayor plans to tax AirBnB... that's double taxing. They want to get the taxes for the service AND tax a foreign entity just for being the coordinator. Maybe they can do it legally, maybe not, but the bottom line is they want to get taxes from an American company when they've been apparently neglecting to collect taxes that are in their jurisdiction.
Does Spain or the EU allow municipalities to tax foreign entities without national or EU oversight? That seems very odd. In the US, you cannot tax or impose a duty on a foreign country as a municipality or even as a state.
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@scottalanmiller said:
In the US, you can tax or impose a duty on a foreign country as a municipality or even as a state.
Can or cannot. you imply not, but say can.
