NBSTRA Sends Letter to City Urging Them to Go Back to the Drawing Board on New “Safety Enhancement” Ordinance
NBSTRA’s Letter to the City of Newport Beach
The following is NBSTRA’s letter to the Mayor, City Council, and City Staff at Newport Beach about their proposed new “Safety Enhancement Ordinance” which adds Spring Break weeks to the existing Safety Enhancement laws and includes new provisions that could result in even STLP homes which comply with the law still subject to mandatory permit revocation if guests deceive the host and then break the law.
We’ll be in touch soon on additional steps you can take to encourage the City to chart a better path that cooperates with our members to craft a better proposal.
Honorable Mayor and Members of the Newport Beach City Council
c/o City Clerk, City of Newport Beach
100 Civic Center Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Re: NBSTRA Comments in Opposition to the Proposed “Expanded Safety Enhancement” Ordinance – Request to Return the STLP Provisions to the Working Group Process
Mayor and Councilmembers,
On behalf of the Newport Beach Short-Term Rental Alliance (NBSTRA), we write to respectfully object to the proposed expansion of the City’s “Safety Enhancement” enforcement framework as it applies to the Short-Term Lodging Permit (STLP) program, and to urge the Council to return these provisions to a collaborative, working-group process before adoption.
NBSTRA is committed to public safety and to responsible operations. We share the City’s goal of preventing the small number of bad actors from disrupting neighborhoods during major holiday periods. Our concern is not the objective that you clearly are trying to accomplish. Our concern is that the current proposal is a rushed, blunt instrument that risks punishing competent operators for conduct they did not cause, could not reasonably prevent, and are victims of as well.
Executive Summary (For Council’s Convenience)
We share the City’s public safety goals and support enhanced enforcement during major holiday weekends and other high-demand periods.
The City did not meaningfully consult the STLP industry on practical and proactive measures that prevent problems before they occur – even though a working group was established for exactly that purpose.
The draft creates a one-strike, mandatory revocation framework tied to an unclear, overly broad trigger (“any person,” “relates in any way,” and “preponderance of the evidence”) that is especially problematic when paired with mandatory penalties.
This proposal is not comparably imposed on other visitor-serving uses (hotels, multifamily housing, or homeowners hosting guests) – even though the City experiences visitor impacts from many sources during peak periods.
NBSTRA offers a better path: return the STLP provisions to the working group and, if needed for Spring Break, adopt a narrowly tailored emergency temporary ordinance built with genuine industry input and operational realities in mind.
1. Shared Public Safety Goals – We Agree on the “Why”
Let us be clear at the outset: responsible STLP owners and managers strongly support increased public safety during holiday weekends and peak visitor periods. These are our neighborhoods, too. We are homeowners and small businesspeople in this community. We want quiet streets, safe sidewalks, and respectful behavior – especially when Newport Beach experiences predictable surges in visitors.
We also want to state unequivocally that any attacks, threats, harassment, or disruptive behavior directed toward our police officers or other City staff is unacceptable. NBSTRA supports the Newport Beach Police Department and our public safety professionals. We want to work directly with the Police Department and other City officials on practical steps to ensure these incidents do not happen – and are not tolerated – at any time and especially during high-demand periods.
Our objections are about how this ordinance attempts to achieve the shared goal – not whether the goal is valid.
2. Lack of Industry Consultation – The City Should Have Worked With the STLP Sector
The STLP industry is not the impediment to problem-solving here; it is a necessary partner. STLP operators have real-world experience managing visitor behavior, preventing parties, screening bookings, and responding to complaints at scale.
Yet the City advanced a proposal with sweeping operational mandates and life-or-death permit consequences without the kind of practical consultation that produces effective, enforceable, and fair policy. This is particularly frustrating because the City and NBSTRA agreed that a working group was the right venue for collaborative problem-solving – a forum intended to create durable solutions, not rushed ones.
In fact, the first meeting of the City-NBSTRA Working Group was scheduled for this Thursday, February 19, and would have been the perfect venue for this discussion. Now, we have postponed that meeting to focus on our concerns about this rushed ordinance.
When the City does not meaningfully consult the people who actually operate the system, the result is predictable: rules that look strong on paper but fail in practice, create unintended consequences, and undermine compliance partnerships.
Practical, Preventative Alternatives the City Should Consider
NBSTRA urges the Council to consider proven tools that prevent problems before they start, including:
Mandatory in-person check-in during major safety enhancement (holiday) periods (or for higher-risk bookings), ensuring the adult responsible party on the agreement is physically present at the start of occupancy and briefed on City rules and regulations.
Required ID verification at the time of reservation (platform-verified and/or third-party verification) to reduce fake identities and straw-bookings. In the past these types of options were unavailable and now they are.
Mid-stay compliance checks (“door knocks”) during high-risk or safety enhancement (holiday) periods, conducted by the responsible local manager, to verify the responsible adult remains present and the occupancy is consistent with the reservation. This can be logged and documented to show the City good faith due diligence on the part of the operator.
These measures do not excuse misconduct. They prevent it – and they do so in a way that is operationally realistic and focused on actual bad actors (guests/tenants) who try to circumvent or blatantly ignore City regulations.
3. “Shall Revoke” vs. “May Revoke” – Clarity Is Good, But Only With Proper Guardrails
As a general policy principle, clear standards are better than ambiguous discretion. If the City believes certain egregious conduct during defined high-risk periods must have a predictable consequence, then moving from “may revoke” to “shall revoke” can provide clarity and consistency when – and only when – the trigger is narrowly defined, the process is transparent, and the penalty is aimed at the responsible wrongdoer.
The problem is that the current proposal combines mandatory revocation with language and triggers that are too broad, too subjective, and too easily disconnected from operator culpability. In other words: the issue is not that the City wants clear standards. The issue is that the current draft does not define those standards in a way that is fair, workable, or targeted. We believe that a “one strike” renovation will be unnecessary if proactive measures are put in place that help the industry police itself, with support from the City.
4. “Preponderance of Evidence” – Incomplete and Inappropriate Without a Clearly Defined Adjudication Framework
The proposal relies on a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in connection with mandatory revocation. That pairing is concerning because the ordinance’s structure, triggers, and procedures leave fundamental questions unanswered in a way that is unacceptable for a penalty as severe as permit revocation.
First of all, it is not clear if the existing appeals process and hearing process even applies to this mandatory revocation provision. But even if an administrative hearing framework exists on paper and applies in this case, the practical adjudication concerns remain:
What evidence is sufficient when the initiating trigger can be a field-level “good-faith determination” and verbal notice?
What is the scope of “any person” and “relates in any way,” and how is that causation proven?
How is operator “fault” evaluated when the alleged misconduct may be committed by a guest, a guest’s guest, or a day visitor?
What safe harbor exists for operators who used best-practice screening, cooperated immediately, and were deceived by bad actors?
How does a third-party manager prevent lawsuits for losing a permit by property owners who blame the manager for “allowing” a STLP revocation despite their best efforts and good faith due diligence?
If mandatory revocation is on the table, the ordinance must be written with procedural clarity, narrow triggers, and meaningful due process safeguards. Otherwise, it invites inconsistent enforcement, unnecessary appeals, and avoidable litigation – and it undermines the cooperative compliance culture the City needs.
5. Comparative Fairness – The City Hosts Many Visitor Types During Peak Periods
During major holiday weekends, including Spring Break, Newport Beach experiences impacts from multiple visitor categories, including:
STLP guests
Hotel guests
Day visitors from surrounding communities (up to 10,000,000 annually per city estimates)
Guests of long-term tenants/renters
Guests of homeowners
We acknowledge the important point that STLPs operate in residential neighborhoods and can appropriately be held to standards tailored to that setting. But even with that acknowledgement, the proposed approach is not comparably applied across visitor-serving uses:
The City would never impose a one-strike, business-ending revocation on hotels (pulling CUPs or business licenses) based on guest misbehavior in or near a room or out in the community.
Apartment building owners and managers would never have their right to operate terminated when tenants’ guests misbehave – even when that misbehavior burdens neighbors or again, the broader community.
Homeowners may be held accountable in some cases if their guests misbehave, but never to the equivalent of revocation.
And this leads to a practical question: if a rowdy crowd roams the boardwalk and the pier and misbehaves – including conduct that targets or disrupts our police officers – is scapegoating all STLP operators the real solution? Those high-visibility incidents often involve mixed visitor sources and public-space dynamics that cannot be solved by imposing one-strike permit revocation on compliant neighborhood operators who did not cause the conduct.
The City should absolutely hold operators accountable for operator misconduct. But the penalty structure must be designed to target bad actors, not to punish compliant operators who are also victims of deception.
6. STLP Industry Screening Efforts – Operators Already Screen More Rigorously Than Other Lodging Types
STLP owners and professional managers routinely apply screening measures that exceed what most hotels, homeowners, or long-term rentals ever do, including:
ID verification and age requirements.
Occupancy limits and rental agreement enforcement.
Security deposits and payment verification.
In depth messaging about house rules, quiet hours, and party bans, and city code regarding LUGOs and other requirements.
Local contact requirements and rapid response protocols.
When bad actors intentionally deceive operators, the operators are harmed too: neighbors are upset, enforcement is triggered, platforms may penalize the listing, and reputational damage follows.
A policy framework that assumes STLP operators are the cause – rather than recognizing the reality that operators are often the first line of prevention and the first victims of intentional deception – will not produce better outcomes.
7. Rushed Process and a Bypassed Working Group – This Is Not How Good Policy Is Built
NBSTRA regrets that the City has moved this proposal forward on a rushed timeline that appears to us to be intended to meet the upcoming Spring Break season. Newport Beach has already established a working group framework intended to create exactly the kind of durable, balanced solutions we all want.
When that process is bypassed, the City loses the benefit of operational expertise, and the result is predictable: overbroad rules, unclear standards, and penalties that do not match real-world accountability.
Public safety is too important for rushed policymaking. If the City wants a strong compliance system, it must be built on a meaningful partnership with the regulated community – not simply imposed upon it.
8. Path Forward – Return to the Drawing Board, and Let’s Build Something That Works
NBSTRA respectfully urges the City Council to:
Direct that the STLP-related provisions be pulled back for further work through the established working group process, with meaningful industry input and a clear schedule for completion.
Move forward if needed on expanding the existing Safety Enhancement Period and Footprint to Spring Break.
If the Council believes action is necessary for the upcoming Spring Break period, NBSTRA is willing to support a subsequent emergency, temporary ordinance that is narrowly tailored, operationally feasible, and focused on prevention – but only if the STLP industry is genuinely consulted in its development, and done in coordination with the Newport Beach Police Department and relevant City departments so that rules align with real enforcement realities.
The City and NBSTRA share the same objective: safer holiday periods, fewer neighborhood disruptions, and consequences for true bad actors. We can achieve that objective with a policy that is clear, fair, enforceable, and targeted – but we cannot achieve it by adopting a rushed framework that risks punishing the wrong people.
Thank you for your consideration. NBSTRA and our members stand ready to meet immediately with City staff, public safety leadership, and Council offices to develop an approach that relies on solid data and that protects neighborhoods while maintaining a fair and workable STLP program.
Respectfully submitted,
Jeff Flint
Executive Director, Newport Beach Short-Term Rental Alliance (NBSTRA)
Aaron Batley
Founder, Chairman and Board Member, NBSTRA,
Owner, Newport Beach Vacation Properties
Hank Lambert
Board Member, NBSTRA
Owner, Arrival Getaways
Don Abrams
Board Member, NBSTRA
Owner, Abrams Coastal Properties
CC: City Manager; City Attorney; Chief of Police; Fire Chief; Code Enforcement; City Clerk
