Since the beginning of the year, nearly 900 complaints have been filed with the city, alleging an illegal use, addition or action with respect to a property or property owner in San Francisco.
While the complaints have ranged from the operation of an illegal “art studio/swingers sex club” on the north side of town (sorry, we’re not giving out the address), to a neighbor’s building of an unpermitted structure in their backyard (“making the neighborhood look like it has a backyard slum”), nearly half the complaints have been related to reports of illegal short-term rentals, according to our queries of the City’s database.
Over the same eight months last year, a total of roughly 700 complaints were filed with the city, of which closer to only 20 percent were related to reports of illegal short-term rentals.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
Comments are closed.
Where is the illegal sex club? 😉
“operating as art studio/swingers sex club open every Friday and Saturday nights with no entertainment license and have a bar for customers to bring their own alcohol – possible bar use and possible entertainment use”
OPENED STATUS ADDRESS
5/20/2016
Closed – No Violation
7/19/2016
##7 ### ## 94133
No violation ….darn !!!
phew. good thing that having fun with your friends is still allowed in SF.
Complaining to the government about people getting drunk and having communal sex should be a huge blinking sign that SF just isn’t the city for you.
Sour Grapes.
Well, shucks.
The garage door near my house gets tagged every week, and every week the city posts a notice that the tagging must be fixed by the victim or the victim of the tagging will be punished — for being victimized. Its our city’s idea of enforcement. Meanwhile all around us (Mission) people are violating every kind of zoning and use code imaginable in really bad, bad ways — parking on sidewalks, blocking right of way, illegal offices and illegal clubs… and the city does absolutely nothing.
I see your dilemma as a case of easy enforcement. The City employee that is citing the tag can do ths during normal business hours and is easy to spot. While the other violations you mention would require investigation time, documentation, possible hearings, etc. The City is all about the low hanging fruit. Don’t expect any real solutions and you won’t be disappointed. That and a script for Xanax.
all cities do that. it’s bullsh*t, like fining a rape victim for getting raped.
Is there a link to an SF City website site where you can learn more about these complaints and actions in your neighborhood?
You can use the Property Information Map (a great resource).
To start, click on anywhere on the map. Then go to the “Complaints” tab and when it loads, you’ll see a small blue button labeled “Map” (with a small white circle to the left of the words). Click that and it’ll enable mapping of all parcels that have complaints filed. Then have fun looking around the map by clicking on the purple parcels.
You can find blocks where it appears almost every house on either side of the street has a complaint filed. Often during the same period of time, so you can only surmise that there is a nosy neighbor filing complaints.
illegal short-term rentals = unregistered Airbnbs?
Yep. Or likely anyone whining when they see a stranger come in/out of a building they don’t recognize. If you look at many of the complaints you can imagine that many are just from nosy neighbors.
In related news: Short-Term Rental Vigilante Might Be Making the Rounds around Noe.