The Brief

Los Angeles officials tasked with enforcing the city’s years-old vacation rental rules said this week that illegal activity on booking websites remains widespread. Getting a handle on the problem before the arrival of major tourism events in L.A. like the 2028 Olympics will require a significant boost in staffing, they said.

L.A. Housing Department officials told the City Council’s housing committee on Wednesday that the department needs 18 additional inspectors and administrators to target hosts renting an estimated 7,500 homes to tourists illegally. Tenant advocates argue costs are rising for L.A. renters in part because hosts have taken these homes off the market.

The City Attorney’s Office said more officers are needed to oversee hearings for hosts who say they were cited improperly. Planning Department officials told the committee there are about twice as many properties listed on vacation rental websites as there are valid registrations.

Housing Committee chair Nithya Raman acknowledged that the city’s Home Sharing Ordinance — in place since 2019 — has failed to stop illegal bookings, leading to frequent complaints from neighbors about noise and unruly behavior in “party houses.” She also said hosts who follow the rules often face frustrating delays when seeking permits from the city.

“We are really trying to make this a better system for everyone,” Raman said. “We want to be able to remove unpermitted listings. We want to be able to identify bad actors… Our goal is also to make it easier for compliant hosts to operate their units.”

How we got here

Residents and city officials in L.A. have long expressed concern about activity on platforms like Airbnb and VRBO. Airbnb officials say they have created new compliance tools and have opened lines of communication with the city to make sure hosts are properly registered. But city officials say illegal bookings on other platforms remain common.

L.A.’s rules went into effect in late 2019. They require hosts to register with the city, display their registration number in listings, and only rent out their primary residence — in other words, the home where they actually live. Hosts seeking to book guests for more than 120 nights per year need to get a special extended home-sharing permit.

However, with permitting and citation responsibilities scattered among multiple city departments, enforcement has been spotty.

A 2022 McGill University study estimated that widespread illegal activity on short-term rental platforms had removed about 2,500 homes from L.A.’s long-term rental market, worsening the region’s housing shortage and increasing rents by about $800 per year for the city’s tenants.

Big tourist draws coming to LA

Noah Suarez-Sikes is an organizer with Better Neighbors L.A., a group advocating for stronger limits on vacation rentals. He said without better enforcement, more housing could be lost as L.A. prepares to host major events like the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028.

“People are going to be displaced in favor of tourist accommodations,” Suarez-Sikes said. “And after the Olympics, those aren't going to go back to being long-term rentals.”

The City Attorney’s Office says it has found examples of vacation rentals illegally operating out of rent-controlled apartments. The city filed an ongoing lawsuit earlier this year against a self-described “Airbnb business coach” who detailed his strategy on social media.

Hosts say LA makes compliance too difficult

While city officials debate how to crackdown on operators flouting the law, many smaller hosts say they believe the city’s rules have been impossible to navigate.

Operators who gave public comment during Wednesday's committee meeting said they rely on vacation rental income to fund their retirement, to help them cover the cost of caring for sick family members, or to weather prolonged downturns in the city’s film and TV industry.

Frank Krentzman said he rents out a single-family home he owns in Venice while living in a smaller unit on the same property. He said the permit that allowed the property to be rented throughout the year was in his deceased husband’s name, and he’s been struggling to get the city to issue an extended home-sharing permit in his own name.

“They make the rules impossible to follow,” Krentzman said, adding that it’s been impossible to reach people in the city’s Planning Department by phone or in person to figure out paperwork issues. “I comply. The city treats me like I'm a criminal at every turn.”

Would a ‘bounty system’ deter scofflaws?

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield expressed reservations about hiring new staff to enforce the rules at a time when the city’s budget is strained.

“I’m not confident we are going to have the resources to properly enforce this,” Blumenfield said. “It’s too big. There are too many moving parts.”

Instead, he pushed for setting up a “bounty system” that would allow members of the public to sue illegal vacation rental operators and collect penalties through a private right of action.

“We would empower the public to go after illegal rentals,” Blumenfield said. “That would save us a lot of resources, too.”

Should L.A. copy New York?

Other council members leaned toward pursuing enforcement strategies already in place in New York City. There, platforms like Airbnb and VRBO are required to check city data to verify that hosts are in compliance with local laws before a booking can go through.

L.A. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said that approach would avoid saddling overburdened city departments with even more work.

“We have technical solutions that we can deploy,” she said. “We just need to invest in it.”

What happens next? 

No firm decisions were made in Wednesday’s meeting. Moving forward, city staff will report back to the council about various proposals for changing the Home Sharing Ordinance, such as increasing fines and requiring property inspections before permits are issued.

One contentious proposal would involve eliminating the city’s extended home sharing permits, limiting hosts to no more than 120 booked nights per year. Planning officials say about 40% of the city’s approximately 4,000 registered hosts have extended home-sharing permits.

Business advocates have urged city leaders to oppose further limits on vacation rental platforms. The Central City Association and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association sent council members a letter this week saying vacation rentals generate billions of dollars in local economic activity.

“The short-term rental industry alone contributes millions in Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) to the city’s budget each year — funds that are vital for supporting public services and community investments,” the letter states. “Restricting home-sharing would have a dramatic negative impact on this revenue stream, creating a budget shortfall at a time when our city can least afford it.”

How platforms are responding 

Airbnb officials told LAist the company has already entered into a platform agreement with the city to support enforcement.

“We continue to work closely with city staff to support their compliance efforts and support efforts to encourage more platforms to adopt similar tools that promote short-term rental compliance in Los Angeles,” Justin Wesson, Airbnb public policy senior manager, said in an emailed statement.

VRBO did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

Pasadena residents fighting a school district plan to remove nearly 200 trees scored a win Thursday night.

Pasadena Unified School District officials had said 193 trees across 11 campuses need to be cut down to clean up soil contaminated by the Eaton Fire. But on Thursday, the district’s board voted unanimously to attempt to save up to 57 of those trees.

The adopted motion is no guarantee trees will be saved, but directs staff to evaluate other ways to remediate soil around certain mature, protected trees.

The vote came after major public outcry from local residents, including a Pasadena teen who spent more than eight hours in the branches of an oak tree slated for removal at the district’s headquarters.

Why is the district trying to remove trees?

Last May, the school district released the results of soil tests taken after the Eaton Fire, which found elevated levels of toxic metals, primarily lead and arsenic, at 13 campuses. (You can see the reports for each campus here).

Then, late last month, the district announced it planned to remove nearly 200 trees to excavate one to four feet of contaminated soil at the remaining 11 campuses it has to clean up. Officials said they need to get the work done before students return from summer break.

The plan angered many residents.

Chapman University soil scientist Christine Sierra O’Connell said removing contaminants is critical, but cutting down too many trees could swap out one problem for another.

“You could easily imagine taking down all these trees, and the next time there's a big heatwave before the end of the school year, these campuses are super hot,” she said.

She said areas like sports fields and open soil playgrounds make sense for excavation, but a variety of methods can be used to remediate soil near trees, including phytoremediation, in which plants are used to take up metals in the soils.

“In my opinion, PUSD should not be moving forward with a wholesale excavation strategy without circling back and deeply investigating whether or not alternative soil remediation strategies can be utilized around the root beds of these large, mature, important trees,” O’Connell said.

District has concerns about additional costs

The district’s facilities director, Michael Dunning, said at the Thursday board meeting that he and his staff will assess 57 mature, protected trees where it may be possible to use an “air excavation method” to clean the soil at their base.

“It does take longer periods of time,” Dunning said. “It does come with some risk. We could go through the cost of trying this method at each tree and still not come to a conclusion.”

If the district doesn’t clean up the soil to accepted levels, they’d have to enter into a “land use covenant” with the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. That would require certain areas to be permanently closed off, or possibly made impermeable with concrete, as well as additional training and staff for maintenance, which could cost the district $30,000 per year in perpetuity, Dunning estimated.

“I’m not certain that our budget could withstand such a thing,” said Boardmember Michelle R. Bailey.

The original full excavation plan is estimated to cost $6.6 million, though the district would be reimbursed by the state if the contamination is reduced to public health standards.

Benjamin Stanphill, Southern California division chief at the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, told board members that the agency is "somewhat agnostic” about the method of contaminant removal and that they’d consider approving a plan involving bioremediation or phytoremediation methods.

Meanwhile, the district said in a statement that staff and arborists “will continue refining site-specific approaches, site by site, tree by tree… with the goal of maintaining as many protected trees within the removal areas as possible.”

LACMA is turning a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard in front of its new David Geffen Galleries into a living gallery.

The Art Parade is the creation of gallerist Jeffrey Deitch who first put on the event in New York’s SoHo from 2005 to 2008.

A scene from one of the east coast Art Parades of years past.

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The inaugural L.A. edition will include 1,400 participants marching down Wilshire. There will be a massive, mirrored inflatable sculpture, a custom-painted 1959 Cadillac powered by humans and an 18-piece marching band.

“It’s going to give you the feeling of Mardi Gras, but obviously not New Orleans. I think what people are going to recognize is just the enthusiasm and excitement for this moment here in L.A.,” Naima Keith, senior vice president of education, public programs and regional partnerships at LACMA, told LAist.

You can also expect a cotton candy-themed entry from Meow Wolf, the group behind a number of immersive art museums that is slated to open an installation in L.A. later this year. L.A. artist Gary Baseman, whose exhibition recently opened at Johnie’s Coffee Shop at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, will present “Peace Thru Purr.”

Keith said Art Parade is in line with LACMA director Michael Govan’s mission to make the Mid-City art institution and the surrounding space a communal “living room.”

“It’s a celebration of L.A., of L.A. artists, of the vibrant art community that’s here,” Keith said.

Most California voters cast their ballots by mail, but two big federal changes are in the pipeline that could impact how those ballots are handled and counted in the November election.

One could come from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s expected soon, and another through the United States Postal service, which is working to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order that would give the agency the final say over who receives a mail-in ballot.

The efforts come as Trump and his allies have scrutinized mail-in ballots for years, claiming without evidence that states with longer count times and universal mail-in voting are allowing widespread cheating. Research shows fraud rates remain extremely small.

A major ruling could end mail-in grace periods

Fourteen states, including California, count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by then and show up within a certain window. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could end that kind of grace period.

The case in question is Watson v. Republican National Committee, which centers on whether Mississippi’s five-day grace period for late-arriving ballots is constitutional under federal law. In California, that period is seven days.

Geoffrey Skelley,  chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ, told LAist the RNC’s argument centers on a federal law enacted in 1845 that set Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and that’s why votes shouldn’t be accepted after it.

A decision on that is expected to come within the next month, according to Wren Orey, who directs the elections project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The Washington D.C.-based think tank works with both sides of the political aisle to craft policy suggestions.

Orey told LAist it’s looking like the justices will side with the RNC and overturn Mississippi’s law. However, it’s not known how broad the ruling could be. The Purcell principle, a legal doctrine that discourages last-minute changes to election procedures, could also be invoked.

“ It’s possible that the Supreme Court rules that this specific statute is unconstitutional, but their judgment doesn’t go into effect until after the election,” they said.

Some critics say the Supreme Court has unevenly applied this principle, pointing to how a ruling affected Alabama’s primary when voters had already begun casting ballots.

How it could affect California

Just over 400,000 ballots arrived during California’s grace period in 2024 — that’s 2.5% of voter turnout. Orey said these usually come from areas that take more time for mail carriers to deliver, so it could disadvantage rural residents, for example. It’s unclear if there would be a carve out for service members and overseas voters under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which get rejected at higher rates.

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s research shows about the same rate of late ballot rejections between states with a grace period and those without, Orey said, suggesting that voters adapt to their state’s deadline.

“What isn’t clear, though, is how long it takes for voters to adjust,” they said, adding that they’ve seen some evidence of rejections going up immediately after a grace period goes away.

Workers count Los Angeles County ballots in the City of Industry on June 3.

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Kayla Bartkowski

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Skelley said a lot of voters would likely become aware and adjust in part because of how publicized the decision would be, but it wouldn’t solve everything.

“Now, does that mean some would be affected and might miss out on a chance to vote?” he said. “Yes, that’s perfectly plausible.”

California is also notoriously criticized for how long it takes to count ballots, even though that’s a feature, not a bug, of our election process. If the justices decide to end grace periods, don’t expect big changes to that.

That’s mostly because our slowness stems from the volume of mail-in ballots received on Election Day, Orey said. Those need to be verified, opened and flattened to be processed, which takes more time than if you voted in person.

Changes to universal mail-in ballots

Another looming change comes from Trump’s March executive order which, among many things, tasks the U.S. Postal Service with being a gatekeeper for who gets a mail-in ballot.

This is happening in the name of preventing noncitizens from voting, which is already rare and gets prosecuted.

USPS released its proposed rules earlier this month. Under the proposal, states would be required to send names of eligible mail-in voters to USPS, who would add them to a centralized list. If your name isn’t on that list for some reason, the Postal Service won’t mail your ballot.

This also depends on whether states agree to share voter information with the federal government, which California has so far refused to do in other situations.

“ Let’s say California and some states like it don’t give the federal government the information that they want,” Skelley said. “Presumably, that would mean that some people who have been voting by mail would not be able to get their mail ballots, and so they would have to figure out alternate ways to vote.”

Under federal law, states and Congress can determine how elections are run, so Trump’s executive order is seen by some as unconstitutional. It’s being challenged in court in multiple cases — one of which California is part of.

Among the concerns, it’s unclear what recourse voters would have to resolve errors, how accurate the data will be and what would happen if a voter requested a mail-in ballot after USPS’s deadline to add voters to the list.

The U.S. Postal Service may soon decide who to send mail-in ballots to.

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Orey said they have talked to state election officials who don’t have a lot of trust in the Postal Service to handle ingesting and updating lists from every state, based on how the agency manages current operations and deadlines.

“We have no evidence to indicate that the infrastructure exists to begin with, or is at all functional,” they said.

Under Trump’s executive order, the final rule is due by the end of July — that is, of course, if it’s not delayed by the courts.

These rules would apply to federal elections, but not to primaries or ballots under the UOCAVA (the act for service members and overseas voters), according to the proposal. If you want to have your say, USPS is accepting public comment through July 2.

Although thousands have flocked to SoFi stadium for the World Cup, soccer wasn’t always a fan-favorite sport in the United States.

The sport’s rise to popularity began when the U.S. hosted its first World Cup in 1994. At that time, the men’s soccer team was virtually unknown.

Summer of ’94, a new documentary directed by Chad N. Walker and Dave LaMattina, chronicles the U.S. team’s unlikely run during their first home World Cup.

At a screening in LAist’s Crawford Family Forum Room, viewers got an early look at the film. LAist’s Libby Rainey later moderated a talkback with Alan Rothberg, the president of U.S. Soccer in the 1990s, and Chris Leggett and Amanda Farrand, both producers of the film.

LAist's Libby Rainey moderates a talkback with Alan Rothberg, Chris Leggett, and Amanda Farrand.

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An unlikely team and a wild-card coach

Rothberg recalled several of the team’s challenges, and also pointed to soccer’s low popularity as a spectator and player sport at the time of the World Cup.

He said that factored into his decision when choosing a wild-card coach, Velibor “Bora” Milutinović, to lead the 1994 team.

The Starting IX for the United States before a 1994 FIFA World Cup Round of 16 game between the United States and Brazil at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto on July 4, 1994.

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Ernie Stewart celebrates with his team after the US scores the second goal during the USA match against Colombia in the 1994 World Cup.

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Rothberg said “there was a lot of pressure to hire an American coach” for the home team. But he said he “felt there was a necessity to have a coach with international experience.”

Milutinović also emerged as a centerpiece of the documentary, which the producers said they didn’t expect.

“We just started falling in love with Bora, and after one interview with him, where he started [...] coaching the directors, we were like, this guy is magic,” Farrand said.

Leggett said that players were able to better understand Milutinović’s strategy through the documentary. He said that during the interview process, “what was very obvious was [the players] were really digesting and getting to understand Bora as well.”

What happened to U.S. soccer after 1994? 

Rothberg said that since that World Cup, funding for U.S. soccer took off. The team’s performance, “enabled us to immediately follow up and create Major League Soccer,” he said.

At that time, the organization had a $50 million surplus, which Rothberg said they used to create a nonprofit for “underserved communities.”

In 1999, the U.S. hosted the Women’s World Cup in major stadiums.

Libby Rainey (L) and Alan Rothberg (R) speak at a screening in LAist’s Crawford Family Forum.

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“[FIFA] had so little confidence in the women's game at that time that they wanted us to play in small stadiums in the Northeast, and we persuaded them,” Rothberg recalled.

Now, Major League Soccer has invested over $11 billion in facilities and stadiums, and the U.S. is hosting the World Cup this summer, including eight matches in L.A.

Rothberg said that since that World Cup, public interest in soccer has only increased. Now, we might even be underselling how popular the sport is.

“Soccer has been underestimated to this day. It's still the number one participant sport in the country,” he said.

Farrand said the film sought to inspire not just future players, but also volunteer coaches.

“If we could use this moment and this movie to inspire former players and parents to lean into coaching, we could really make a difference,” she said.

She added that volunteer coaching is “an act of civic participation,” which she encouraged attendees to consider ahead of the U.S.’s 250th anniversary of independence.

Both Rothberg and Farrand pointed to the Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted by the U.S. in 2031, as the next landmark event.

You can find where to stream on the documentary's website.