Airbnb began suspending and removing 35 listings in New Jersey on Thursday after numerous complaints from home parties in violation of state meeting restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, including one in Ocean County last weekend that attracted to hundreds.
Most of the suspensions announced on Friday morning were the result of neighbors who called the Airbnb 24-hour hotline to complain about large, unauthorized parties, the company said in a statement.
“We support Governor Murphy and support his call to action to stop the holidays and promote behaviors that respect the health of the public,” said Chris Lehane, senior vice president of Global Policy and Communications for Airbnb. “We ban party houses and will not tolerate irresponsible behavior on our platform.”
The move comes days after police broke up a party at a mansion at an Airbnb rental in Jackson Township that grew to more than 700 people, clogging streets with traffic and prompting neighbors to call police.
Three people were charged with violating the governor’s executive order limiting meetings, police said. Officials at Jackson Township then said they were moving forward with a plan to ban short-term rentals.
Airbnb said it suspended or removed listings in the following New Jersey municipalities:
North Jersey
- Hoboken
- Guttenberg
- Irvington
- Jersey City
- Long hill
- Montclair
- New Milford
- Newark
- Nut
- Sparta Municipality
- Wood Crest
Central Jersey
- Asbury Park
- Bridgewater Township
- East Brunswick
- Jackson Township
- Pennington
- Piscataway
- Toms river
- Trenton
- Watchung
- Woodbridge
South jersey
- Atlantic city
- Brig
- Stafford Township
- Ventnor town
In April, Airbnb announced that it had temporarily removed the “parties and events allowed” rule from New Jersey listings that had authorized parties.
“Stopping large gatherings is more important than ever in this current environment,” Airbnb said in Friday’s statement.
“The party house measures follow in the footsteps of several other Airbnb anti-party initiatives, including strengthening our policies to ban meetings that violate public health mandates,” the statement said.
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