The city of Sedona’s new permitting ordinance for short-term rentals, which the Sedona City Council passed on Nov. 22, went into full effect on Wednesday, Feb. 15. All STRs operating within city limits are now required to have a municipal permit for legal operation.
Among the new regulations in the ordinance is a requirement to do a background check on every booking guest. This requirement is linked explicitly to preventing sex offenders from occupying STRs.
“No sex offender shall be permitted to rent or occupy the short-term rental,” section 5.25.100A of the Sedona City Code reads. “Owners who allow a sex offender at the short-term rental shall be found in violation of this section.”
“At least 24 hours prior to a guest’s check-in, the owner or owner’s designee shall conduct a sex offender background check on the booking guest; provided, however, that this requirement may be satisfied by the owner providing evidence that the online lodging marketplace on which the short-term rental is booked conducted a sex offender background check of the booking guest,” paragraph B of the statute continues. “The owner shall demonstrate compliance with this requirement by retaining a full copy of each background check for a minimum of 12 months after the booking date and providing the copy to the city upon a request.”
“The failure of an online lodging marketplace to conduct a background check shall not relieve the owner of liability under this section,” paragraph C concludes.
This is in contrast to Coconino County’s proposed STR ordinance, which prohibits operation of STRs by sex offenders or “knowingly or intentionally housing a sex offender” in an STR, but does not impose a background check requirement or specifically tie the need for a background check to a need to determine sex offender status.
Paradise Valley requires background checks of all guests, which Sedona had initially considered. Scottsdale, Bisbee, Tempe, Mesa, Goodyear and Peoria have ordinances similar to Sedona. Yavapai County has not yet passed an ordinance.
As the Sedona Red Rock News outlined in its coverage of the ordinance’s passage on Dec. 7, booking sites such as AirBNB and VRBO do not routinely complete background checks on their guests.
No Preexisting Problem
At the time the ordinance was passed in November, multiple members of the council queried whether there was justification for passing a background check ordinance on the basis of a sex offender problem.
“I think it’s correct that we don’t have a lot of problems,” then-Mayor Sandy Moriarty said. “We’ve certainly had none reported that I know of.”
“I don’t think we’ve had any issue at all,” then-Vice Mayor Scott Jablow agreed. “I don’t think we even have a problem.”
“It doesn’t seem like we have a problem,” then-Councilman Jon Thompson said.
“I really take issue with the sex offender background checks,” Sedona realtor Cameron Wylde told the council. “Are we having a problem with sex offenders in short-term rentals? I haven’t heard of it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but I’m worried that we’re making a lot out of a problem that isn’t here.”
In spite of these acknowledgments that sex offenders are not likely to be renting Sedona’s STRs en masse, or even at all, the council unanimously passed the ordinance without any of the members suggesting that the background check requirement was unnecessary.
Thompson later said his support for the requirement reflected an attempt to respect the difference between residential and lodging areas, and to respect the desires of residents without giving in to a vocal minority.
“The appropriate thing to do was to add the requirement,” Thompson said. “I believe we did strike the right balance. I certainly didn’t get any flood of complaints.”
“While we haven’t had reports of sex offenders, we don’t want it to become a problem in the future,” Jablow said afterward. “We must do all that we can to protect our residents.”
‘An Ongoing Onus’
City short-term rental specialist Teresah Arthur suggested another motive for requirement when she referred to the requirement as “an ongoing onus on the owners.”
When asked if the motivation behind the background check requirement was a desire to create a paperwork burden for STRs that could deter their use, Thompson said, “There probably was. I can’t speak for everybody, but certainly there was a line in my mind … between doing things that were reasonable and things that were harassment … it seemed to me that requiring the person making the booking to not be a sex offender fell short of my definition of harassment.”
“No, of course not,” Jablow said in response to the same question.
Thompson added that the background check requirement “further restricts their market, so that made sense. It’s a little bit of extra protection, conceivably” that could prevent “orgies in nice areas.” He also pointed out that as sex offenders are the only category of convicted felons who can be excluded from renting STRs under the terms of Senate Bill 1168, any background check requirement had to be tied to determining sex offender status rather than to checking for other felony convictions.
As AirBNB and other booking sites do not automatically complete background checks on all guests, many owners who continue to book their rentals through those sites will not automatically be in compliance with city code. If the city enforces the ordinance as it is written, it could potentially fine STR owners who had rented their units through noncomplying booking sites for failure to meet the background check requirement.
City staff declined to comment on whether STR owners who book their units through booking sites are now at risk of becoming liable for fines by continuing to do so.
