Rachel Smith, who lists her home in San Diego's Burlingame neighborhood on home-sharing website AirBnB, is now being fined $25,000 for her failure to obtain a conditional use permit — a requirement that the city has only recently put in place for a permit that can take up to a year to obtain.

On August 5, Judge Catriona Miller ruled on the side of the city of San Diego and fined Smith for operating a bed-and-breakfast out of her home without the necessary permits, reports the .

Smith, who was notified by a code-enforcement officer that she violated the municipal code with the operation, contends that she was not running a business, and did not offer her guests breakfast or any other amenities besides a bed to sleep in.

Be that as it may, Judge Miller ruled that even if Smith wasn't delivering breakfast to guests, "The elements of a bed and breakfast statute were met: [Smith], while present, used her primary residence to provide lodging for less than 30 days to paying guests. While [Smith] did not serve breakfast regularly in this establishment, it is the type of establishment where breakfast is typically served."

Her attorney, Omar Passons, told Mashable, "the City sent her a letter on about August 4th last year and said she could be fined up to $250,000 at a rate of $500/day," and told her to stop operating a bed and breakfast, but didn't say specifically what a bed and breakfast entailed.

According to , it can take up to a year to obtain the permits, and because the city's crackdown on AirBnB is so recent, many aren't aware of the regulations that come with the territory. As of February of 2015, the city had, in preceding months, sent out 240 letters demanding that AirBnB hosts pay taxes for renting out their rooms or homes. In addition, Passons told Mashable that the permits cost $5,000 to $10,000.

The new rules have been difficult for San Diego residents to adjust to — some had told Voices of San Diego that they weren't clear on what the rules were. While the city did send out memos to the mayor and City Council to be spread amongst residents, according to local news station KPBS, the memos did not mention the conditional use permits that Smith is being fined for not having.

According to NBC San Diego, Smith's troubles with the city began back in February, when she was cited for code noncompliance after officers came to inspect her home at the behest of neighbors who reported her to City Hall.

"I am a good neighbor. I have always intended to be a good neighbor. Unfortunately, it seems that gossip and subterfuge and tattling to city officials is more 'neighborly' where I live," she told the Reader.

As for the city, she told San Diego Reader, "I've learned a lot about how the city functions, or sometimes doesn't function very well."

"I also learned, that the last time this city issued a Conditional Use Permit for a bed and breakfast was 10 years ago [...] So, if there are hundreds of people, nine in Burlingame where I live, that have listings on AirBnB, and that, to my knowledge, I am the only one that has been investigated and fined, it seems clear that the 'rules' or 'laws' are not clear at all."

Since "she didn’t have a way to know how she was breaking the law," Passons says, the daily fines piled on until they added up to $25,000.

He told Mashable, "This is the first case in the City of San Diego in which a resident was subjected to any fine for renting out rooms in her home using Airbnb."

As of now, Passons says that Smith has recourse to appeal to the Superior Court and is evaluating that option.

http://mashable.com/2015/08/12/san-diego-airbnb-fine/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

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