Airbnb Is Banning ‘Party Houses’ After Deadly Halloween Shooting

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Airbnb Says It’s Banning ‘Party Houses’ From The Platform

Airbnb has announced that it will now ban “party houses” from its platform in response to a deadly shooting at a Halloween party in the Bay Area, which was held at one of the company’s rentals.

Brian Chesky, the company’s CEO, announced on Saturday that Airbnb is “redoubling our efforts to combat unauthorized parties,” which includes expanded manual screening for reservations that are deemed “high-risk.”

An Airbnb spokesman didn’t offer many details on how these aforementioned efforts would be implemented–or what might flag a rental as a party house–saying that the company has initiated a 10-day review to develop new policies.

Ben Breit told The LA Times that the rental listing where the shooting occurred had rules that barred parties, also adding that the listing and the person who rented it have both been removed from the site.

According to police, over 100 people from surrounding areas visited the home in the East Bay suburb of Orinda on Thursday night. The gathering was heavily advertised on social media and officers ended up responding to a noise complaint at the residence, but when they arrived, they found a “highly chaotic scene” with multiple gunshot victims.

The Times also reports that Airbnb has reached an agreement with the city of Los Angeles to create a system that will streamline enforcement of the city’s new regulations on their site. Under the system–which has yet to be created–new hosts won’t be able to publish listings without final approval from the city. On top of that, existing listings without the city’s required registration number will be removed.