Athens officials ought to let Airbnbs flourish locally.
Athens City Council members need to put their Airbnb concerns to bed.
Let’s bring Athens into the reality of modern traveling: People are increasingly discontent with paying hundreds of dollars for traditional hotel lodging near strip malls and highways.
Instead, it seems some would rather spend their money and get an experience in return. In Athens, that might mean staying in a house near campus, where you can walk back after a night Uptown. That’s certainly the experience many alumni may want, considering it's how they lived their lives in Athens a few years back.
We can’t blame people for wanting that. Athens is a beautiful town with a lot to offer. Airbnbs ought to be one of those amenities that attracts people to visit.
That can’t happen unless the city changes its policy on the service. We’ve heard of at least one instance in which the city code office issued a warning to an Airbnb host and threatened $500-a-day fines should the service continue. The basis for the warning was apparently because the Airbnb isn’t located within city-designated areas of Athens.
That sounds like shaky reasoning and hardly grounds to hamper a business that stands to benefit Athens in the long run.
Although we understand that Airbnbs present an inconvenience to the city — Should the services have the same inspections as hotels? Will there need to be additional taxes on rates? — we think Athens stands to gain more than it could lose by cooperating with the rental service. Safety precautions should be taken, yes, but not to the point where they both hurt the consumer and the renter.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post's executive editors: Editor-in-Chief Emma Ockerman, Managing Editor Rebekah Barnes and Digital Managing Editor Samuel Howard. Post editorials are independent of the publication's news coverage.
