As a superhost am I required to rent to known Prostitutes?

I think I’m protected by such things because it’s clear in my listing that there are kids in the house. Sometimes I think ya’ll should borrow some little kids and get them in your profile photo!

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Updating this situation: I have called AIR BNB today, and as instructed by Mark the supervisor I spoke with last night, asked to speak to Brian Chesky, the CEO. Recall that Mark the supervisor told me he reports directly to Mr. Chesky, and I confirmed his assertion that he reports directly to Mr. Chesky several times during the conversion. Needless to say, today I am informed that there are several people between a customer service supervisor and the CEO, not exactly a surprise on that. I am also told today, that in no way am I expected to book any one I am not comfortable with; and that it is unacceptable to be told that I should book a person who I believe is a prostitute. I declined the reservation, no surprise there either.

The person I spoke to today is going to review this with their supervisor and pull the calls from last night and get back to me. As I told this fellow at AIRBNB today, I swear that what I have reported, and the way I have reported it here, is what the conversation with the AIR BNB rep and supervisor last night were.

I have concluded today, I now fully understand why there are hosts with scores of great reviews who are not super hosts, and I understand why now. As for my super host status, it means nothing to me now; I am not even sure if I will continue using AIR BNB, I am that disheartened with them. But I do give credit to the fellow I spoke with today, very nice, and truly seemed apologetic.

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I am renting an apartment. I really don’t care what people do in there as long as they leave the place in good condition. It’s all very well calling this guest a prostitute but the correct term is ‘sex-worker’. You may disagree but I have no problem with that.

And what’s ‘illegal’.? Speeding? Smoking weed? Having a dog not on a leash? It depends from place to place.

If a sex worker rented my place and was respectful of the house rules, that’s fine.

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You know what I find odd, Jaquo, that you are content having a sex worker, provided they are respectful of your house rules. So, shouldn’t you be respectful of the community rules, and thus not encourage sex workers to operate in a family neighbourhood? My place is downtown, on a tree lined street, with schools and children, surely the neighbours deserve respect too?

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Even though this has been an entertaining juicy thread, why all the drama? if you don’t like the sound of the inquiry, don’t accept her request. It is not a fact, only a suspicion, that she is a prostitute, or the guy is her pimp, or what really is going on; its your call, no one else’s. I reject people all the time for a myriad of reasons, and could care less who doesn’t like it.

Getting the whole chain of AirBnB command involved seems to me is a huge waste of everyone’s time, and by the sound of it, no matter what AirBnB does now, it will not meet your standards anyway, because someone at AirBnB didn’t answer your first questions more tactfully.

Better yet, refer her to my place (or Geoff’s), we will take her off your hands. :grin:

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I can see that a new start up venture may be worth looking into. Maybe called whorebnb.

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LoL. May I suggest another alternative name for consideration - SleazeBnB.

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Sex work is legal is some cities around the world. I agree if they are obeying your house rules and not breaking local laws who cares. However, if you are in a building or situation where neighbors/hoa/council would complain, its probably better to say ‘no thanks’. Remember folks, the power is all yours. :joy:

It seems like the original issue was loss of SH status, because of denying a request to book. IIRC that does not effect SH, only cancelling outside of the 3 freebie IB cancels. The OP got bad rep at Air BNB, shocking, but this is not something Air can control until after the ‘illegal’ act has taken place.

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Yes @Alan1 - I am very respectful towards my neighbours and expect my guests to be too. However, I don’t see why the proximity of schools and children is a problem. The potential guest may or may not have planned to receive her own ‘guests’ in your accommodation but there’s no reason to suggest that this could harm local children in any way.

How would the neighbours know? The woman is hardly likely to be soliciting in the street wearing fishnet stockings, stiletto heels and a miniskirt like some bad B movie from the last century.

In business you can’t always deal only with customers you select. There was a recent case in a country that does not yet allow gay marriage. A man ordered a cake from a local bakery bearing the legend ‘Support Gay Marriage’ for an event. The bakery refused because they don’t agree with same-sex marriages. They were found guilty of discrimination. The radio program I heard about this stressed that when you are inviting the public to pay you for services, you do not have the right to be discriminatory.

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Well, @jaquo - you got close to what occurred in Ireland regarding the cake and discrimination case; but you actually missed what the ruling was based on. The court found that the baker was not discriminating against the couple requesting the cake, the baker was found to be discriminating against the message the couple wanted on the cake. The judge determined that the baker was required to provide a cake with any message that is lawful, even if they have a conscientious objection to it. Sounds fair enough. But what this ruling, which is now under appeal, means you cannot discriminate against an idea. So, a Jewish printer would have to print booklets denying the Holocaust, a Muslim printer would have to print cartoons of Mohammed and a gay baker would be required to write anti-gay slurs on a cake if requested. I agree discrimination against people is wrong; but discrimination against ideas? I think we all do that, simply by not being bigots ourselves, we discriminate against the ideas behind bigotry.

As to being in business and having no choice but to deal with who ever comes along; no that is incorrect as well. If the KKK want to book my place, I would say NO. If a person promoting hatred towards a specific group of people, I would say NO. Not because I do not like them, or discriminate against them, but because I do not accept their ides and do not want my business mingling in those ideas.

So, don’t be so quick to suggest that I have no choice but to deal with whoever comes long; for one day, someone will come along with some far right-wing proclamation and you will surely want the right to oppose the idea. Wouldn’t you?

The above is likely to esoteric for some here, based on the child like ramblings and school yard humour displayed; but they are entitled to their opinion, even if it vacates the topic and directly assaults the poster and not the idea or merit of the post.

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Is this a declination or cancellation?

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You need to read the latest updates and the furore that was caused in the UK. It was not a couple who requested the cake but a single man. At first, the authorities thought that the bakery was discriminating because the requester was gay, but there was no evidence of this - simply that he supported gay marriage. (Which a lot of heterosexual people do).

Believe me Alan, I do see your point and your objection to a certain potential guest. It’s your place - your rules. But I really doubt that AirBnB (as a business) would be able to support you in this. This is my main point. You are disappointed because they did not support you but I hope you can understand their reasoning.

You are well within your rights to accept or reject any guest - AirBnB gives you that facility - but I don’t see that they can support a rejection based on a host’s own prejudices or opinions.

Wouldn’t your time be better spent concentrating on giving your future (and acceptable) guests a great stay with you?

I disagree with you about AIRBNB having to go long with offering accommodations to sex workers. In my country, as it is in yours, the US, sex-workers, ie prostitutes engage in prostitution, which is illegal. A business that knowingly engages in the facilitation of criminal activity could easily be found to be racketeering. Further if a business were to force another business to assist in a known illegal act, that would be coercion, which ups the penalty on racketeering. Guess what I do for living, eh?

Though I understand your point, it has to be recalled that, once it has been established that the person seeking to rent the place is also advertising their services during the same dates and is advertising their location as being the location of the place they want to rent from you, it is easily the reasonable man argument to conclude illegal activity is going to occur. And once the “reasonable man argument” is in play, forcing someone to participate in illegal activity is a legal battle no one wants to be involved in, nor be dragged through the press with. That said, I’ll run my business with the moral and legal stewardship I have created that has allowed me to progress in life as I wish.

But, thank you to all those who offered reasonable, thoughtful responses. If I hear anything from AIRBNB I will pass it along as an FYI.

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With respect Alan, that isn’t exactly what I said. Personally (I might be wrong OK?) I believe that AirBnB would be ill-advised to discriminate against anyone because of gender, race, political persuasion, sexual orientation or indeed, their profession.

Nevertheless, AirBnB gives us hosts the ability to do so if we wish - we can pick and choose. You had that option and you used it. I wouldn’t have done so. Some hosts will agree with you, others will not. That’s our/their prerogative. You asked for other hosts’ opinions and you got them.

If you want to use your moral judgments when accepting guests, then no-one will disagree with you. However, please understand that they might not be in line with AirBnB’s policies.

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@jaquo, I used a legal view, not a moral judgement. But thanks for your two cents, sincerely.

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Alan:
Odd, all along I was thinking your were coming from a moral view, which I can identify with more than a legal view; law is supposedly the height of reasoning, but not necessarily morality. I suspect I was in the same profession you are now. Your quandary stems from the fact that you want to preserve your Superhost status, which appears of paramount importance to you, and AirBnB with their too-stringent numeric requirements of accepting and declining guests perhaps has put you in a legal and moral dilemma. Interesting case indeed.

Only thing I suggest is perhaps re-thinking the true ‘value’ of Superhost status, and that perhaps comes at too high of a ‘price’ and maybe, just maybe may not be that important in the first place to your getting bookings. Imagine how much freer you would be without it, considering this particular situation. There was a an interesting discussion recently here about being Superhost, perhaps you may find it of interest.

Either way, wish you the best luck, for no other reason than you walk through life with the same moral fiber as I do, which I certainly can respect.

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FYI UPDATE: I received a call from a supervisor from the Premium Support Team; here’s the deal: First AIRBNB has removed the guest account of the prostitute. They too do not condone prostitution, and have no interest in that association. I guess for those of you who think prostitution is okay and have no problem with prostitutes renting from you might be disappointed to learn that AIR encourages hosts to report suspicious people; and when they discover what I had discovered, they too have the position of not doing business with them. Huh. As to the “supervisor” who claimed he reports directly to the CEO and no one is between him and the CEO: Turns out his manger is having a long conversation with him as well as the original agent who took the call, because, AIRBNB is appalled at the way they handled the call considering a known prostitute was being brought to their attention. I have been informed that AIRBNB’s view of the original agents behaviour of suggesting that I should not be judgmental is way off base; as it is precisely my business to do so, and they expect hosts to be responsible and pass judgment on guests AND bring these people to the attention of AIRBNB.

So, bottom line is, illegal activity is not acceptable and the lunacy of believing that I or AIRBNB are required to do business with anyone who comes along is TOTALLY INCORRECT. And those that engage in illegal activity, guests or hosts, do in fact get their accounts removed; as is the case with the hooker who tried to rent my place. I shout this last fact so that those who promote the idea of hookers as being acceptable guests, might get a hint and clue into reality and learn a bit of how to run a business with some dignity towards the industry we are apart of.

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There is no way I would host someone under those circumstances! I had a young lady want to rent a room from me last year, for a 6 month span. Told me she did Tantric Massage. I had to point out to her that there was no such thing. I refused. Who wants to live around that mess. Now, I’m ok with whatever they want to do, I just don’t have to host it. My dignity, reputation, standing in my neighborhood and as a long time (34 years) business owner…I have a lot on the line, not just making money on Airbnb.

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Thanks, Alan, for the update! I am happy to hear that you had a satisfactory experience.

I do feel that you are being a bit unfair with your last paragraph - most people one here said that while they would agree to host a sex worker they would not let her use their premises as a place of work. There is a massive difference there, so saying that hosting a sex worker would be illegal activity is incorrect - hosting a sex worker who works in the air rental however would be considered illegal activity (which some hosts here said they would allow). Sex workers are people, too.

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I did not want to interfere in this heated discussion, but need to thank you Julie to put this right.

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