Burned building had no Airbnb permit
The Old Montreal building that burned this week had 15 apartments rented out on Airbnb in a section of Ville-Marie that does not allow short‑term rentals, although another anecdote in this piece suggests that there may have been longer‑term tenants as well.
No alarm is said to have gone off inside the building when fire broke out, either.
Update: Workers will start taking the façade down on Sunday.
shawn 20:51 on 2023-03-18 Permalink
Montreal Globe and Mail correspondent Les Perreaux speculated earlier on twitter that a tragedy like this might make the city take the problem of illegal AirBnBs more seriously.
Josh 11:51 on 2023-03-20 Permalink
Shawn, just a small FYI, Perreaux left the Globe some while back. He’s now the editor in chief of the journal Policy Options.